The White House Press Corps wasn't always such an organized bunch. In this episode, we'll dive into the history and evolution of reporters in the White House. Plus, the how the role of Press Secretary was created, how it's evolved, and how the relationship between POTUS and the press has shifted over the centuries.
Guests:
NPR's Scott Horsely and Mara Liasson
Transcript:
Archive: There will be a new secretary of agriculture by the end of the year. I don't know that it'll be tomorrow. It may happen next week as he makes a decision.
Archive: I once I say that you guys will put something in a newspaper. I hate that. Unlike today. Unlike today, where there was nothing in there, it's very tough to down. Well, no, I think he's expected to take quite a bit of it down. But what was the question?
Archive: And my question, can you deny, Dana, that the White House was astounded by this when only 11 years ago Senator Kerry declared Clinton's an unusually good liar? Unusually good?
Archive: I'm not going to comment.
Archive: No comment.
Archive: What's your second one.
Hannah McCarthy: Nick? There's a select group of journalists whose whole job is to cover one of the highest offices in the land and what's going on behind its closed doors. They're called the White House press corps. And they are among America's most important free press guardians, ensuring citizens have access to information about their government.
Archive: My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment they stepped into the White House, from your cabinet, former cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth. What was your real reason? You have said it was the oil price for oil. It hasn't been Israel or anything else. What was it?
Hannah McCarthy: And the White House needs the press corps to get the executive branch issues and proposals in front of the public. But the relationship between those select journalists and the White House can be combative.
Archive: Yeah, I think your premise, and I'll do respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist, that, you know, I didn't want war to assume I wanted war is just is just flat wrong, Helen. And I'll do respect. Hold on a second, please. Excuse me. Excuse me.
Hannah McCarthy: Because it's the job of the press corps to hold the executive branch accountable to the people. So how do they get the job done? This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: And today we are talking about the history and role of journalists in the White House, including the media's unique relationship with the executive branch and what it's like to report on the highest authority in the land. We're also going to take a look at the role of the White House press secretary, who often has to act as a gatekeeper between the president and the media.
Scott Horsley: The founders were very much aware of the importance of a free press and the watchdog function that we play.
Hannah McCarthy: This is Scott Horsley. He is a former senior White House reporter for National Public Radio. Scott covered the White House for ten years during both the Obama and the Trump administrations. He spoke with Civics 101 back in 2017.
Scott Horsley: And we see our role as being the eyes and the ears of the American people who can't physically be there and don't have the time to be there in a watchdog role for themselves. So we're there watching for all the people who want to know what the president and his team are up to.
Hannah McCarthy: A free press is so integral to a functioning government that you can think of it as a kind of fourth branch.
Nick Capodice: Now, of course, there isn't actually a fourth branch of the government, but calling the press the fourth branch illustrates that the press is, or at least at its best, can be a powerful check on authority. It's also sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate.
Hannah McCarthy: Do you know where that term comes from? The Fourth Estate?
Nick Capodice: No.
Hannah McCarthy: So back in the 18th century, you had these three sort of societal categories that were called estates rights. You had nobility, the people in power, clergy people also kind of in power. And then you had the people, you had the commoners. And this essayist at the time describes the press, this increasingly powerful entity that was writing about these other three estates as the fourth estate. Isn't that interesting?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And when we hear that term today, it's generally referring to the news media as a watchdog. So the media helps hold the executive office accountable for their actions. But I want to know, has the White House always been accessible to journalists? Could a reporter walk into John Adams's office and speak to him and his officials?
Hannah McCarthy: No, no. For a long time, the press could not go into the West Wing unless they were invited. During most of the 1800s, reporters weren't anywhere close to a fixture at the White House. There was no designated time and place for reporters to ask questions of the president or of other White House officials. During Abraham Lincoln's administration, for example, it was said that reporters would assemble on the lawn below the windows of Lincoln's second-floor White House office to try to get a scoop.
Nick Capodice: What kind of scoop?
Hannah McCarthy: Anything worth reporting on, like the Civil War, the death of Lincoln's young son, Willy or, you know, just the politics of the day.
