good evening, everyone, and welcome to the white house historical association.

i'm stewart mclaurin and i'm the president of the association and it's a real privilege to have you here under our roof at historic decatur house. we have a full room here and those of us, those of you who are joining us by c-span, we have a terrific program planned for you this evening. this is the first of four episode, as in our white house history quarterly lecture series on media and the white house. now, it's shorthanded by saying white house history with frank sesno, who's our moderator. and. and, frank, you have big shoes to fill, at least high shoes to fill, because we have ann compton here and we had four episodes of white house history with ann compton. and that was great fun as well. this program is put together by the david rubenstein national center for white house history here at the association, led by dr. colleen shogun, dr. matthew

costello, and all of their colleagues who are here today. put in a tremendous amount of work to put on this series, as well as our other substantive programs that we have as part of our education mission here at the association. i'd like to acknowledge a member of our board of directors, anita mcbride, who is here, and three distinguished former members of our board, bob mcgee, martha kumar and mike mccurry, who are also on the panel. we have several members of our national council on white house history who are the real wind in a in the sails of our work. and we're very, very grateful for their support to helps make our nonprofit and nonpartisan mission possible without their financial support, we could not do what we do. we receive no government funding whatsoever, and we do all that we do on behalf of the american people. we're 62 years old, founded by mrs. kennedy in 1961 to be the private partner to the white house, to maintain the museum standard of those beautiful

interiors and to teach and to tell the stories of the white house and its history going back to 1792, when george washington selected that piece of land just across the suite street from where we are tonight. well, our moderator this evening is is frank sesno. he is the ah, they don't like that somebody is our moderator this evening is frank sesno. he's the emmy award winning journalist who has held just about every position of leadership that can be held in television from bureau chief to anchor to white house correspondent to television host or talk show host. he has interviewed five american presidents and leaders in every sector around the globe for 11 years. he gave leadership as the director of the george washington university school of media and public affairs. he is currently the head of strategic initiatives for the school and also teaches, which i think is probably the highest

calling of all of those, is to engage young minds in engaging them in media and how to become the next generation of great american journalists. his another project that he has underway with the school is planet for report org and i encourage you to explore that and learn more about that current endeavor that has that frank has underway. you are in for a treat with the panel, with kelly, mike and martha this evening and enjoy. and my part of the program is over. and with that, frank, i'll turn it over to you. stuart thank you very much. and and before i go any further, i want to thank you and the white house historical association for what you do, because to bring these stories to life, to bring these places to life so that we can learn from them and learn from the past, to inform the future is one of the most important things that anyone can do. so thanks to you and the association. well, i'm really looking forward

to this conversation this evening and welcome to those who are joining us from afar. what happens at the white house now is everybody's business. it always has been. but now cameras 24 seven bring pretty much whatever's happening there to the rest of us. so our panel this evening is the best. kelly o'donnell is nbc's senior white house correspondent. she's covered the white house for quite some time, has interviewed multiple presidents and to any number of news conferences, crises and places abroad. and she's going to be able to tell us what it's actually like today and how that camera and that image beams around the country and the world. mike mccurry, you probably know mike mccurry. i often talk about mike mccurry as the most remarkable press secretary i ever worked with because mike got it. and mike came over from the state department where it was a press secretary, where it wasn't just spin all the time. there was a lot of substance. and somehow he tried to blend the two.

he was the press secretary for bill clinton. there were high points and low points in that tenure. we'll talk about some of those and maybe even see one or two. and he's a former co-chair of the commission on presidential debates. another place where the camera has been so important and so influential. and martha kumar is a walking encyclopedia of the white house and brings such incredible insight to what she talks about. she's a professor emerita, towson university, our scholarly focus has been on the white house. she kind of hangs out there these days and can bring you not just trivia, but big picture stuff, too. but has written some important books that kind of give a perspective on all of this. before the oath, how george w bush and barack obama managed the transfer of power. now, i don't know why that would be newsworthy, but and managing the president's message, the white house communications operations are just two of the things that you've looked at that give some focus here. i'd like to frame this conversation a little bit with a

couple of clips and pictures that kind of get us started. television is a powerful medium. i was the cnn white house correspondent in the days when cnn was revolution analyzing news because and the power of the camera because suddenly it wasn't just walter cronkite. it wasn't just 630 at night. it was any time the camera could be on and the president could speak in a long form in a speech or an event, and we might take it live. and that brought it to living rooms around the country, around the world in real time. but it wasn't always that way. so let's see if i can make this work. there we go. john kennedy. john f kennedy is often said, known as the person who brought the presidency to television and vice versa. this was his first news conference in 1962. and as mike mccurry points out, it wasn't at the white house. this was at the state

department, correct? right. and let's just listen to a minute of this. just made for. speaking about the russian atomic test and these negotiation is, as you know, scheduled to begin early in february. they are of great importance and we will need more time here. and a clear american position. so there he was standing in front of the group, two microphones reading from a prepared notes, very stiff, very formal. it changed over time, not just the news conference, but the sit down interview. tom brokaw with gerald ford. it changed over time. it became a crowded briefing room. and there's george w bush. and look at that. the place is jammed. and we have been there to it changed over time with barack obama announcing the death of osama bin laden with a very solemn ceremony. and that camera in the foreground taking those words

