The Newbie: Blog posts: 1, Coffees: 3

by Tracie Mauriello 0 comments

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Tracie Mauriello is headed to Tampa to cover her first political convention. She’s agreed to share her challenges and triumphs with NPF Newsbag readers.

I landed in Tampa and finished my first interview less than 30 minutes later. It gives me confidence when I’m able to do something productive right away, even if it’s just a short blog post.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I got to the DC airport just in time to settle into a waiting area and join a conference call with Romney campaign strategist Russ Schriefer. He gave a rundown of events to come and I was able to gather a bit of string for a couple of the enterprise pieces I’ll be writing later this week. If he had broken news I would have tried to bang out a quick story.

Here’s the agenda, according to Mr. Schriefer:  Monday: What President Obama has done wrong. Tuesday: Job creation and a tribute to Ron Paul. Wednesday: Policy discussions. Thursday: Members of the Mormon church tell delegates how Mr. Romney helped them in their lives.

After the call, I grabbed some airport coffee, got on the plane and began my convention adventure.

My room isn’t yet ready, so I’m writing this post from the hotel bar where I ran into two friendly convention volunteers. They’ve been here a few days and were able to suggest a nearby mall where I can buy rain gear if Hurricane Isaac hits. (Please stay away, Isaac.)

If you’re keeping score:
Blog posts: 1
Coffees: 3

Follow Tracie on Twitter (@pgPoliTweets) for links to her work for the Post-Gazette and Newbie posts for NPF
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