Nick Capodice: They would just hang out there on the lawn with notepads, just hoping to catch some juicy bit of news?
Hannah McCarthy: It was their only option. They had no designated space inside the White House.
Nick Capodice: So how did they communicate with anyone? Did they just try to flag people down who are going in and out of the White House.
Hannah McCarthy: That is exactly what they would do. They would wave down visitors to try to find out what went on during their meetings with the president. And this is how things went basically from Lincoln all the way to William McKinley. And then Nick, during President Grover Cleveland's second term in office in 1896, a reporter for the Washington Evening Star named William Price started a column called At The White House. Price interviewed people about their business as they were going in and coming out of the White House at the North Portico. And his column was a big hit. Now, because of Price's columns' popularity, other news outlets decided to do the same thing, to station their reporters in the same place and to get the same news. So eventually you had this crowd. Now, Ida Tarbell, who was a pioneer in American journalism, wrote that the waiting spot became known as Newspapers Row. She said, quote, "Here they gather by the score on exciting days and in the shadow of great white pillars, watch for opportunities to waylay important officials as they come and go."
Nick Capodice: Ida Tarbell, the famous Muckraker, which is a term, by the way, from the Progressive era to describe investigative corruption, revealing reporters. When did journalists finally get inside the executive mansion?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, there's probably an apocryphal story that Theodore Roosevelt showed mercy on a group of wet, soggy reporters who were huddled together on the lawn during a rainstorm. He invited them in to dry off, and then he just couldn't get rid of them after that.
Nick Capodice: Well, this sounds like Roosevelt was maybe interested in making the press like him.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, this is an important point. And again, this is Teddy Roosevelt. It was kind of his M.O. to use the press to his advantage. And he was not the only president to figure that out. But we'll get to that later. And contrary to that fun Teddy Roosevelt story, by the way, it was actually the President McKinley administration that first let reporters into the White House at the beginning of his first term in office. Mckinley provided reporters a table outside of his private secretary's office because there was an increased presence of reporters waylaying White House visitors outside. But it was Teddy Roosevelt who created the first dedicated office space for the press. It was a small area. It had a telegraph and a telephone room. And for the reporters, this was a welcome change compared to having to physically sprint or, you know, if they're lucky, ride on a bicycle across town to their editor's office with stories for the day.
Nick Capodice: God, he had to be in good shape to be a reporter back then. But why did Teddy Roosevelt do this? Why did he give reporters an office and all these amenities?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, one reason is that the newspaper business in the US at the time was growing really rapidly. And all of these papers are competing for readers, Right? So they're investing more and more in covering the news. Basically, it was a newspaper boom.
Nick Capodice: Which, by the way, is not something you hear a lot these days.
Hannah McCarthy: No, it is not. But back then, you had a hunger for more news. And luckily, upgrades to printing press technology meant that newspapers could print more pages. So the White House became this steady source of stories, and that helped improve circulation. Some of the more popular papers even put out more than one edition daily, so they constantly needed fresh quotes. And Nick, as the newspaper industry grew, so did its power and influence. And President Teddy Roosevelt was a savvy PR guy. He knew how to bolster his public image.
Archive: Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
Hannah McCarthy: And he took advantage of the media's influence. And one significant development during the Teddy Roosevelt administration was that the president would personally meet with reporters and let them interview him. This was a precursor to the presidential press conference, and it was very informal. These meetings came to be known as seances.
Nick Capodice: Seances. Like summoning ghosts. Seances.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, but they did not actually try to summon the dead. However, what did occur in these so called séances was pretty bizarre.
Nick Capodice: What kind of bizarre?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, picture this: right at 1 p.m. almost every day, Roosevelt would have a handful of reporters brought into a reception room. A Treasury Department messenger who doubled as a barber would lather the president up and give him his mid-day shave.
Nick Capodice: While he was talking to reporters. It's like something out of the Untouchables. It's like a power move.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, exactly. And the president actually did a lot of entertaining during these meetings. He would give the reporters gossip and tell them anecdotes.