around the world. what has changed is not just been the technology, of course, and the speed, but the audience and the expectations. so let's dive in. mike, as a press secretary, when you think about this change and how this has sort of swept over us and it's now about speed, what is the biggest component in terms of actually communing? keating from the white house that you see? well, i think too often is speed that you have to stay on top of the story and try to stay in front of the story. and that creates a little bit of a dilemma because we don't pause long enough sometimes to really consider what are the most important elements of that, because the camera moves, the story moves, the news cycle jumps ahead to whatever the next crisis or subject is. so i think one of the consequences of having the televised presidency is that it's all immediate, all the

time, and that, you know, that's sometimes not the way government works. government works slowly. policymaking takes time. making that sausage is sometimes not an easy thing to put on television, but it is the consequential beast, which sausage on sausage making on a lot. but that is the consequential business of the presidency. and sometimes i'm not sure that we capture that adequately through all the television coverage that we have. kelly what are the things about jfk as he was a telegenic president, he was young and dynamic and the medium was new. not many people had it still in their homes was growing thing, but that bringing together of the picture that photogenic thing and the information here he's talking about geneva arms talks, pretty serious stuff. has that equation of information in versus picture changed over time? how do you balance that in the environment we're in now? well, certainly since john f kennedy, every president has been tested through the lens of can they be a televised

candidate and president ultimately they're tested as that process goes through. and so they know it's a part of their job. and one of the things that i think especially happens when there is breaking news is we look to a president to address depending on the type of breaking news, is it an opportunity to seize the moment and bring calm, to bring answers? to send a message internationally to our partners, allies or foes? is it a way to bring the nation together? is it a way to control the moment? there are a lot of different uses that a president can seize. the power of this collective experience. one of the things that i find very fascinating about working in television at the white house is the white house is a place where everything that is important in the world is intersecting. there, and some of them will bubble up and demand attention that day. some will take a long time in terms of policy and plans to

develop. and when something bubbles up, that is a chance for a president to harness that power. we are there every day. the lights are fixed. the microphones are set. a president can literally take steps from the oval office to come to the briefing room or we can set things up on the south lawn. sometimes you're competing with the sound of the marine one helicopter and so forth. but the immediacy is something a president can use or not use. so michael deaver, who worked closely with with president reagan, who was known fondly as the great communicator, had this great line. he said, my job is to like the president. it was his way of saying the picture predominates. so how do you balance today when this has now been around for a lot longer? i mean, that's 30, 40 years ago now. the picture, the hijacking, the information you were trying to convey? well, the staff has, i think, an inordinately difficult job of

managing the imagery. if the president is on the road or traveling, i think how they stage an event becomes critical. for example, if they stage an event and you are at a location where there are a lot of choices to be made about where the president stands, about the lighting, they bring in different things like that. but the head on camera position, which is the obligation of the tv pool, which is your constant shot of the president, that will be framed very tight of just the president. and so they have to contemplate how will that moment look? they'll have the sweeping picture. president trump often said, oh, they're never showing the crowd. there was always a crowd camera. there's an obligated camera that must always stay on the president. and that image sometimes times, is a particularly attractive one, and sometimes it may not be as attractive as the experience of being there in person. so sometimes there's an advance

person's challenge. there are times where a president is competing with the sound of the rain pouring as he's trying to communicate something important. competing with the chopper, as i described. so there are a challenge is but that also adds a reality to the experience. martha, play historian for us here for just a minute because i put up that video clip of john f kennedy walking into the press conference, the press conference for the longest time was in some ways the dominant television image and message delivery system of the present united states. and i know you've kept track of this. i remember doing press conferences, primetime press conferences at the white house in compton, remember? i mean, this was like and you knew something big was coming because helen thomas had had her hair done that we were at. it was prime time prime time. prime time was a big deal. and america watched. and every newsroom watched and every headline in the next day reflected what happened in prime time, what's happened to the

prime time news come? well, the last two presidents, biden and trump, had none. zero and zero. and and obama had four. but they were all in this first six months. and reagan, by this time, had one. do you asked me that question? yeah. he had had seven night time. 15 at the white house, but seven were nighttime and when you look at his diary, you see that he prepared for several days for the it was a big deal for the white house to it was because this was an opportunity not only to project him and his personality, but what his interests were and what his knowledge was. so they would prepare sometimes in one set that i looked at. he had his economic advisers come in to talk to him. foreign policy, national

security and domestic policy. so when a president comes out in a press conference, he is pulled together from throughout the bureaucracy. the information on what was going on. and then he took time on two of those days to practice in the white house theater. mike, to you, to your through the loss of the prime time presidential press conference, you know, a point that i would make about that is preparing for that press conference is an action forcing event within the government. i mean, we would sit around with president clinton and vice president gore and get ready for a press conference. and i'd throw out my job was to be the nasty reporter asking the question which got me in trouble. sometime. but but he would we would give him what the prepared talking point or answer was, and clinton would look and say, well, that's just mush. and we'd say, well, you want to do something about it. so he'd pick up the phone. he'd call the secretary of labor

