‘We Have Little to No Happiness Here’: Inside the Spin Room at the Seventh Democratic Debate

Even the dramatic moments at the showdown in Des Moines, Iowa, felt predictable

Members of the media work in the spin room during the seventh Democratic primary debate at the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 14, 2020. Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

This much was clear: The journalists were tired.

During Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, I sat, alongside several hundred other journalists, in the event’s spin room: a large, open gymnasium inside Drake University’s athletics arena that was outfitted as a debate media hub. Reporters were squeezed together along rows of tables, surrounded by TV pods where nicely compensated correspondents could sprawl out and record their segments. We were about 1,600 feet from the school’s Sheslow Auditorium, the setting where six politicians — Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer — took to the stage once again to make their case for the Democratic presidential nomination. Whereas the media pit is harsh and utilitarian, the Sheslow Auditorium is beautiful, a 500-seat room that features ornate stained glass windows and TV-ready overhead lighting. It’s a bit strange, the fact that dozens of news outlets spent thousands to send their reporters to a debate that they wind up watching on screen anyhow. But, like any political event, the atmosphere surrounding the…