Boondoggling the Inauguration

Many years ago, in my ink-stained days, a couple of newsroom pals and I invented the Golden Concorde Boondoggle Award, given to the colleague who managed to pull off the year's most outrageous reporting trip. You know, the kind of story that required exotic travel but might have been a little hard to justify journalistically, if you get my drift. 

If you managed to sneak a bizarre idea past an editor, get the assignment and get the expense account approved, you could win the Golden Concorde, which was named after a notorious boondoggle in which one of us convinced an employer to pay for a trans-Atlantic flight aboard the erstwhile luxury SST. (Said scammer shall remain nameless, because it's not clear what the statute of limitations is on these things–but, um, let's just say the Concorde was a very, very cool way to travel!)

There's a long history of this sort of thing in newsrooms, of course–probably every reporter has pulled off a boondoggle or two (or 10), gaming the system to score an expenses-paid junket in the name of some fanciful story, or some similar scam. Gaming the system like this is practically considered one of the perks of the job. 

I know somebody who once cleverly arranged coverage of a major story that coincidentally, ahem, put several colleagues within close driving range of his out-of-town wedding. Nice. Every journalist knows the apocryphal tale of the $1,000 fur coat carefully hidden in an unusually meticulous expense account. I even once managed to talk my editors at The Washington Post into an assignment covering the glitzy opening of Epcot Center (and thus hanging around DisneyWorld for a few days)–as a business story. That won me the 1982 Golden Concorde, incidentally.

In an era of tight budgets, this sort of excess is almost extinct. Budget-conscious editors are much more careful about approving out-of-town travel, even if it's for legitimate journalistic purposes, much less a pure boondoggle. There are exceptions–the Olympics and political conventions are still boondoggle paradise, for instance, and God bless the members of the White House press corps that are pulling duty covering Barack Obama's Hawaiian vacation. Tough assignment, that one (protests to the contrary notwithstanding). Golden Concordes for everybody.

Still, with money tight, there's not a lot of excuse for this sort of thing: news organizations really need to be using their limited resources to cover the stories that are most valuable to their readers and viewers, not frivolities that provide staffers an excuse to take what amounts to a busman's holiday.

Which is why it's unfortunate to hear that so many news organizations have suddenly decided they need to provide firsthand coverage of the upcoming Presidential inauguration. "Papers that have never come before are coming in droves," Joe Keenan, director of the Senate Daily Press Gallery, tells Politico, reporting that applications for inauguration press credentials are skyrocketing. Mark Abraham, deputy director of the Senate Press Photographers' Gallery says, "We've never seen anything like it. ... It's amazing."

Sorry, folks, but it's not just amazing. It's wrong. Yeah, Obama's inauguration is going to be an historic event. But what on earth are these expense-account journalists going to be able to tell their readers and viewers about the inauguration that isn't available elsewhere–indeed, all over the place, in the blanket coverage of the event? 

Salt Lake City's Deseret Morning News is sending a photographer to the inauguration. Why? Could that photog possibly have a unique take on an event that's going to be covered by hundreds, if not thousands, of other shooters? Will the resulting photos truly be better than what the Deseret News can get from the AP? I strongly doubt it. Newsday–which just slashed its Washington bureau–is sending seven reporters to the inauguration, ostensibly to capture "local angles" on the event. Huh? How many Long Island angles can there really be on this story? 

Pardon my cynicism, but this frenzy to get an assignment to go to Washington for the inauguration smacks of boondoggles gone wild, journalists who eagerly want to see Obama's historic swearing-in (like millions of other people), and are ginning up excuses to get their employers to pay their way to D.C. and to wangle a press pass to get close to the action. 

Twenty years ago, in a different news economy, that would have been amusing and even sort of admirable, in a cracked sort of way; today it's just sad, because it shows that a lot of newsrooms still don't have their priorities straight. The cost of those seven Newsday staffers will come out of money that could have been used to cover truly local stories in Long Island. The expenses for the Deseret News photographer means that something–probably a lot of things–in Utah, of far more interest to local readers, is going to go uncovered. And so on.