or he'd call someone else. and government said, well, we've got to get a better answer to this question. so really, one of the advantages is that it moves the process forward and it requires better decision making. i think so. i think that's one of the important aspects and it's a really interesting thing to think about, about how this television event focused those in power, to think about not just what they were saying and how they were saying it, but what the policy was behind what they're doing, the quality, the questions, too, because we are now in a situation where i'm boiling down to bumper sticker level as few words as possible. can the president hear me willing know what i'm trying to ask him? whereas in a presidential press conference in prime time, you have the microphone, you have the president's attention. you can ask a nuanced, thoughtful question and he will understand what you're asking. he has a moment to contemplate

it and give you a thoughtful answer. now, we're often competing with all those other things in the room, trying to just get his attention. and it really becomes haiku. and i hope he hears me. i hope he understands and i hope he will answer. and it's a very different quality of questioning. so certainly, as we think about the cameras in the white house, the press conference is one place and venue, but it's certainly isn't the only one. and we can see over time a number of different places and ways in which the camera has played a role. so let's take a few of those now and discuss them. so let's think about a big news, a major news event. all right. so this is one of the earlier times when cameras were invited in 1947, harry truman and announces that he's going to run for a second term president ronald reagan and his top advisers gathered around what the televisions, watching the coverage of the challenger disaster when america's spacecraft blew up, talking,

taking several lives with it. this is a wonderful video clip that i want to share with you. this is ronald reagan bringing mikhail gorbachev into the oval office to sign the guestbook and then sit in that in these chairs and cameras were live. for. 20. people and sit in front of the soviet heading. you didn't know to do this process. and and. and you and tells gorbachev

there will be five waves of cameras and reporters coming in from all over the world for i was there for this. okay. and for those of you who are around during this time, this was a moment of incredible high drama. mikhail gorbachev in the oval office, the soviet union, the united states. it's interesting to explain this to young people what what this was really all about and the tension of this moment. mike, what about capturing the mood of a place of a moment like this? well, you you can see here that it is absolutely essential that the stage managing being carefully done, that the moment that is created reflects whatever the president's priorities are, that it becomes a visual image of something that's much larger and more important. this one being obviously on the eve of an important change. and in our world, the end of the cold war. so how you frame those moments and how they look and how that

is communicated to the people becomes, you know, one of the central challenges of being on the white house staff. i mean, that you spend a lot of time thinking about what are these moments going to look like and how are they going to be captured and how are they going to be broadcast to people? because you're making history and you're conscious of that all the time. i think when you're working at the white house, martha, is there are there many moments like this that are even remotely unscripted and not that this is not unscripted and clearly it's choreographed, as mike points out, but in thinking about cameras bringing people inside, there's both opportunity and danger and so, yes, if when eisenhower went on television with press conferences, his staff had recognized his press secretary, james haggerty, and many of his support was from the campaign, recognize that you needed to create a pr shop in

the white house and and so they they set about doing that. they brought in robert montgomery, who was a producer and actor who did staging and you have had succeeding administrations to create not just that press office which always exist and are from around 1927. and then nixon formalized the communications operation that would do the future planning and doing the stage setting. and that was done at the beginning of the nixon administration. they realized it right in 1969, that that's something that they should do. and every administration has had such a shot because you have to think of how are you going to get now, how are you going to get the public's attention? because there's so many

different. ways in which you can do it. it's a goodbye to that point. kelly, have you seen the threshold change of how you're going to get the public's attention? i mean, there are some larger themes here that we should talk about, big changes that have taken place that when john kennedy stepped to that stage, when reagan walked into that room with gorbachev, there wasn't social media, there wasn't a constant disinformation campaign. there wasn't this disaggregated it audience that there is now. we were talking a while ago that when there was a primetime press conference, it was the president pretty much talking to the country. that's a hard thing to duplicate today, very hard for the president to talk to the country. so how about that threshold that martha was talking? well, i particularly love seeing these clips because that i think reminds me and arms me with things all taken to the white house tomorrow because it is so important to be reminded that we're not just covering today's news event. we are building the historical record. right. and everything that you see in

these images tells you who was standing near the president. what was the body language, who was in the room in a place that gives you some insight about the influence that is on the. and there's so much information there that is more than the news event itself. and that's something i think about every day when we're covering events today. for example, president biden welcomed in the new democratic leadership that was in the roosevelt room. ron klain, who is this current but outgoing, we believe, based on our reporting chief of staff, was there at the table 40 years from now when people look at that, that tells a story about what was happening in this moment, covering it and having a chance to let that moment breathe and let people see it in a real way. it's critically important how important you think about that video, how important is it and how do you now do it to get a president out there on a big news story? those cameras are always on and the demand is like, get there

now. do something now. pick up on a point that martha said that structure of the white house staff is important to understand. there are two different offices. there's a communications office and a press office. the communication office is the one that does the planning orchestrates the event. you know, figures out who's going to stand where, what the background is going to be, what the message is going to be that's portrayed on the wall. if you think about it, that's the product development side of the house. the press office is the retail sales part of the operation because you have to go out and sell this stuff. sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, and sometimes they buy and sometimes they walk away. but that's the juxtaposition there that i think is necessary for a successful communication. you've got to have both the planning that goes into orchestrating the event and understanding what the what the message in the picture will be. but then you have to have a reliable way to talk about it and answer questions about it

and to face criticism, to face skeptical reporters. we're going to ask tough questions. what was the biggest crisis that you what was the biggest news story that you had during it? aside from that which we shall not talk about, but we will in like in the major policy department, it's interesting. we will drift into monica lewinsky when i'm sure, but let the record show that you uttered those first, you know, the the harder things were the questions of policy that were complicated and how did you how did you use. well, you had to work hard at it. i remember we at one point, president clinton announced that we were going to regulate tobacco and the theory of the case was that you may not know this cigaret is a medical delivery device. that was the theory because it delivers a dose of nicotine to the to the human body. and on that basis, he then promulgate that rules. and the fda was involved. so i had the secretary of health and human services there, donna

shalala, and i had david kessler, who was the head of the fda, and they went up. i said, are you guys have to you're the experts on this. you've got to answer the questions and they got so wrapped up in the minutia of this regulation that i could tell, looking at the reporters, i said, you know, one of them was. and so i would have and those of, you know, these two individuals booted them out of the way and took over the podium because i had i had stayed up and studied this thing and read it. it's hard work and and so i answered the question. i kept looking at them and saying, am i getting this right? but the important thing is at the end of the day, you have to explain things in a way that is accessible to the american people. and i think that's what the advantage of television is, that it gives you that opportunity, even if you're not getting an, you know, the whole country watching all at once, you get the opportunity to lay the case out and to have people understand what it is you're trying to accomplish.

but, martha, there's big news of bin laden, a major policy announcement. there's also crisis and controversy. this is a news conference or a briefing room appearance by president trump in the middle of the covid crisis. and we had policy, but we also had controversy. chrissy, from your point of study, looking at cameras and the impact of television does inevitably crisis in controversy overwhelm the information? and we get distract it by that? well, i say you look at that you see of somewhat chaotic scene and i think that typified a lot about about the white house i think in in price's administrations do handle it differently like bringing in people who are experts, for

example, when the challenger blew up the reagan white house, brought in people from nasa and they stayed at the white house for a couple of weeks so they could answer questions about it. when in the obama administration they wanted to talk about the iran deal, they brought in. this is an example of a success. they brought in ernest moniz from the energy department, who was very clear and was able to speak authority natively, but have an understanding of what the reporters knew. so in a crisis, people are going to tune in and and the bin laden statement was way late at night and it was, i think, around 11:00. and the president had asked for

air time. and there was there was concern on around the country that there was something unfolding. and so they had to let out that it was going to be the bin laden killing and they had an enormous one of the largest audiences say, well, these these these moment these huge news moments, certainly, but their audience, they're difficult to come by. mike, let's go down memory lane for a minute here. and i have a you know, cameras in the white house. these are famous words. so one thing to the american people, i want you to listen, i'm going to say this again. i did not have sexual relations with that. but i want to say one thing. i want to the american people. i never told anybody it.

i'm going to say something to you know, i did not allocate, you know, a couple of pieces of video running at the same time or the ones. okay, so, mike, i can't take a mixed up. it was that w there was a. but cameras in the white house and a crisis i mean and remembers i do to iran-contra cameras wherever there you get a controversy and the cameras don't quit. so how do you manage television? and this constant focus when you're in the middle of white hot crisis? well, i mean, the most critical thing is to make sure you have got facts and that the facts are reliable and that you can slow things down to the point that you can actually put together the information you need in order to tell the truth. and i got in trouble one time

for saying something i got asked by helen thomas. she came up with what can you ever lie when you're the press secretary? i said, no, you cannot lie. sometimes you have to tell the truth slowly and what i meant with that, i got in trouble for that. but what i meant by that is that sometimes you don't have the complete story or sometimes someone's definition of sexual relations may be different from what mrs. mercury's was or is. but you. so you have to stick to what you know is verifiable. i think marlin fitzwater, one of my predecessors, a wonderful guy a great press secretary, the only person been press secretary of the two presidents, said that that is the that is the ultimate responsibility of being in that job is to verify the information that you're getting. and if you're not completely sure that it's reliable, then you have to back off. i am thankful that during this whole episode i never went

beyond anything that i was given to or given to me by the president's lawyers and his legal team. and i had to go after question. question one of my briefings went on for more than an hour, 41 different questions about what did he mean by that? what's the definition of that? just based on that clip you just saw? and i just stuck to the script that i had been given by the lawyers and got at one point i said, look, i'm double parked in the no comment zone now. you know, there's nothing else i can say. i think that and this i'll just jump on this. whoever wants to go. i think one of the concerns often expressed by the public is that television. feeds off of this stuff that there's a if there's a problem or a controversy and and real news, whatever that may be, however you may define that gets to the back. is that a fair criticism or is any any media i mean, long

