Drinking? At the Press Club?

Fishbowl's live blogging operative was strategically placed in the audience of today's journalism panel at the National Press Club. In honor of this audience being primarily "working" journalists, he thought he'd prepare a report that speaks to them on their level. The panel will be rebroadcast tonight on C-SPAN2 at 8 p.m., so this is his report and your guide to watching: Can I begin by asking if I'm the only one who thinks about the evil big boss from The Legend Of Zelda when I hear the name "Gannon"? And wonders if that perhaps has something to do with why Guckert chose "Gannon" as his alias? Maybe that's just me. Anyway, on to business: NATL PRESS CLUB "WHO IS A JOURNALIST" PANEL DRINKING GAME Take a drink when: * You arrive very late. * The guard at the door comments on how much laundry you have in your backpack. * You slowly realize that you have unintentionally arrived looking like every mainstream journalist's idea of a blogger. * Every panelist is wearing a different bright primary color so that they look like a children's-book picture of a rainbow. * One of the panelists scares the crap out of you because he looks like ZZ-Top. * Ana Marie Cox asks "Who here does not consider themselves a journalist?" and you are the ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM WHO RAISES THEIR HAND. (bonus drinks for consequent dirty looks from Real Journalists.) * Every panelist is introduced with a long and well-elocuted list of credentials, except Jeff "The Boss From Zelda" Gannon who is announced as "I dont think he needs any introduction." * Gannon claims "no one is safe" after what happened to him. * Gannon blames other journalists for his predicament. * Gannon blames "DNC refugees" for his predicament. * Gannon blames bloggers for his predicament. (MEGA BONUS DRINKS when he singles you out, as in: "Bloggers--even though they DO raise their hands about not considering themselves journalists--are EVIL" [or similar]) * Yglesias and Cox get into a hilarious giant shouting match with Jeff Gannon that may or may not go like this: JG: What I found so amazing about Armstrong Williams is that in order for this administration to get a fair hearing on No Child Left Behind, it actually had to pay someone to say it. Cox: No--that is the OPPOSITE of a fair hearing! PAYING someone? JG: Nobody has ever written a positive article about NCLB. Yglesias: That is simply WRONG! I've written good things! There's a debate about this and it's gotten an exceptionally fair hearing! (wild hub-bub all over the room) JG: Well if it was getting a fair hearing, then why would the administration pay someone? Cox: They dont WANT a fair hearing!! They want a POSITIVE hearing!! JG: Ana Ana Ana. * Especial mega drinks when Gannon says "Ana Ana Ana". * More drinks when everyone pretends the panel isn't actually entirely about Jeff Gannon. * Garrett Graff says: "Jeff, people didn't attack you because they disagreed with your question. They attacked you because they thought your journalism was poor." * Gannon says he's going to "get onto Garrett." (Garrett should take several really stiff drinks here and then HIDE.) * The panel somehow spends twenty minutes seriously discussing what would happen if the White House Briefing Room were stormed by a horde of frothy-mouthed t-shirt wearing bloggers. (Ana-Marie says it would be "awesome," probably just to piss off Gannon.) * Ana-Marie Cox somehow consistently says insightful things, like "Real journalists don't go to the White House Briefing Room because they know it's a JOKE." * Everyone in the room perpetually dances around the essentially irrelevant and navel-gazing nature of the entire thing. * Four-fifths of the room leaves when questions are opened to the audience. * MORE BONUS DRINKS: As you leave, Jeff Gannon gives you dirty looks for being one of the bloggy crowd that destroyed his career. * THE MOST DRINKS: Everyone in the room realizes they've just wasted 90 minutes of their life.

Fishbowl

Drinking? At the Press Club?

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman