Cool Or Drool: The Workspaces Of Republican Convention

In a huge hall next to the Republican Convention, the nation's media has set up their temporary home. Some of their work spaces are amazing! Some are pretty lame, tbh.

Cool: When you walk into the exhibition hall, it's a mess of signs...

...and you need to beware of forklifts.

Cool: Big signs.

The Times had the best sign of any paper. Their workspace was a hive of activity.

Drool: Empty spaces.

When we went past (Monday afternoon), there wasn't much going on at the Post's workspace.

Cool: The Tampa Tribune's swanky space.

Cookies!

They had great places to hang out, and a table where people could sit down and eat together.

Cool: Being near bathrooms and having a nice chill-out zone.

Nice one, Bloomberg.

Drool: This color scheme.

Cool: Goldfish!

The Boston Globe had an open box of Goldfish.

Cool: The newspaper stack.

This was in the Tampa Bay Times/Politico space. They had ALL the papers.

Cool: Working hard.

The ABC workspace was ALL BUSINESS.

Drool: Walls and locked doors.

PBS News Hour was inside what seemed like a fort. Who KNOWS what goes on in there.

Cool: The woman "guarding" Time Magazine.

She wanted to make sure we knew she was a sentry.

Cool: Flowers.

Time had a lot of flowers around their workspace.

LOTS of flowers.

Cool: Huge screens.

MSNBC had a giant screen in their space. Look, it's Joan Walsh!

Cool: Snacks.

MSNBC had the best snacks. These rolls look INCREDIBLE.

Kingsize Butterfinger

An. Entire. Freezer. Filled. With. Freeze. Pops.

Drool: Unused space.

So many journalists could fit in there! This was in the National Journal space on the ground floor.

Cool: AP vs. Reuters

AP had a pretty great set up in front of their space. Pictured: Ronald Reagan next to a screen showing the image of an Occupy Wall Street protester.

Also: Good use of balloons and flowers. This pic gives you some idea of how creepy we were when taking these photos -- this was taken through a curtain. Yikes!

Reuters also had pretty signs out front...

...but ultimately win because of these awesome "hey, we're an international news organization" clocks in their space. WE GET IT.

Cool: BIG NAME.

Drool: Empty workspaces.

Cool: Geraldo.

Classic. He really SMILES.

Cool: Birthday balloon.

Cool: Patriotic signs.

Drool: Accidentally knocking over signs.

Smooth work!

Cool: The random condiment stations scattered throughout the convention hall.

Cool: This sandwich sign.

Cool: Huffington Post's sign...

...and adorable snack table.

So orderly!

Drool: Huffington Post's abandoned couches and unplugged TV.

Could've been a big hit. Felt like that spot in your parent's house where no one would ever hang out.

Cool: Great free coffee at the Google cafe.

Really good. Made by Tampa's Buddy Brew. They were nice and patient with the 15,000 journalists ordering lattes.

Drool: These t-shirts.

What?!

Cool: The Facebook/Twitter/Eventbrite space.

Not crazily dot-blinged out. And very nice couches.

Nice.

Nice.

Cool: The Google Cafe.

Salon.com's Irin Carmon, Alex Pareene and Ben Crair chill in the Google cafe zone. This is probably the best place to work, because it's right next to the free Google coffee bar and there are free snacks sometimes. Plus the lighting is less nightmarish than in other parts of the convention center.

Drool: Not having walls.

The BuzzFeed space didn't have many bells whistles. A lot of people made jokes about "transparency" and "it's a convention without walls," which is a reference to the convention's Facebook app.