It would be nice to be in Washington on Jan. 20 to witness history. But I'm afraid there's not a lot of rational journalistic reason for most news organizations to send reporters and photographers to cover the inauguration. With money tight–and doubtless getting tighter–the Golden Concorde Boondoggle Award needs to be retired. There are so many better ways for newsrooms to spend their limited resources on behalf of their readers. 

Comments

[Tim Windsor]

Mark,

To be fair, I think this particular boondoggle is being driven more from the executive suites.

Tribune's Lee Abrams is representative - if a bit more spittle-lipped - of what I suspect is an overall desire to cash in, both journalistically and, because no successful event in newspaperdom happens without being slavishly copied, through the sales of "commemorative editions" from sea to shining sea:

=====================

...on the newspaper side, a nice AFDI from the Hartford Courant:
HARTFORD COURANT OBAMA COVERAGE:
CHANGE08
We're devoting one of our two open nation/world print pages to Obama-related coverage every day, under the page topper CHANGE08. This includes a package of short items under the header OBAMA WATCH. We're referring daily from A1 to the CHANGE08 page and its corresponding web content, as well as to daily coverage in the Features sections.

HISTORIC PAGES
We plan to run an "8-pack" of historic election pages from the Courant archives -- one each Sunday, from November 30 through January 18 -- starting with our coverage of George Washington's election in 1789. Each Sunday, a four-page broadsheet insert will feature a cover introduction and strip ad, an historic page spread across the inside double-truck, and a back cover ad. The "8-pack" -- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan and W -- will connect to expanded online content, including all 44 historic election pages from the Courant. Circulation, marketing, NIE (as well as advertising) are all actively involved. This is a big opportunity for us, and the content of these pages is fascinating (statewide town-by-town results, for example, of the Lincoln-Douglas race). The cover introduction to each Sunday section will reference the changing nature of the newspaper's coverage (until Harding in 1888, presidential elections were reported on page 2). The pages also place the recent redesign in the context of constant, dramatic change in the look of the paper.

10-DAY COUNTDOWN
Beginning Sunday, January 11, a strong daily A1 and CtLiving cover presence of Obama-related stories, boldly labeled and linked to the web. We may follow a Connecticut social studies class in a serial narrative of short, daily dispatches on A1 (akin to our Charlie Company series from Iraq), with strong web presence, student blogs, photos, etc., as they travel to DC for the inauguration .

OBAMA PHOTO SPECIAL SECTION /KIDS' LETTER IN ITOWNS
Sunday, January 18, our version of Chicago Tribune's "Obama, A Life in Photos" OR Tribune-wide special section. Special editions of iTOWNS, featuring kids' letters to Obama.

[John Robinson]

We're sending a reporter and photographer to the swearing in...of the new N.C. senator, who lives in Greensboro. Going to get a series of stories from the visit to D.C.

Oh, you mean that other swearing in ceremony? Nah, not so much.

[ea]

You should note that one reason local newspapers send reporters to cover the inauguration of a new president is not the swearing-in ceremony, but the inaugural balls. You will find your local Democratic heavy-hitters here, and can do some old-fashioned society bits for your newspaper. You also have local stories involved in the bands, etc., participating in the parade. I don't know if you were involved in inaugural coverage in your reporting days, but the Senate Press Gallery pass was needed to get into many events, and your local police pass was of absolutely no use.

[mixtmedia]

Mark-
Really great distinction b/w "want to go" and "need to go." Good lesson here beyond newspapers, too, re: sending folks to conferences and seminars. Some industries--cable TV being one--are so wrapped up in their own conferences that they sometimes forget about the value equation. Cable has consolidated many of its conferences over the past 2 years which is a huge cost savings for the industry both in direct outlay as well as productivity.