before there was television, there were banner headlines on the lindbergh baby. i mean, there's all kinds of stuff out there. so is that a fair criticism of television? i think that there is a great burden on the consumer of news to be able to work through all that is out there. if you want serious review of policy, there are places to get that. if you want the immediacy of what events are happening now, television is a great place for that. if you want quick headlines through your phone, i think there are a lot of things that people don't understand about how we do our jobs, and i understand that i'm. sure, there are plenty of shortcomings in my understanding of how people do their jobs, but right now we're in a situation where we have been peppering the current press secretary, who is limited in what she, i think, has been given permission to talk about with respect to the biden documents circumstance and has referred us a great deal to the white house counsel's office

and it has been a challenge for the reporters and i'm sure a challenge for the press secretary is we are trying to find different ways to elicit something new to cover the ground, to move the ball. and if you are a viewer who is watching that and you may not understand what we're trying to elicit, it can look repetitive it can look, you know, like we're bullish and there are a lot of things that might not be ideal. that's the sausage making. martha. the the one of the things that's changed, of course is we can call it we can cry about it, but we can also call it a democratized version of information. and presidents have tried to keep up with the technology, right. so now it's not just television, a cnn camera or an msnbc camera. that's but it's a ticktock camera. it's not really a camera, but it goes back out on tik-tok. so how have you seen whether it's crisis or otherwise this technology changing? well, the imagery of the white house is projected to the american people and the world. yeah, i've one of the areas i can see it is the interviews that president biden has chosen

to do and he's chosen to to aim to particular audiences that at certain times. so he's wanted to get to young people for examples. so he had an interview with in the east room of the white house that the white house didn't didn't promote to that particular group. and they were six young people. and each one of them had an issue. abortion student loans, things that they individually and then they were doing sensibly through social media. and it was it was on instagram, facebook and it was on tech talk. and even though the federal government doesn't want people using tech talk, the president has used tik tok for is for his interviews. so i see it there. when reagan was president, he did interviews by hugh sidey, for example, part four, who was

once our board chairman here. and he they would do weekly interviews with the president and all of the news magazine because that's where people were getting their information. i want to talk about one other thing now, too. when we talk about television in the white house, it's really interesting and really important is that is the camera outside of the white house that when the president goes on the road, the camera goes with him, television goes with him, there's, you know, president nixon, pat nixon at the great wall, 1972, this is a picture of george walker bush in new york, the famous bullhorn speech. i think we have a clip of it, which i will roll in just a second. and the power of a camera that goes with the president on the road to capture a moment and a message. can you roll that clip. off your.

guys are going to day and then on bended knee. while we can i hear and soon everyone that brought these buildings down will hear you is what i wish we had that and we won't go to it. you can get up to whatever you want to get to the next chair it is. i want to roll that. let's take a look at that. you want to know. i'm american today will get on bended knee in prayer for the people who are lost here. what for? you are here for the families who are in this nation. staff what the good people of new york city, new jersey and connecticut as we mourn the lost houses of our own.

i can hear you. mike. this is that's great. thank you very much. this is an increase, terrible example of the of the power of the message and the medium on the road at a time of immense national crisis. but one thing is powerful about that is that it was impromptu for all that we talked about the planning and everything else that goes into that was not scripted. it was and it was genuine and authentic. and you really saw a glimpse of something that's the most interesting moments of the presidency or when something is not scripted in advance. and when you see them, you get a glimpse of the character, the person. it's one of the week you mentioned that i have been involved in presidential debates. i think that those are some of the most interesting moments in our presidential debates that you recall are things that are

when there's a flash of temper or where there's something that's really revealing about the person and that's something that you get from television that you wouldn't get. i don't get many of those spontaneous moments. how do you. well, i do think there is the potential for it. and it is the chance to show emotion. the the tear from president obama on sandy hook. that is an enduring image. there have been flashes of anger from a president occasionally or when presidents go to comfort people and there is a real moment of human empathy that comes through. it's an essential moment of character or humanity there to television is uniquely able to transmit. people, feel it, and so on television quickly, go ahead and remember, president obama singing amazing grace. yes. in charleston, which was a revealing moment and not something that any white house aide has said, hey, you, here's

what you have to do. let's let's turn the page just a bit and say that it's not just presidents who take advantage of the camera and the white house. this is jackie kennedy and the very famous tour of the white house. as you may know, cbs charles collingwood, rhodes scholar, wandered around with her and she brought the american people inside the white house in a completely different way. here's barbara bush sitting down for a phone interview. adorable, sorry, sitting down. now related, but mistake them that are sitting down for an interview is the role of the first lady starts has very much take shape michelle obama using the south lawn and the and the the garden and the kids to to convey a very different message. martha again, as a as our historian here, how have you seen the first lady's relationship to the camera

bringing the camera in effect the it certainly is very important. the jackie kennedy tour of the white house. truman had had one of with an eye on the white assembly that wasn't quite the same in black and white, and then hers she had an audience of around, i think. it's 80 to 88 million people. so that was a was something of a national moment. what often happens, the first lady is seen by the senior staff of the white house is a source of maybe she's going to cause trouble when they come in, but then they recognize that all of a sudden the gosh, her poll numbers are higher than his. and so then they start using the first lady. so they become very important and giving a human element a view of what is the president

