Media Ready to Skip Convention for Gulf Coast

Reporters scheduled to cover the Republican convention are preparing to move fast if Hurricane Gustav wallops the Gulf Coast. Anchors Anderson Cooper and Geraldo Rivera are already headed for the storm, but hordes of journalists are stuck in St. Paul, Minn., where the RNC will start tomorrow unless it's postponed. “It almost feels like having a two-front war,” one Fox News exec said.

In fact Fox has up to 400 staffers in Minnesota and faces high costs if forced to move them.
No one interviewed by Politico could remember such a big staff covering one story while another story ate up more print pages and TV airtime. “You’re sort of at the mercy of whatever happens,” a CNN exec said. “Is it a hurricane? Is it the convention? Or is it a blend of the two?” (More Hurricane Gustav stories.)