Nick Capodice: Right. So this is less like hard-hitting journalism and more like chummy schmoozing.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. And Roosevelt knew reporters by their first names. He would ask about their families. He would invite them as his guests to parties. And eventually, Roosevelt would let the reporters ask him whatever questions they had. But he was really calculating. He would only invite reporters into the so-called seances if he thought they would write good things about him and if he didn't like a reporter's line of questions, that reporter, Nick, would be permanently banished from the White House.
Nick Capodice: Banishment is not conducive to a free and fair press.
Hannah McCarthy: Indeed, it is not. These seances controlled the press narrative about Roosevelt completely. Virtually no news came out of the White House unless the president approved it. So even though the press now had their toe in the White House door, holding the executive branch accountable was another story entirely.
Nick Capodice: It sounds like Teddy Roosevelt was using the press corps to his advantage instead of the other way around, like he was the one holding the strings.
Hannah McCarthy: Reporters were essentially subject to his whims. And then the next president, William Howard Taft, did not want to spend his time talking to the press, so he just refused to meet them.
Nick Capodice: So when did this shift - when did press access become more formalized?
Hannah McCarthy: That would be during the Wilson administration. When Woodrow Wilson ran for office, he and the other leading candidates were working closely with the press because that was an expedient way to get their platforms out to voters. So when Wilson came into office, the press expected that close relationship with him to continue, and Wilson set up a talk with reporters. He thought it would be a little meet and greet to get to know the D.C. press. But 125 journalists showed up in his office expecting a little bit more than a chat.
Nick Capodice: Wow.
Hannah McCarthy: And the next week, when Wilson held a second meeting with reporters, the administration was more prepared. They had everyone assemble in the East Wing. And to the dismay of the press, Wilson shared his vision for their meetings. He said, quote, Please do not tell the country what Washington's thinking for that does not make any difference. Tell Washington what the country is thinking.
Nick Capodice: Well, so he was saying he did not want the press to report what was happening at all in the executive mansion.
Hannah McCarthy: Not unlike Roosevelt. Wilson very much wanted to control what the media was reporting. But things actually started to go off the rails rather quickly. Only four months after they started, President Wilson vowed to end these meetings with reporters altogether, in large part because he was offended that tabloids had printed stories about his daughters. He called them, quote, contemptible spies, the newspapermen, contemptible spies.
Nick Capodice: What sort of stories about his daughters?
Hannah McCarthy: They were writing stories about their dating lives and their plans for marriage.
Nick Capodice: Well, I can see how that would be infuriating for a father and a president. So what did he do?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, he called a meeting of the press and he said he was going to speak to them as Woodrow Wilson and not as the president. He is quoted as saying, "On the next offense, I shall do what any other indignant father would do. I will punch the man who prints it in the nose."
Nick Capodice: Holy cats.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I know. And then the final straw came when the New York Sun printed some remarks about Mexico that were supposed to be off the record. And once again, Wilson was like, I am ending these meetings altogether. And this left reporters in a difficult position. They obviously did not want to be locked out of the White House again, scrounging for secondhand information.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, shivering in the rain.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Speaking of shivering in the rain, remember that columnist William Price?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. This is the guy who would waylay White House visitors in newspapers row.
Hannah McCarthy: That's the guy he worked for The Washington Evening Star in response to Wilson's threat to shut out the press, William Price and ten other reporters banded together in 1914 and established the White House Correspondents Association or the WHCA.
Nick Capodice: Okay, okay. I know what the White House Correspondents Association, they host the fancy White House Correspondents Dinner where everybody dresses up like they're going to the Oscars and the US president gets to do a comedy bit.
Archive: I won't lie about it. Look, this is a tough transition. It's hard. Key staff are now starting to leave the White House. Even reporters have left me. Savannah Guthrie, she's left the White House press corps to host the Today Show. Norah O'Donnell left the briefing room to host CBS this morning. Jake tapper left journalism to join CNN.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. That dinner is actually a big fundraiser for the association. The WHCA's first order of business when it was established was to put pressure on Wilson to continue his relationship with the press and ensure credentialed reporters could access the White House without impediment.
Nick Capodice: And that word credentialed. What does it mean to be a credentialed reporter?