really. so imagery around first lady, that's yeah, so it is it is very important that we um and we saw that with michelle obama that he seemed to be pretty cool and she was very warm and very empathetic. you would see her there with the kids and undoubtedly hugging heads might kill you on a general. one of the things that i think is so important is in my coverage across for president, but what i think is important for the white house press corps to do is to have a chance to talk about the families, the cultural moments that are the white house, things that go beyond politics, beyond the tribal partizan experience that can happen in our country and first lady's help to do that, the artistic guests and, entertainers they bring to the white house can do that the i

have a side hosted now called the first pets. i love to report on the dogs and the cats because people really hammer on their collars so we can see well you know if if i run into an all of my colleagues know about it and they send me pictures of commander or willow seen in the wild on the grounds there because i think it connects people to what matters about the white house. that is not politics. these are real families who for a time live in that white house and they are a part of our cultural story. look at this. this is a great piece of video. we saw president reagan bringing in mikhail gorbachev. this is mrs. reagan during mrs. gorbachev. so it's not just it's you know, atmospherics and christmas trees. sometimes first ladies are using this camera to convey real interest in policy and things. they have portfolios. mrs. bush was certainly about afghanistan and the literacy issues. each woman who has had that role has had an important policy

agenda. and they have they have very important staff. people acknowledge me, right. who's here? i mean, the people who work with the first lady's staff are equal to the people in the west wing who work for the president. in many cases, because of exactly this, we don't have i've been binge watching the crown. you know, we don't have royalty, but we do have a family. and that conveys part of the story and the narrative of what a white house is about. and eleanor roosevelt was the president's eyes and ears. and so that she went and there was a wonderful new yorker cartoon where they miners down in the mine and they say, i think mrs. roosevelt is coming. and she then will report back and she had her own column. let me show you a couple of other images here. and we'll talk about that. a couple of other big things and then open it up.

so i like to call this elevating allies and icons. right. using the white house and the pictures that you can pull out of it, too. i mean, you don't need any words around that. it is maybe one of the weirder pictures. why the white house talk about an unlikely pair this also is president obama, the medal of freedom awards in. 1920 16. welcome the white house, everybody. today, we celebrate extraordinary americans who have lifted our spirits, strengthen our union, push us toward prize. i always loved doing this event, but this is a particularly impressive class. we've got innovators and artists like among servants, rabble

rouser. athletes, renowned character advocates like the guy from space, the game. we pay tribute to those distinguished individuals with our nation's highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom. how so? here. this is an incredible crowd. ellen degeneres, robert de niro, bill gates. kareem abdul-jabbar. frank gehry. the ability to have event, bring a camera in and bring these other dimensions of america to you, put this image on television. oh, yes. this is one of the events that often is carried live, is almost always included in our nightly

newscast. and one of those things that jumps out into a cultural touch moment, i also think when the championship teams come to the white house, that's another one that people relate to and look forward to. and certainly medal of honor is another one when it comes to people who are notable like this. i think it just touches every part of american life and it is not about the president. it's about american talent and engines. twitty and art and, the president is simply the person and conveying that honor. and so it is bigger than the and i think it's one of the great american tradition is. and as you could see, president obama and every other president i've covered truly enjoys those moments. i covered the white house for nearly four more than seven years. and the big story was the white house easter egg. yeah, yeah. people want see this? yes. so, mike, you're the you're the you're the image meister here.

what are the pictures? what is the television. and that connects with people that, you know, connects with people. well, i mean, great example here. it's when you connect to the walks of life that americans experience and when you touch them about something that is relevant to who they are, what they think the country is about. i mean, those are the great moments. you know, we've talked a lot about how television television can elevate and amplify moments like this where whereas, you know, celebrating something exceptional about the country. but television also needs to do, i think, the job of giving us the nitty gritty and the hard work that goes into it. i mean, i would i we had television coverage of markup sessions in the us congress where people would roll up their sleeves and are actually doing the book positively riveted by the c-span coverage of the process of electing or not on speaker of the house right, right. bringing people but the white i

mean they're so my point is there has to be this balance between the glamor, right? and then the gritty. what really is the real work here? let me ask you all one very quick question. i just put in this thing here on the glamor. last week, the golden state warriors came to the white house and steph curry came to the briefing room with steve kerr and the briefing room was just chockablock. if you could hardly get in the room. there were so many reporters reflect the interest in and seeing that seeing curry and then after he left, gradually, if you or if you were here or if you were people, they seemed to just simply vanish when it down to the nitty gritty of of news. i'm going to ask you all a very unfair question and ask you to try to put it in the soundbite this would be a tv guy. can i ask this question? i'm was you do and then go to

your to some of your questions for a few minutes and we'll be just a few minutes and you'll all be on your ways with with your evenings. we've seen a gotten a sense of what television and cameras have meant from the earliest days through crisis and controversy, through celebrating different walks of life and trying to bring the white house, the people's house, to the people in the public. but it's come at a time and we've talked some about this of a much more competitive, much more rapid fire. 24 seven media that has also become about social media and has been complicated by this and disinformation and a pretty tough, polarized environment out there. i'd just like to hear briefly from each of you. and then as say, we'll open up to questions. do we understand our white house better? are we being well-served, the public being well-served by this? well, that is mission every day. and it's one that i'm proud to

