Meet the Press

Media stalk the president’s pick for first lady of the brethren

The paparazzi have come to Phoenix and they’re sprawled both in and out of the waiting room at the Arizona Court of Appeals. ABC, CBS, Time, Newsweek. Correspondents and photographers representing all the news-gathering biggies lean against the huge battery packs they’ve lugged from who knows where to Judge Sandra D. O’Connor’s offices. She’s today’s lead news item, having just made world history books as. the first woman nominated by a United States president to adjudicate from the Supreme Court’s bench. Late arrivals to this news crowd stand in the foyer of the state Capitol looking for vacant spots to prop their heavy strobes and mega-mikes. There’s a member of the ABC team whose blue and white shirt reads “ABC San Salvador Bureau.” A UPI photographer, who flew in from LA the day before, asks him if the shirt is for real. “Yep,” he says rather smugly. A cleaning woman does her best to polish the large glass panes at the west entrance, where the reporters and photographers are camped. Oh, some of the cameramen obligingly move out of her way, but a few “excuse roe’s” later and she figures it’s all too much trouble. She’s off to the other side of the foyer, where her work will be more efficient – until the press goes away. There’s idle banter among the camera crews, whose members recognize one another from former assignments they’ve handled together. They talk .about the heat, where the closest Mexican food restaurant