Hannah McCarthy: It's a good question. To be credentialed is to have a press pass. It's a form of identification that journalists use to get into restricted areas like the briefing room. And today, more than 100 years later, journalists still have to acquire credentials to be able to access the White House. They usually apply for press credentials with the White House press office. And there are actually different kinds of press credentials.
Nick Capodice: Like with varying levels of access and such.
Hannah McCarthy: Sort of. Reporters can apply for a day pass, which can be a hassle. If you are reporting on the White House. The next step up is a six-month pass. And then finally, there's the so-called hard pass, which is a long-term press credential. But getting a hard pass is no easy feat. It can take several months because of the stringent requirements and thorough background investigations by the Secret Service.
Nick Capodice: Why all this stringency for getting access?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, the idea when this all started was that requiring credentials would help prevent tabloids from making their way into the White House and printing sensitive information.
Nick Capodice: Tabloids like the stuff I see at the grocery store, flying dog hit me in the head, that sort of thing?
Hannah McCarthy: No, this is the precursor to that kind of tabloid. I'm talking about sensational newspapers. These papers printed what was known as yellow journalism. Some scholars call this the original fake news. A pretty infamous example of this involves the coverage of the sinking of the USS Maine, which was a battleship. Have you heard of this?
Nick Capodice: The SS Maine blew up while it was docked outside of Havana, Cuba, in 1898. And to this day it is debated as to why it blew up.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, these tabloids, and that includes papers like the New York Journal, owned by William Randolph Hearst, as in the famous newspaper baron. They rushed to print saying that the ship, the USS Maine, was destroyed by Spain. And some say this actually contributed to sparking the Spanish-American War.
Nick Capodice: I can now see why requiring credentials was the first thing the White House did.
Hannah McCarthy: And having credentials also help to keep things somewhat collegial in this high-pressure atmosphere.
Nick Capodice: So you're referring to decorum?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, basically common courtesy. You know, don't talk over other reporters in the middle of a question. You get one question and a follow-up question, not unlimited questions, that kind of thing.
Nick Capodice: And when reporters aren't collegial, does the WHCA kick them out?
Hannah McCarthy: No, the WHCA doesn't kick anyone out for having bad manners. That is actually up to the Secret Service. But the WHCA does strongly advise members to be respectful.
Nick Capodice: I guess it's not as much of a free for all as it could be, but I will say it feels like it can get pretty intense in those briefings and conferences. But I want to get back to President Wilson. How did forming the WHCA go over with him?
Hannah McCarthy: He wasn't terribly keen on the press afterward, but Wilson did ultimately realize the power of the press. He said, quote, "The public man who fights the daily press won't be a public man very long." So the meetings with the press continued. But they were off the record unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Nick Capodice: What about Wilson's successor? Did Warren G. Harding continue communicating with the media in the same way he did?
Hannah McCarthy: He did. President Harding actually hired a speechwriter to help him polish up his twice-weekly press meetings. And this job, Nick, that speechwriting position that eventually evolved into the modern-day White House press secretary. And we're going to talk about that right after the break.
Nick Capodice: But before the break, quick. Wait, don't go. We have a new thing at Civics 101, that we love dearly. Two things, really, Civics 101 trivia and a wordle. You can answer eight questions related to our most recent episode at Civics 101 or try our civic-themed wordle at Civics 101 wordle dot com.
Nick Capodice: We're back. We're talking about the relationship between the press and the president and hand. I believe you were just about to tell me about the White House press secretary. What is their job? What do they do?
Hannah McCarthy: The press secretary is a part of the communications team that handles messaging for the executive branch. Now, this is an excellent time to bring in our next guest.
Mara Liasson: The job of the press secretary is to communicate the president's agenda, to answer questions from the press. And beyond that, every press secretary has defined the job a little bit differently.
Hannah McCarthy: This is Mara Liasson, the national political correspondent for NPR. We spoke to her in 2018.
Nick Capodice: It was such a pleasure talking to Mara. She has covered five administrations from Bill Clinton all the way up to Joe Biden.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. And in that time, she has gone through plenty of press secretaries.
