It was Day 2 of the Republican National Convention, and Luis Carlos Azenha, a correspondent for Brazil's TV Manchete network, and his crew of two were trolling for stories outside the New Orleans Superdome. They headed for Lafayette Square, where they hoped to get pictures of men kissing each other at a rally protesting the Republicans' stand on AIDS. The square, however, was deserted except for a sprinkling of mounted police and a handful of journalists with the same idea as the Brazilians. No story there.
The team moved on to the Hilton hotel, where the National Education Association was holding a luncheon for Maureen Reagan. Azenha had heard that some of the vice-presidential contenders might be at the lunch, and he was hoping to interview them. But there was no sign of Bob Dole or Jack Kemp in the cavernous hall. Azenha managed to collar the President's daughter, who provided a few remarks. Later in the day, he interviewed Shirley Temple Black, a delegate from California, and Actor Charlton Heston.
What Azenha and other foreign journalists who attended last week's Republican Convention painfully discovered was that finding a story they could break in New Orleans was about as likely as encountering a flood of the drought-stricken Mississippi River. Even when controversy arose over George Bush's running mate, Senator Dan Quayle, many reporters from abroad had trouble developing fresh leads on the story, lacking as they did the facilities and long-standing contacts of their American colleagues.
Yet the foreign journalists made up in enthusiasm and numbers whatever they lacked in resources. A record 1,300 of them, representing more than 300 news organizations in 51 countries, covered both party conventions this year, exposing more television viewers and newspaper readers around the world to the U.S. presidential contest than ever before. Britain and Canada dispatched large contingents from 15 print and broadcasting organizations each, but the Japanese outdid them in New Orleans with six networks and twelve newspapers. "It shows one thing," said Toshio Mizushima, a correspondent for the Tokyo-based daily Yomiuri Shimbun, "that the Japanese viewers and readers are very eager to know what is really going on in this election." So are the Europeans. The C-SPAN network's video verite coverage of the podium in Atlanta was beamed by satellite to 22 European countries, prompting hundreds of viewers in those countries to write to the C-SPAN offices in Washington. Interest in President Reagan's farewell speech was so high in Britain that the BBC broadcast it live from New Orleans in a 3 1/2-hour special beginning at 1:10 a.m. in London.
The one big story of the U.S. presidential race is really many stories to foreign journalists, depending on which aspect of the candidates' views or the parties' platforms is of greatest concern to their own countries. The Japanese press has concentrated on trade and economic issues, while the South Africans are almost single-mindedly focused on the question of American sanctions. This year's campaign has received unusually wide coverage in the Philippines because of George Bush's now famous 1981 toast commending President Ferdinand Marcos for his "adherence to democratic principles and to democratic processes."