BIG-SCALE POLITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1932, Page 9

BIG-SCALE POLITICS.

AMERICANS PREPARING? REPORTING PARTY CONVENTIONS. ELABORATE ARRANGEMENTS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 6. The magnetism of history in the making will turn the eyes and ears of the world toward the Chicago Stadium next month. The locale of both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, this huge structure on Chicago's near West Side will become the nerve centre of the nation. It will be a newspaper workroom, broadcasting studio and movie lot. Telegraph companies estimate that 12,000,000 words will be sent out on the two conventions and more if the Democratio meeting should become deadlocked. Since the average novel contains about 100,000 words, this would be equivalent to 120 complete novels. j Every daily newspaper office in the United States will have almost instantaneous wire service from the convention floor. The vast networks of the Press associations will be extended, with "trunk" wire operators sitting but a few feet from the speakers' stand and using noiseless equipment that flashes the news all over the world as fast as it is dictated. By messenger and chute other dispatches by wire service writers and individual correspondents will be rushed to workrooms just outside and below the convention hall to be transmitted on 400 special wires. Broadcasts of the principal features of the conventions will.be available to almost every radio set in the nation. Nearly all of the 185 stations affiliated with the two big networks are planning to revise their programmes for the last two weeks in June, so as to carry the principal speeches and the balloting oi the two conventions. At least four shortwave etations will make the programmes available for rebroadcast in foreign countries. Each of the radio chains is working on special mechanical equipment for the convention. Columbia broadcasting system

engineers are perfecting a magnetic microphone designed to eliminate echo and crowd noises. The National Broadcasting Company will have parabolic microphones by which its engineers expect to be able to pick up a voice from any point in the convention hall and broadcast it as well as if the person were standing on the speaker's platform. Arrangements for Tress and radio have been made thus far without serious difficulty. Glass-enclosed booths behind the 'epeakers , stand have been provided for the radio chains and three Chicago stations. Newspapers and Press associations were allotted '722 seats on the convention floor and large workrooms outside. Three strategic locations were set aside for news photographers. The Republican Convention starts on June 14 and the Democratic Convention commences on June 27.