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By Cyril T. Zaneski, Convention Daily
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2000

In Internet Alley -- this week's glitzy, floodlight-soaked epicenter of the new-media universe -- Gary Barrett is a throwback. He's the lone guy sitting before a microphone crudely taped to a table in the corner of the room. There he sits morning to night, talking, talking, talking politics.

Barrett's one-man show of streaming press releases, commentaries, and taped interviews is not that far from that lone guy in a makeshift shack atop a Pittsburgh office building who reported the news on Nov. 2, 1920, of Warren Harding's victory over James Cox -- the first radio broadcast. Barrett, too, is a pioneer -- in all-politics Internet radio.

Lost in the hype over new-media sites like Pseudo.com and Voter.com, which brashly shoved their way into the convention brandishing lots of greenbacks, are guys like Barrett of Policast.com, who scrape by on their sheer love for politics. Barrett and his business partner back in Davenport, Iowa, shelled out about $10,000 to set up in a 100-square-foot corner of Internet Alley.

"I'm doing for Internet radio what KDKA -- the first radio station -- did in Pittsburgh when they first started," said Barrett, 44, a 26-year veteran political reporter at old-fashioned radio stations in Iowa. "We're making history. We're reinventing radio."

Barrett has hooked up with another lone politics junkie on Internet Alley -- Erik Hromadka of 2000GOP.com. Hromadka arrived Saturday from Indianapolis to find he had "special press" credentials but no place to work or to display his red, white, and blue banner. So he struck a deal with Barrett: He and the five college interns helping him would fetch press releases and share their original reporting with Barrett in exchange for a little exposure on Web radio and some precious space in the Policast cubicle.

"That's how you make it when you're by yourself: You partner with other people -- and you keep your overhead low," said Hromadka, who is staying with his sister in the Philadelphia suburbs to cut costs. His only tools are a laptop and a digital camera.

Hromadka started his Web site last year when Indianapolis looked like it might cop the GOP convention. When Philadelphia got the nod, Hromadka rolled along anyway, carrying news of Republican candidates and selling ads. He said that yesterday afternoon his site was very busy. "So far this hour, I've had 348 people visit the site," he crowed.

Barrett doesn't have any clue about how many people are clicking on Policast to hear him and another broadcaster in Iowa chatter about politics or listen to all the speeches live from the convention floor. He is hopeful the venture will make money in a couple of years, but he said he doesn't worry about numbers when he's talking politics -- 15 minutes at a time, twice an hour at the convention.

"This is as much a love affair as it is a job," Barrett said. "I love politics and I love radio, and this brings my two loves together. We're all-politics radio, all the time."

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