The Press: Trapped in the Steel Cocoons

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Flying Egg Rolls. Of necessity, Press Secretary Jody Powell has become a man of defensive wit—as when Curtis Wilkie, a walrus-mustached Mississippian who reports for the Boston Globe, organized a food riot on Peanut One, where a seat costs 150% of first-class fare. As reporters chanted "No more swill!" and hurled egg rolls around the plane, Powell charged back into the press compartment brandishing a silver gavel presented to Carter at some long-forgotten civic reception and shouting, "Back to your oars, you scum!" The food soon improved, but Powell jokes, "There's only one way to treat these wild animals. Badly." Despite those diversions, many boys and girls on the bus will be glad to jump off come Election Day. "I'll miss the ropes," jests Ford Follower Fred Barnes of the Washington Star. "The ropes and the worst high school bands in America." Barnes and his colleagues will not miss the fatiguing 20-hour days, the incessant travel that discourages reflection and analysis, the unvarying stump speeches that become newsworthy only when a candidate fluffs his lines, the dearth of opportunity to question a candidate about his views and his strategy or even to see him up close. In fact, if campaign reporters have learned anything from their half-million-mile journey this year, it may be that a seat on the press bus is not a particularly good place to cover an election.