At 7:30 we hopped in a van to the Accra International Conference Centre. I'd volunteered to help out with the press pools, Ghanaian and White House. By 8:30 we'd made our way through security and into the hall, checked out the press "hold" (the room where the press could relax while waiting for the event to begin), and assigned jobs to the half dozen on our team.
Three buses arrived by 10 with the main press pools, and they settled in for the two-hour wait before the event itself. I was posted in the hall to escort reporters back to their holding room for snacks, but nobody seemed hungry. Chip Reid of CBS News survived a faulty chair and a soft landing on the floor. Chuck Todd of NBC News sat off to one side, lost in thought. No sign of CNN's Anderson Cooper, but he was rumored to be in the neighborhood.
Job 1 was to guard the seven out of 60 or so special press chairs reserved for the reporters traveling in the motorcade itself, who would be rushing in at the last minute at about the same time as the president himself. All the chairs in the adjacent diplomatic section were taken, so two ambassadors jumped the rope and planted themselves with the press, refusing to be budged even by a Ghana Government protocol official. Two White House press would be moved to a spot on the floor by the cut riser up front.
Job 2 was to deal with a dozen or so uncredentialed local press who only had tickets to the main hall yet managed to slip into the press area. There were no chairs for them, so about a half hour before the event, they began congregating in the aisle just by the front "no go" zone established by the Secret Service. A Secret Service agent asked me to "be a bit more militant" about keeping the area clear.
I wasn't entirely sure what that meant. I tried simply standing in the aisle with my hand on a chair. A reporter would come up to me and ask to pass. I'd offer a sad look and say, "I'm so sorry, only credentialed press beyond this point." To my enormous surprise, that seemed to work. Of course, just behind me about 10 steps down the aisle and in plain view was a very large Secret Service agent. After the event, an agent came up to me, actually, and offered me a job, so I guess I passed the test.
Video of the speech is all over the net. NBC had the press lead for the event, and here's their live coverage: NBC Coverage
The president headed for Cape Coast and a tour of the slave castle. After wolfing down a candy bar, I rejoined the team out in the corridor to find our car for our next event in Accra, which would be the departure ceremony at the airport.
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