
	Chris Mulick has worked for the Herald since 1998 and has served as the statehouse correspondent covering state government and politics since 2000. He works year-round out of the Herald's Olympia bureau on the state Capitol campus. Have a question? Send Chris an e-mail and he'll answer the best questions regularly.

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Thursday, Jun. 19, 2008

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What happens when the press doesn't show for a press conference

Initiative promoter Tim Eyman found himself pressless in Olympia Thursday after staging a news conference that no one showed up to. So he paid a visit to show off his chalkboard and ham it up. "There's a shamelessness to it that's so darn attractive," he said.

Ever wonder what happens when someone stages a press conference and the press doesn’t show? Me, too. And until I leave the business I’ll never know.

But initiative promoter Tim Eyman found out today. He scheduled an 11 a.m. press conference to turn in his first batch of signatures for Initiative 985, which deals with traffic congestion relief.

In recent years he’s delivered signatures in two batches with two press conferences. The first one is designed to get a little coverage, hoping it will remind supporters to turn in the signatures they have and make one last push.

But today none of us newsies took the bait. Many of us were covering the state Revenue Forecast Council’s 10 a.m. meeting, which ran late.

As he always does, Eyman made rounds of the press houses afterward, toting a chalkboard he apparently had planned to use as a visual (times are tight) to illustrate how many signatures have been collected so far.

“It used to be newsworthy that we were close to qualifying for the ballot,” he said.

So what happened at the pressless press conference?

“We didn’t say anything,” Eyman said. “We walked in, no press there.”

So he unloaded his boxes of signatures and left.

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