do, along with all of my colleagues, to try to take the messages of the white house and the issues of the white house. and i happen to work in television, but for all of us in our various media outlets to try to tell the people story and the president's story, it is incumbent on those who consume news to do their homework, too, and to seek out quality and to recognize that news needs to not just be curated but needs to be edited and needs to have professionals structure around it. so there's work to be done for the consumers of news and always more work for us. like you said, money. your biggest mistakes was turning the camera on during the briefing. we have too much imagery. is the public being so there is very often too much noise. but i think if i were thinking of the bumper sticker question, i think credibility is the word that i would use that reporters have to be seen as being

credible in the reports that they're giving to the american people and white houses need to tell the truth and have to be respected as people who are willing to confront hard truths sometimes and deal with things that go wrong. the stakes that happen. and that is not an easy thing to do. but i think i think maintaining credibility would the the gold standard. i think, yes, with the televised and is continues to be important and giving us a sense of who the president is and and it gives the president an opportunity to get his message out and find out whether the the public likes it or not. i mean, i remember george w bush going to the border and doing many interviews and talking about immigration legislation

that that he wanted and the public just didn't want it. the the retirement also that that he pushed the message out there in a lot of different ways. but he found out that that that maybe they didn't want what he was trying to sell. but i think if you look at look at his presidency, look at him as a person, you knew who he was. you had a good sense of that. and i think we have gotten that with all of our presidents. and and so i think television has been a positive. but i also think kelly is right. we we as citizens have an obligation in a in a democratic government. it's important to maintain that government. and one of the ways of doing it is really finding out what is going on and reading a variety

of news sources and not just following one that may fit in with one opinion, as i like to say, every news consumer now, his or her own executive, you choose and you're responsible for the information you consume. so we we all share that few minutes of questions from the audience. if anybody would like to go first right here. yes. i mean, upfront, front row, i'm sorry. go ahead. we'll come back to you next next. you start you talked in the beginning about the prime time press conference. why have we lost it? because we've lost the audience. mr. mccurry well, there have been occasions where the networks have refused to give the president time for primetime press conference. and i think that's partly because the audience is so dis aggregated and there are so many other places that they can go. and so many competitive things. you know, 57 channels that would

be on. and you know what is the utility, the value of running your own entertainment program versus putting on something from the white house, particularly if you think that the president is using this just to push a message, which is, you know, i think gloria, i think ann and i were at the white house the very first time the networks, the press at the white house asked the networks for primetime coverage. and the networks said no. and and one of the reasons they gave was, well, you have cnn now and this is political or whatever. so the threshold also changed when they weren't the principal carriers of this message anymore. and they could say, you know, this is not sufficiently newsworthy or we've got other money we want to make elsewhere. they didn't say that, but there is considerable cost. there's considerable cost to to give up programing for an and to have three networks to do that.

so they tried to do the balance of what they think the public interest is versus giving up of that time. oh, thank you very much. thank you all for speaking tonight. my question is provided various comments about it's the public's responsibility to do their homework in regards to the information that served to us. i have a problem with that. so as when i first started college, i want to be a journalist. i just wanted to produce the facts. that's what i expect to hear. and i would think that most people in this room might expect to hear that because we all work various jobs and may not have time and we all want to be involved in politics, hence why we're here tonight. so why would that statement be made? why do we need to do our homework? i guess we need to do our homework, but we should just hear the facts from journalists is my opinion. yes. well, what i mean, when when i am saying that is that we now

know that there are a variety of news outlets that have an ideological opinion that, may have a niche in way that they are focused on material. and so what i'm saying to be well informed about a variety of topics, be aware of that so that you know what it is you're getting and be mindful of what you're consuming. that's what i'm suggesting. i'm not suggesting that you have to spend all your free time reading lots of news. i'm a traditional news journalist. i do work that is not ideologically driven and. i've worked very hard at that for a very long time. there are lots of different outlets and i think it is actually challenging sometimes for news consumers to know what it is they're getting. and so that's that's harder part for people who are reading material. if you're reading things on the internet, you may not know the ideological point of view. you may not know if there's an editor involved.

everything that i do for, nbc, there are multiple editors who review what i do. there are lawyers involved. before i put things on television. it's not just me out there on my own. there are standards that are involved in addition to training and 30 years of experience doing this, there's care put into that. now, that doesn't mean i won't make mistakes. sometimes we're all human, but my point is there's a variety of ways, especially as a fractured universe, things will look like news because people can self-publish and we can all, you know, put things out there. so that's all i meant be a smart consumer is what i'm and when i when i was saying that everybody has their own executive producer, i don't mean to let anybody in the media anywhere off the hook. you know, in any realm of thought, you are responsible for getting it right for pursuing the truth, without revealing your sources, for being transparent with whether the information comes from you are responsible if you get it wrong and you need to stand up and accept that for sure for sure.