Mara Liasson: Mike McCurry, who was Bill Clinton's press secretary, was famous for saying his job was to be as truthful as possible and as helpful as possible to the press, while also trying to communicate his boss's agenda and put it in the best possible light.
Nick Capodice: So the press secretary is the administration's spokesperson.
Hannah McCarthy: Essentially, but the press secretary also serves as the liaison between the White House and the media. They facilitate access to information and resources, and this is usually accompanied by the daily press briefing.
Archive: Looking ahead, the president will visit Mississippi on Saturday, where they are celebrating the state's bicentennial 200 years of statehood. To mark the occasion, the president will participate in the grand openings of the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
Mara Liasson: That's Sarah Sanders standing in the briefing room. We've had many different press secretaries use the briefing in different ways in past administrations. They stood there until all the questions were finished. Sometimes it could be as long as an hour. Sometimes she eats up a lot of time at the top by reading from prepared remarks, making some announcements.
Hannah McCarthy: There was famously a great deal of turnover during Trump's presidency. The dynamics between the press corps and Trump's press secretaries were often volatile, and each press secretary coped with the jobs challenges differently. Sarah Sanders once baked a chocolate pecan pie for April Ryan, a correspondent she had a contentious professional relationship with. But not all press secretaries try to sweeten the pot that way. Mara said some actually embrace an antagonistic role.
Mara Liasson: Other press secretaries have seen their job as more as a combatant, as pushing back against the press, demonizing the press, kind of using the press as a foil. And the communication part, the explaining the administration's agenda has been secondary to those press secretaries. So it just depends on the president and the administration.
Archive: I literally stand at this podium and opened a briefing a couple of days ago about the president expressing his condolences. I literally opened the briefing about it. So for you to sit there and say, I know. So why are you asking why he didn't do it when I literally stood here and did it? Statement. I don't understand what your clients comment were about that the president doesn't have time to tweet about everything, right? He's tweeting about this, right? He's not tweeting about something else. I came out here and actually spoke about it and said the president spoke this time. What are you you're equating me addressing the nation here in a tweet? I don't I mean, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. This is silly. Thank you. You've asked your question.
Hannah McCarthy: I asked Mara, what does it take to do this job? What are the unwritten qualifications of a good White House press secretary?
Mara Liasson: An iron stomach and a thick skin, somebody who's unflappable, generally, someone who has a pretty even demeanor.
Nick Capodice: But has it always been this way, though? Like have the press secretary and the media always walked this line between courtesy and contentiousness?
Hannah McCarthy: Not always. There wasn't always the kind of posturing you see now, because the press and the administration didn't have anything to gain by being snippy with each other. Then in 1955, the press secretary for President Eisenhower, James Hagerty, made an announcement that dramatically changed this dynamic.
Archive: We want to bring the president and his words and deeds as closely as we can to the people in the home and the people in the theaters. So what we are planning at the present time and we will work out the details later, is to have a press conference or an informal talk by President Eisenhower at least once a month for the newsreels. And that way, the message the president is going to give the news of his administration will be brought directly to the people in the theaters and in the homes throughout this country.
Nick Capodice: Is Hagerty talking about the presidential press conference or the daily briefing?
Hannah McCarthy: At this time, he was talking about the presidential press conference. But you do bring up a good point. I'll let Mara take this one.
Mara Liasson: There's many different ways that the president and the press secretary communicate with the press. The most famous is a presidential press conference where it's formal. The president stands there and takes questions from reporters. Most presidents did a lot of those.
Hannah McCarthy: Mara told us that unlike most presidents, President Trump was not a fan of the formal press conferences. She described how he would answer questions and what they call pool sprays.
Nick Capodice: Pool sprays.
Mara Liasson: Where a small group of reporters is ushered into the Cabinet Room or the Oval Office. And he's meeting with someone or he's signing something and he answers a few questions on the fly or he's going out to the helicopter or he's coming out of Air Force One. So he interacts with the press that way. Then there's the Foreign Leader press conference, which under Trump, has become what's known as two and two. Each leader takes two questions from their own press corps. So the president answers two questions from American reporters. And then the foreign leader calls on two of the traveling press corps that has come with him from his country. Then there's the press briefing, which happens every day.
