Trailing Bush on the White Line
A Story of 12 Days, 10 Flights, 7 Countries and No Martinis
by Rich Rarey
When a United States president travels outside the United States,
American television and radio networks combine resources to get
sound and picture back to their respective organizations.
This cooperative effort for radio is the "White Line"
- so named, we believe, because during the first TV pool feeds,
when Richard Nixon when to China in 1972, the satellite provider
designated a "White Line," a dedicated circuit, to be
used by the White House press TV pool to transmit images back, and
the name stuck.
On the radio side, ABC, CBS, AP, Voice of America and NPR participate
by taking turns sending producers to conduct a pre-advance survey
and later, to haul mixers, microphones, ISDN and POTS codecs and
video monitors around the world to predetermined press filing centers,
near where the president is visiting.
Into the radio pool
On President Bush's trip of May 30 to June 5, NPR drew the responsibility
for producing the radio pool across three continents. To accomplish
this, we had to assemble three producer-plus-technician teams to
hopscotch from one country to another in advance of the president's
arrival.
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| Don Gonyea of National Public Radio files a
report as NPR Technician Michael Cullen sets his level. They
are in the press filing center in the Hotel Pulkovskaya in St.
Petersburg, Russia. |
The teams were to connect by ISDN to NPR, which would distribute
the audio and switch the backfeeds from the pool members to the
ISDN codec as needed. Complicating this particular White Line was
the lack of a complete travel itinerary prior to the president's
departure. This is the story of those teams.
On May 28, David Argentieri, NPR director of operations/pool producer,
and Andy Rosenberg, NPR technician, arrived in Krakow, Poland, and
established the Radio Pool Press Filing Center at the Manggha Center
of Japanese Art & Technology.
Each White Line team packed a Comrex HotLine POTS codec, Electro-Voice
RE18 microphone, Sony V6 headphones, Sharp MT-15 MiniDisc recorder,
Musicam USA RoadRunner and its TA201 terminal adapter, Fostex powered
speakers, a two-channel Prospect IFB box, a Shure FP31 to submix
three TV pool audio sources, a Whirlwind mult box to distribute
pool audio to its members in the filing center and an international-standards
video monitor for watching the TV pool pictures as they arrived.
Limited space
Space is limited for the U.S. press to accompany the president
on his visits to shrines and local sites. The TV pool arranges to
capture the picture and sound. The various audio sources are sent
by multipair cable from the TV pool to the radio pool site.
The radio pool teams can expect raw, untranslated audio from a
location; English translation from various sources, such as host
(i.e. "local") TV; and White House Communications Agency
Audio.
"I expected to go to Krakow for four days and come home,"
Argentieri said. "Once we actually arrived, however, the president's
visits to the Middle East were announced, so we devised a plan that
my team - Andy Rosenberg and I - would fly to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt,
to set up in advance of the president's visit there."
At that point the schedule began to fall apart. Rome had the only
direct flight to Sharm el-Sheikh from Europe, and there were no
direct flights to Rome from Krakow, so the team was forced to fly
from there to Vienna, Austria, Vienna to Rome and then Rome to Sharm
el-Sheikh.
"As I sat in a turbo prop plane at Krakow, ready for takeoff,
filled with U.S. Secret Service staff and equipment," Argentieri
said, "I saw the ground crew take off our largest equipment
case from the airplane and drive it back to the airport."
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| Closeup, Radio Pool Equipment, Press Filing
Center, Hotel Pulkovskaya, St. Petersburg |
The small plane was overloaded, and the pool equipment was removed
in lieu of the Secret Service equipment. "This happened,"
Argentieri said in mock annoyance "after we had paid $136 in
excess baggage charges."
Upon arrival in Vienna, the team discovered that their luggage
cart had been taken off the plane as well, and Argentieri's personal
bag was lost. After consulting with Senior Pool Producer Jeff Rosenberg
at the site in Evian, France, it was agreed that Andy Rosenberg
and Argentieri should continue their travels using whatever equipment
they had remaining.
Fortunately, the equipment cases still in their possession contained
all necessary codecs, mics, mixers and gear. The team made arrangements
with the airline to pick up their equipment and Argentieri's personal
bag in Vienna in five days, as the team was returning to the United
States.
Their travels became more interesting.
"We proceeded to the Alitalia desk to check into our flight
to Rome, only to discover that that flight was one of the 200 flights
cancelled due to a labor strike in Italy, Austria and Germany."
Argentieri said. "Not only did we not have our equipment, we
were also not going anywhere."
