MILWAUKEE — The stage is almost set for welcoming the eventual Republican presidential nominee at next summer’s Republican National Convention.
But while the nation’s biggest names in politics won’t be here until then, Fiserv Forum opened its doors to hundreds of journalists on Thursday for the first media walkthrough of the big event.
“Our job is to inform, but also to intrigue and that will be done through colorful characters, great pictures but also just substantively important events,” said Jonathan Wald, Washington Bureau Chief, ITV News.
Jonathan Wald is the Washington Bureau Chief for ITV News in the United Kingdom.
He says his team is focused on making sure they can offer their viewers a real understanding of what’s happening overseas and how it can affect them.
“When there is an occasion like the Republican National Convention, as important as that, where a person is selected to be potentially the next President of the United States and the leader of the free world, that has a huge impact on Britain and the rest of the world and is therefore very interesting to our viewers,” said Wald.
Closer to home, media outlets like Politico work to get timely and impactful political news out to millions of readers.
Shia Kapos is a reporter and the author of the Illinois Playbook, a daily newsletter that breaks down state government and politics.
She says the success of their work depends on how effectively they can weed through the noise of such a big event.
“Regular readers don't really want to know about the minutiae of everything, they want to know the most important things going on to put on the convention. So, I'm here to find out who the major players are, what they're doing to make the convention happen,” said Kapos.
The media agencies say that their biggest goal when it comes to covering the RNC is making sure that their audience understands how big this event is for Milwaukee, as well as its impact around the world.
“They're interested in what makes them tick. They're interested in their similarities and their differences. So, in events like this, where you get things that might seem essentially American, if it's colorful, it's interesting to the UK,” said Wald.
“It's worth listening to all those speeches that people give. I know sometimes people think they're boring but if you really sit down and try to soak it all in, it gives you a sense of what that particular party wants for the future of the country,” said Kapos.
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