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While NBC stuck with the usual total of four floor reporters, the slow news prompted CBS to cut its roster to three, and ABC to two. Even the pared-down contingents were not overly busy: ABC's Lynn Sherr spent nearly half an hour waiting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Charles Percy before telling him that the network, which had already passed on him once, had decided to do so again. TV reporters acknowledged having given disproportionate attention to the discontented minority at the convention, and several were accosted by delegates and charged with liberal bias, although the problem may simply have been the urge to find a lively debate where there was none.
In the past, reporters prepared copiously for floor assignments. This time, most of them found little need to scan the arcane computerized data, little chance to display erudition. Indeed, the interview choices seemed to be so obvious that on several occasions network crews were lined up three deep alongside such figures as Catania or President Reagan's Campaign Consultant Drew Lewis, turning the usual traffic jam in the aisles into human gridlock. Summed up Wallace: "There were two clear advantages to this assignment. One was that the layers of buffer between reporters and politicians were gone; they were all right there in front of you, ready to be engaged in conversation. The other was, if you like to appear on television, there was the chance to do so four or five times a night, although not necessarily with something exciting to say." —By William A. Henry III