all i'm saying is to kelli's point, there is so much stuff out there. you need to be an informed consumer, right? there are really good mattresses and really bad mattresses. right. right. same thing. we have time for a couple more one here and then we'll go over there. i just want to ask you about something called watergate that was on that's the hotel apartment complex. that's what it is. but you just said about being an informed consumer. and i had happened to have a baby around the time that that was on. for how long was that on? it was on for at least days. oh, a long time. and i really want to know how if all if any of you know, how that impacted society to have the president, the united states. be accused of what he was accused of. i mean, when when it was over and i watched it for days, i'm telling you guys, they should replay that when it was over. it was clear to me that was a

setup deal. that whole thing was just a setup deal. and nixon took the fall and i and i would like your opinion on that. there's a lot of history. and another white house series that we have on that. but anybody want to comment on on the impact of the televised hearings and the presidency? well, in in those hearings, i think that the public in the whole issue and the coverage by the washington post and the new york times, of all the things that became part of of watergate, think the news organizations certainly gained respect from the public and for the the truth of of what they projected. and it certainly has has changed as far as public attitudes towards government and towards the press as well.

i think we have time for a couple more questions, sir. my question might have some similarities to that last one. but, you know, we have learned through history that years later, the press, in effect, was covering up for president roosevelt with his polio and president kennedy with extramarital affairs or his health in general. what changed that? it was a television or was it watergate? what was the change that made the press suddenly such a fascinating question. not like want to play ball with the white house so much, right. i mean, media changed, society changed. i add to not just watergate, vietnam. and i think it was the realization that the cozy nature of the white house and the reporter and the relationships was just not going to cut it when had doubt that you were

being told the truth by the president and the people around the president. and so i think the culture of that reporter and principal relationship changed dramatically on television a role there too, because it went places and showed people pictures, showed people what reality looked like on the ground. so it wasn't just somebody somebody's word for and people want more information and and you think see evidence like the freedom of information act in the in the 1960s that people want to know more and so watergate i think fed into to that growing realization that there's a lot more information out there and the public wants and so i think those those efforts have have expanded over the years of what we want to know.

one last question. if you've got it, did you have one last question or is that it. one last question over here. why don't we you have to make can we do that front row? there we go. i i'm a student at gw. it's not okay. and i was wondering like in terms of like television, maybe it might die out. do you think it will, like, die out because of the social media? you know, that's a great question for the night. i, i, i, what's the future kelly going to be unemployed anytime soon? yeah, i had a sinking it. i think that a visual medium is not going to die what we call it how you receive it, how you pay for it, how you watch it might change but i think the desire to be connected in a live way in in a way where materials played back, you know, a jetsons model, something i can't even think of.

i think will continue. now. you probably don't pay for cable at home, do you? wow. oh, wow. okay. well, i'm impressed by that because most young people don't pay for cable. i will be the last cord cutter on the final day of the final. so i have now i've given my professional life to working in tv. so i have a i'm bullish on tv. i think people want the opera community to see things in real time. and i think that that will be an enduring desire and i think the chance to experience things collect late, which we don't often get to do, to experience something at the same time together, whether we're doing it watching tv or in some other way that we're connected will endure and political leaders will want to harness that. and the white house will always want to be at the forefront of that. whatever we call it, make. why i can't add much to that

other than to say that i agree that we want to be connected to our leaders and we need to them. and so somehow or other visually, we are always going to have the opportunity. i think, well into the future to experience some of what our leaders experience because. we need that. we need to have confidence in them, and we need to know who they are and what they're about and present thing that will change as technology changes. we've seen that already. you know, i didn't have to deal with twitter and facebook and social media in my time. my daughter says that that was in the last century right. well, you know, it's going to be there'll be different ways in which we get the story. but one way or another, we're going to get the smarter you get the last word. well, even the leaders, when they want information on what is going on in world, they look at

television, look at the the way in which president trump was a consumer of news and of television and president johnson had his his three television screens in the oval office. so the the leaders themselves are informed. it's just the public. so the technology has changed the audience has changed. the expectation has changed. but to your question, what we hope hasn't changed is the commitment and the and the priority to get real information, to the public so that they can be informed properly engaged and make this the kind of democracy that it should be. and that's what the media and the white house, the journalism and the white house should be should be all about what a great conversation. thank you very much. thank you. thank you. back to you.

thank you very much to frank sesno, martha kumar, mike mccurry and kelly o'donnell for this very insightful programing this evening and as i sat here listening, one thing that i love about my job is i get to learn new every day. and clearly from the expertise and insights and experience of those here, we all learn something this evening. and i'm just reminded about how fortunate and blessed we are in our country to have the freedom of the press that we have people like kelly doing, her job every day to bring that information to us. people like mike to foster accessibility to our leaders and their message, and then historians and scholars to help us have context and to understand that in retrospective and in current scenarios that we live through every day on television and in other forms of media. well, this is the first of four programs we have on the media in the white house called white house history with frank sesno.

the next episode will be here in this space on march the 30th, and the topic will be women in media and, the white house. so you'll all want to be here. we hope c-span will join us for that occasion, as well as a close this evening. i invite you all to join us in the historic parlors of decatur house for a reception and to continue our conversation with our panelists and with each other. and it's called march the 30th. thank you for supporting the white house historical association.