Hannah McCarthy: And that brings me back to Dwight Eisenhower's press secretary, James Hagerty. Hagerty was unfiltered about his reason for wanting to get the president on the screen. He wrote in his diary, quote, To hell with slanted reporters. We'll go directly to the people who can hear exactly what the president said without reading warped and slanted stories. So the purpose of filming news conferences was for the president to reach the people directly without the filter of newspapers or editorializing where the media can pick all of their comments apart. And this was a massive shift. And there was another big shift in 1995, when President Clinton's press secretary, Mike McCurry, decided to open up another press event to a nationwide audience.
Mara Liasson: I guess the biggest sea change for me was when the daily press briefing was televised. There are many press secretaries who have come to regret that because it does lead to grandstanding by some reporters and it's less useful and more of a confrontation.
Archive: Terry, you said this morning the president did not have an improper relationship with his former intern. What do you mean by an improper relationship?
Archive: I'm not going to parse the statement. You all got the statement I made earlier and it speaks for itself. No relationship, proper relationship. I'm not going to parse the statement. You've got the statement I made earlier, and it speaks for itself.
Archive: Its definition of what an improper relationship means.
Archive: I'm not going to...
Speaker7: That statement is where we are. And that's what I'm saying. That's what I said. Claire, I'm just not going to parse the statement for you. It speaks for itself. Mike, Wolf BLITZER.
Hannah McCarthy: Scott Horsley said that once they put it on camera for all the gains in transparency and civic education, it turned the daily briefing into less of an exchange of information and more of a kind of performance art. Because the press secretary isn't just the spokesperson, they're also kind of the hype person.
Nick Capodice: Hype person. Like, what do you mean?
Hannah McCarthy: Sort of the head of spin for the administration? They talk up the president and try to show the administration in the best light possible. Keep in mind, the press secretary is just one role in the White House's huge communications office, but they are the most public-facing person. They often highlight positive developments and downplay negative news. They also often work with other government officials and agencies to coordinate messaging and ensure that the administration presents a unified front to the public. And while this PR spin might be intended to color the reporting of the press corps, journalists have a job to do, and they are not stenographers. They fact-check. They follow up.
Scott Horsley: Our role is not simply to write down what the president or his spokespeople say and then pass it along unfiltered or uncritically. It is to probe and to examine and to also hold it up to other pieces of evidence. You know, if Sean Spicer comes out and says this is the largest crowd to ever witness a presidential inauguration in history, period.
Archive: This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period.
Scott Horsley: It's our duty to say, well, here are some other pieces of information that contradict that in this case, flatly disprove what the press secretary said.
Hannah McCarthy: By the way, after resigning from the Trump administration, Sean Spicer admitted that he had been lying about the crowd size at the inauguration.
Archive: There were times where I screwed up. There's no question about it. I've said this before. I mean, the inauguration, you brought it up. I would say that's first and foremost.
Scott Horsley: There are lots of cases that are not as black and white as that, where, you know, the administration will argue that X, Y, Z has happened in the economy. And, you know, you might say, well, that is either because of or in spite of or partly because of and partly in spite of some action that the administration has taken. So it is part of our role is to certainly listen to what they have to say, hear them out, but also challenge, probe and introduce other information. Try to provide context, try to provide meaning.
Hannah McCarthy: We asked Mara Liasson if members of the White House ever withhold information from the press secretary. So the press secretary doesn't have to conceal information or share disinformation or even lie during a briefing. And Mara said that kind of concealment happens all the time. That's what you call plausible deniability.
Mara Liasson: Better to be out of the loop than to be saying something that turns out to be false. You know, there's so much discussion now, the truth doesn't matter anymore. Objective facts don't matter.
Hannah McCarthy: But credibility does matter. When the president, for example, asks Americans to sacrifice because of something that they have decided is important to do, they have to have credibility for that. Or, you know, when the president is asking U.S. allies to follow the United States in some kind of endeavor or military action, credibility is important. And if you're cavalier with the facts, there might come a time when nobody believes you.
Nick Capodice: It's like crying wolf, right?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: Well, to that end, how often does the press push back on the press secretary? Do they ever stand up and say, oh, actually, secretary, that is incorrect.
