history. as colorado state university pueblo professor matt harris discusses the anti slavery movement before the civil war. sunday at 10:00 a.m. on oral history, our women in congress feature continues with barbara finelli. at 8:00 p.m. on the presidency a look at the relationship between george washington and alexander hamilton and the accuracy of hamilton the musical. the white house historical association's presidential site summit. watch american history tv this labor day weekend on cspan3. >> white house correspondents join presidential spokesperson in a discussion between the relationship of both sides. this is from the white house historical association summit this week with representatives of presidential historic sites across the country.

it's just over an hour. >> to introduce our distinguished panel of presidents and the press is another very distinguished journalist and author and director of the white house transition project and also member of the board of the white house historical association my fellow colleague and also my fellow colleague as the committee that we have worked together on to bring this summit to life marcus kumar has been incredibly instrumental. has added a lot to the planning of this including putting together this next panel for which he is perfect to introduce the participants. thank you. thank you very much anita. they've done a great job

haven't they. it's been a super conference. well i'm here on behalf of the association to welcome you to the presidential site summit. we're thrilled to have you join us for the unique gathering of presidential leaders, site directors, education, specialists and subject specialists. thank you for supporting our organization by your attendance. our first session today is presidents in the press throughout history. this will include with the former secretary white house association correspondents, former meet the press moderators, journalists and other related speakers. they will discuss the role of media and the press play and documenting the presidency throughout history.

following this panel, we will interview mitchum. when you look at all of the events that a president has where he speaks, in looking from presidents reagan through trump, 1/3 at least a third of the occasions where he speaks are ones where our president is answering questions from reporters. so it's an important relationship for us simply because of what information we get from them. and from the sessions that they had. and the relationship is naturally a some what flawed one. leo rosten who was writing about washington correspondents

during the roosevelt administration talked about the nature of the relationship. and the way in which it's a contest over information. the newspaper man motivated by the ancient values of journalism is interested in precisely that type of news which the official, the president is least eager to reveal. in the final analysis, press conferences reduce itself to a contest between reporters and officials adapt at tradling. that's a relationship you will always see between the white house and the press. and tradling in the early 30s. william price was one of the first white house correspondents talked about

news and how newspaper minutes the white house get their news. and there's some ways in which things have not changed. as a matter of fact, it's always the result of the effort of the newspaper men themselves. there's no giving out of prepared news. there are acquaintances with prepared men all over the country, departmental officials and members of congress. enables them to get their first starter tips. the same friends develop a story for them upon inquiry. sometimes it's the question of hard digging as the minor put it to unravel a story. and that is still the case. you can see that in the white house press briefings that sarah huckabee sanders has and

her predecessors have had, with the reporters acting as miners digging for information. joining us on stage is mike mcclury a board member of the historical association and one of the planners of this presidential site summit. and press secretaries for the william clinton and also was the spokesperson at the state court and before coming to the white house. ron nesson, who was the spokesperson for ford. richard benedeta who was a columnist for usa today and now

the adjunct of journalism. and susan page who works as the journalist in washington bureau chief for usa today. and she's an author of the soon to be published biography of barbara bush called the made for matriarch. please enjoy this presentation, i know it's going to be a good one, between the president and the press. and how communications between the two have evolved and how it's changed over time and the ways in which its stayed the same. i'll sit here and you all can sit wherever you'd like. thank you very much martha for that wonderful introduction. i think on behalf of all of us as we're taking our seats, we want to thank you for what you

do to preserve history and a connection between the presidents and our current occupants of this great country. i'm really looking forward to this conversation. who knows where it's going to go but mostly we're going to try to put in context this relationship. often adviserial. this reminds me when i was in the pool covering george h.w. bush and he went for a jog. and the reporters went for a jog. >> this is not a swimming pool. >> no the press pool. we were in the middle of a

discussion. so i screamed, are you going to raise taxes mr. president. as he jogs by he says, read my hips, no new taxes. i thought i did my job that day don't you? yeah. what i want to talk about here is the historical and relationship between the press and the presidency. some say perhaps it's moved from wash -- watchdogs to attack dogs. but it has changed over time and we're going to talk about that with some reflection of where we are today but not a focus. not a preoccupation of where we

are today. so let me start by going down the line and asking each person to tell you which president they covered or presidents so we have some historical and connection. >> thank you for having us. as you can see from my beard and the gray in it i started a long time ago. i started to cover the white house in 1986 with ronald reagan. i covered reagan, george herbert walker bush, bill clinton, george w. bush and president obama. today it's more of an adventure than anything. >> i covered the white house for nbc news and then i changed sides and became president ford's press secretary. >> i covered the white house

with george h.w. bush and george bush. >> my first campaign was in 1980. i covered the white house and national politics since then. >> i served the president clinton for two years at the state department in 93, 94. then went to the white house in 1995 and spent four years which is comparatively a long time for a press secretary to be there. but i had an extra bonus. a third year because of a special intern. >> i remember those days as much as i may try to forget them. i started covering the white house in the reagan administration went from george h.w. bush. i had the privilege of interviewing five presidents. here we are. i will start with this question. as we noticed there's an often

adversary relationship between the press and the president. and there's a job to inform the united states and the world. why is it important and this is unusual in places of leadership, the press core is there. they're present on the premise, that the presidency is under such a constant glare? >> i think it goes back to something fundamental about our democracy which is we hold those who have power accountable. >> so not every american every day can walk down and ask the president what are you up to today. so the press is there as a surrogate for all american people. to ask questions that sometimes have uncomfortable. every president going back to