After further consultation with Jeff Rosenberg in Evian, new plan
was devised in which Andy Rosenberg and Argentieri would fly to
Geneva early the next morning and be inserted into the White House
"bubble," the insulated world of the presidential press
pod. This would allow them to travel on the White House Press Charter
to the remaining stops of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Aqaba, Jordan,
and Doha, Qatar.
While this eased things, the disadvantage of traveling with the
White House was that Argentieri and Rosenberg could not set up in
advance of the correspondents; they would arrive at the Press Filing
Center at the same time as the radio pool correspondents, who would
expect to be able to file immediately.
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| Press Filing Center in the Conrad Intercontinental
Hotel Ballroom, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Radio Pool equipment
in foreground and Pool correspondents seated in row in front
of the Pool Equipment. |
Because the team could not continue until the following day, they
recovered their large equipment case and Argentieri's luggage. Rosenberg
repacked their equipment to make a "run bag" that would
contain essential pool equipment for audio transmission, such that
it could be carried off the Press Charter and assembled within minutes
of arrival at the Sharm el-Sheikh press filing center.
Meanwhile, with the second team ...
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the second radio pool team
was having its share of interesting ISDN problems.
NPR Technician Michael Cullen described the work he and producer
John Keator had to do to get an ISDN line to frame.
"I plugged in the RoadRunner, and I made a couple of calls,
which would connect but would not frame," said Cullen. "We
told the phone guys about it, and they immediately asked if it was
our equipment. It was not, so the (phone company) tech called his
switch people, and had calls from the AT&T network rerouted
through Swedish Telecom - they essentially changed their gateway
for international ISDN traffic. It worked perfectly."
As this pool site was winding down, Cullen began repacking his
equipment to fly to Doha, Qatar, by way of Frankfurt, Germany, to
prepare the radio pool site there. Fourteen hours after his arrival
at St. Petersburg, the president and press pool departed for Evian,
where the third team was waiting.
Next stop, France
NPR Producer Jeff Rosenberg and NPR Technician Suzanne Herin had
set up their pool equipment at the G-8 International Press Center
in the town of Publier, France.
The president remained in nearby Evian about 24 hours before departing
to Sharm el-Sheikh by way of Geneva.
At this point the Argentieri and Rosenberg team joined the White
House Press Charter at Geneva. Upon arrival at Sharm al Sheikh,
they took their "run bags" and were set up and ready to
feed at the Press Filing Center within 15 minutes of arrival. The
pool correspondents started feeding shortly thereafter. Twelve hours
after his arrival, the president departed for Aqaba, Jordan - a
brief stop, according to Argentieri.
"The remaining time in Aqaba was uneventful, but then, we
were only there for six hours," he said. Then it was onward
to the to the last site: Doha, Qatar.
The White House press advance people had told Michael Cullen to
have no expectations with respect to international POTS and ISDN
capability in Doha because a switching center for a Pan-Arab fiber
line had destroyed by an earthquake in Algeria.
"The Qatar phone company, QTel, had rerouted as many circuits
as possible through older satellite circuits," Cullen said.
"But it took 45 seconds for an international call to complete."
Two related problems affected radio pool filing: Because the call
completion time was so long, the RoadRunner would "think"
the line was unresponsive, and the call would fail. This necessitated
NPR having to initiate the call to Cullen, rather than vice versa.
Also, calls automatically terminated after two hours. Cullen supposed
that this was an economy feature provided by Qtel, but it was a
feature he discovered the hard way.
"A Bush speech was due to start in an hour," Cullen said.
"I had NPR call me, and we waited for the speech. The speech
got delayed a bit, and in the middle of transmitting it 'live' back
the U.S., the QTel connection timed out and the live feed dropped.
I had NPR call my ISDN and, as is White Line protocol, I was recording
it for the pool members, so after the live speech, I simply re-fed
it to the U.S."
The president departed Doha 16 hours after his arrival. David Argentieri
reported that he had a more interesting time leaving the country,
because he was flying home on commercial airlines.
"I left the day after the president left, and as I went through
Doha passport control, I discovered that since I had been in the
White House bubble traveling to Doha, they had already stamped my
passport as leaving the country from a military air base."
The lieutenant on duty was "quite interested" in why
the exit stamp was in Argentieri's passport when he was still in
the country. After an hour of intense questioning and the arrival
of two additional press people in the same predicament, customs
finally handwrote a new date on the exit stamp and let them all
leave.
It was this final wrinkle that caused David to muse "12 days,
10 flights, 7 countries, 0 Martinis."
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