Hannah McCarthy: It does happen on occasion.
Mara Liasson: She'll generally say something like, well, this is what he believes. She'll find some kind of safe lily pad to a light on where she can say something that's technically accurate because no press secretary wants to flat out lie to the press.
Archive: What led you in the White House to believe that he had lost the confidence of the rank and file of the FBI? When the acting director says it's exactly the opposite?
Archive: Well, I can speak to my own personal experience. I've heard from countless members of the FBI that are grateful and thankful for the president's decision. And I think that, you know, we may have to agree to disagree. I'm sure that there are some people that are disappointed, but I've certainly heard from a large number of individuals, and that's just myself. And I don't even know that many people in the FBI.
Nick Capodice: So the press secretary wants to be diplomatic and have plausible deniability with the press. And I assume that the press wants to have a relationship that will keep the press secretary calling on them to ask questions in the briefing room. But what kind of relationship does the White House press corps want to have with the commander-in-chief directly? Because I remember things got pretty heated when Donald Trump was in charge, like the rather famous repeated sparring between he and Jim Acosta from CNN.
Archive: Since you're attacking us, can you give us a question? Since you're Mr. President-elect, go ahead, Mr. President-elect. Since you are attacking our news organization now, can you give us a chance? You're organization. You are attacking our news organization.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, that relationship was tense. It came to a head. During a press conference when Acosta attempted to ask Trump a question about the president's alleged ties to Russia.
Archive: Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings. Let me ask you if I may ask the question, Mr. President, if I may ask one question. Are you worried That's enough. That's enough. President That's enough to ask one of the other folks. That's enough. Pardon me, ma'am. I'm Mr. President. That's enough. Just sit down, please.
Hannah McCarthy: The White House then revoked Acosta's press pass after he attempted to confront Trump about the administration's controversial migrant policy. Cnn filed a lawsuit over that revocation and then later dropped it after a judge ordered the White House to temporarily restore Acosta's press pass. And Acosta agreed to abide by the new rules. Just asking one question at a time. Here's Scott Horlsey again.
Scott Horsley: We're not supposed to just be tools of the White House, but on the other hand, it doesn't have to be ugly. It doesn't have to be hostile. It can be businesslike.
Hannah McCarthy: And, you know, the Trump administration was famously outspoken in its media criticism, but every administration has had tricky interactions with the press corps.
Scott Horsley: We certainly had adversarial relations at times with the Obama administration. I spent part of that time serving on the Correspondents Association, which is sort of the liaison between the working press and the White House. And we certainly had complaints about usually restrictions on, you know, what press access might be to the president or his aides or, you know, the terms under which information was distributed.
Hannah McCarthy: Pushing for more access kind of goes hand in hand with journalism. And at the same time, the White House staff is carefully trying to control their message.
Nick Capodice: All right. Back to the journalist's side. What's a typical day like for a typical White House press reporter?
Scott Horsley: Well, there's no such thing as a typical day. Every day is different. And certainly the opening days of any administration are particularly interesting and volatile. And at some point, that kind of opening frenzy will, we hope, settle down just a little bit. And then it's you know, there's a rhythm of the president doing kind of public events where he's making a statement, meeting with people on camera, sort of trying to make a point through his persona.
Hannah McCarthy: In today's 24/7 news cycle, covering the White House for a major news outlet is not a one-person job.
Scott Horsley: During the Obama administration, we had three of us who covered the White House. We've upped that a little bit to have four of us covering the White House. So not all of us show up every day. Maybe one of us will be there physically at the White House. Another one might be out in the country somewhere talking to voters. One of us might be back at headquarters monitoring executive orders that the president's put out. So there's a lot to keep an eye on, but one of us is certainly there.
Mara Liasson: I used to say that the exciting part of the job starts when you walk in the gates off of Pennsylvania Avenue and the and it ends when you walk in the door to the White House, because a lot of times the life of a White House correspondent is like an animal in the zoo. You're in a cage and you can't really go anywhere you want or walk around. And occasionally they open the door and they throw in a piece of red meat, a little bit of news. They shut the door and then they run like the zookeeper.
Hannah McCarthy: And journalists aren't always confined to the White House. They need to be available at the drop of a hat to go anywhere the commander-in-chief is. And they frequently travel with the president.
Archive: Everybody, everything good press conference, good. I think it was great.
Nick Capodice: Really good. Sounds kind of fun and exciting.
Hannah McCarthy: It's not always glamorous. There's a lot of waiting around for the president and conference rooms and airplanes and then kind of strange things happen. Like when a plane carrying journalists to cover President Biden's first trip abroad was grounded by a swarm of cicadas.
Archive: Cicadas. Last night, the AP's Jonathan Lemire tweeted, quote, The White House press charter flying from Dulles to Europe ahead of President Biden has been delayed for hours due to mechanical issues caused by cicadas.
Hannah McCarthy: Eventually, White House aides found another plane for reporters to make it overseas. But in the meantime, to keep the press corps comfortable, the White House ordered pizza and booked rooms at the airport hotel where journalists tweeted about the incident from the bar.
Nick Capodice: That actually doesn't sound too bad.
Hannah McCarthy: Last thing, Nick. You know how we talked about introducing television cameras into the White House press briefings and how that kicked off a whole new era of presidential news coverage?
Nick Capodice: Yes, I do.
Hannah McCarthy: Both the media and the government have continuously adapted to technological advances like televised press conferences and the advent of social media. Nick is no different. Technology changes how a president can interact with citizens.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, I've seen different White House administrations turning to social media to convey their messaging. So when did that whole thing take off?
Hannah McCarthy: It's hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but there certainly is a memorable one that took place on May 18th of 2015.
Archive: The president did not have his own official Twitter account. So now tweets from at parties will come directly from President Obama himself. A huge hit, as you can imagine. It was trending as soon as he sent out this tweet. "Guys. Hello, Twitter. It's Barack." Really? Six years in and they're finally giving me my own account.
Nick Capodice: So how does the president of the United States being able to tweet affect press coverage of the White House?
Hannah McCarthy: When the president tweets something, they're essentially circumventing the media, making statements and potentially shaping public opinion without having to answer questions about that statement. And it's fair to say this diminishes the press corps power to hold the administration accountable for statements of all kinds, including important policy decisions. But whether or not this is a new phenomenon is not something everyone agrees on.
Scott Horsley: That's not absolutely new. You could say that Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats were a way to reach out directly to the American people on the radio without having to go through the newspaper reporters who dominated the press corps at that time.
Archive: My friend, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking, the talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking.
Nick Capodice: So in the beginning of the episode, Hannah, you said that the White House needs the press corps to get its message in front of the people. But we have seen instances throughout history where that's not always the case. There were those fireside chats from FDR on the radio. Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden are on Twitter and they tweet a lot. And I just saw that Joe Biden is on Instagram. So how does the press corps stay relevant when presidents can just go around them? Or as was the case during long stretches of the Trump administration, just stop holding press briefings altogether?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, I think that even as the White House finds new ways to communicate, the media finds new ways to hold power to account, think about how things like data, tools, social media platforms and encrypted communication apps have been game changers when it comes to journalism pertaining to the most powerful people in this country. But it's also important to remember that while it's the press's job to interrogate the White House and push back on its spin, they can ultimately only do so much because at the end of the day, you can have the best reporters in the world covering the president, but the people are still going to make up their own minds when they read about it. That does it for this episode. It was produced by Jacquie Fulton with executive producer Rebecca Lavoie. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: We're the co-hosts of the show. Christina Phillips is our senior producer.
Nick Capodice: Music In this episode by Lenon Hutton, 91 Nova, Paddington Bear, Hedgehog. Wallace Peerless. Cirque La Nouvelle CALLISON, Jules, Gaia, Tigran Viken, El Flaco Collective, Jerry Lacy and EP Hartman.
Hannah McCarthy: If you liked this episode, there's a lot more where this came from. You can find our entire archive at civics101podcast.org. And while you're there, ask us a question. There's a really good chance we will make an episode to answer it for you.
Nick Capodice: Civics 101 is the production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.