george washington chased at the press. they didn't feel they were getting the flattery and great coverage that they deserved. it was something that's been relatively common. that every president maybe until now has under that the press is a fundamental element of the way in which we protest our democratic process in our country. because it is a way in which we scrape out and inform the group of what's going on in our nation. >> is this from the journalist perspective. >> i'm going to use something i learned being with the press. is to answer the question that i wish i had gotten. i want to thank the archivists and others for the fantastic

work that you give to someone who didn't exactly know what she was doing. so thank you, thank you. thank you for that. i think it's hard to cover someone who says something that is different from what they said the day before. i think it's important that people do other type of coverage of the white house to step back and have a some what broader and more historic perspective. but it is part of our role as envisioned by the founders to have reporters, to have a free press that is watching the president and holding him or her accountable in a way you can only do if you're really there. being there is an important part of doing good journalism. >> ron you've been both the journalist and press secretary. you were there in great -- in

america. >> it seems to me that i was press before i was the press secretary for the president. it seems to me that the attention -- the attention that we pay to, it seems to me that -- when i was on the other side when i was the press secretary for ford, never say or do anything that you don't want to see on the front page of the washington post. i think a lot of our public officials don't understand that

rule today. but tell me your question. >> just this balance between the president being there physically and that sense of accountability that mike was talking about. >> yeah. well my feeling about because as i said i covered the white house and i was also in the white house. and i just felt like as a reporter i needed to find out everything i could find out and pass it on to the american people. and that's the rule i tried to follow. >> as a print reporter, with different deadlines than we're accustomed to thinking about today right. in the world where social media and cable television and talk radio all on all the time. do you see that this coverage has changed dramatically as the velocity of information.

>> i think it's interesting frank you started out the lap dog, watchdog, attack dog. and that's a good way to think about it. because we moved from watchdog to attack dog mostly now. part of that is because president trump has put us in the position of being the enemy of the american public which is what he calls us. fake media as he said. and i know we don't want to dwell on president trump. last night i did a little due diligence and looked at a little bit of our history. i did a book about this, feeding the beast. we're the beast in the media. that came out a short time ago. going back in history going back to john adams and lincoln and some of his really prosecution of the media during the civil war. wilson talked about how

shameless and colossal the errors were in the media. there's a history of how this relationship has been very adverserial. now both sides are on the attack. >> from your book and looking at that in that historical content. you think the notion of access and accountability have changed over time. >> there's a long history of this. roosevelt took pity. he allowed them space in the white house which started the briefing room tradition a long time ago. but even he was critical of the media. franklin roosevelt was very much friendly with the recorders w -- reporters who covered it but was very much against the owners of the newspapers and editorials. i'm sure rod and mike agree.

if he didn't like a reporters story he would call the reporters into his office and he would berate the reporter, read from the story. at one point he had a reporter standing in the corner with a dunce camp. >> that would be a tough thing to go home after. your son would say, what did you do at your job today daddy. i stood with a dunce cap with the president. what do you say about accountability. >> the american public wants to know a lot of things all the time. we can't provide them with everything but we try to give them a window into the thinking and the operation to the white house. the president wants to keep as much information back as possible. we want to get as much information that we think the american public wants. one of the things that is

interesting about this particular president that i haven't heard other journalists say this but i say this, i say, people criticize donald trump for using twitter so much, as a journalist you should love it. because you get the president's thinking every single minute. that you never really get with any other president. >> the difference is you can't just ask the question. that's where the tension comes. >> yeah that's where the tension comes because we get the information. he airs his position on what it might be at that particular moment. we can't question him directly on that again. but yet again we still get a chance down the line to come back with it. so that whether we like what the president is saying or not you're getting information. we would wait with other presidents two, three, four, five days or more to get the president's word when something was happening. as a reporter you still would want that. >> as i recall, i think it was when you were in the white house there was a series of

rockwell illustrations of the press and the press secretary and oval office. there was one with roosevelt sitting at his desk and the press sitting around. there was a very differential sense at least that's what it appears in certainly prewartime. >> i think that's so. there was a collaborative effort. >> collaborative? >> yes, i think the president coexisted with the press core that was heavily interested and sometimes heavily devoted to telling the president's story. what we've been talking about, the pres -- press woke up to the fact that they had the

responsibility not to be the propaganda machine for whoever happened to be president at the time. that they were there to hold people accountable to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfort. >> during world war ii during times of war there's been a fundamentally different relationship and certainly again pre water gate and pre technology time. >> we use the term the adversarial relationship. and it's ironic because in theory, both sides of this equation want the same thing. they both say if we could just get more truth to the american people we would be in better shape. the president, the white house,

the white house staff would say if they just could hear about the great things we're doing. they would understand what a great job we're doing here. of course the press seeing fundamentally to report the truth. the problem is when they skew apart in what matters most. and what is the agenda that the press has versus the agenda of what the president has or when they're in conflict when they often are you get this adversarial sense. >> definitely a cozy relationship during fdrs time when reporters did not tell americans he was in a wheelchair. i think that is the watergate scandal ended that period of coziness and made reporters feel their obligation was something different. >> i would actually go back a

bit. i think it was because misleading the american people about the war in vietnam. >> the vietnam war followed by the watergate scandal led to a collapse of that feeling of cozy trust. of press institution. it made reporters feel like their job was not to be friend with the president but to be a watchdog on things that the president was doing. whether it was war, or something else. >> i think there's been a very big change in the relationship since i was -- since i covered the white house. and then i was the press secretary. the big change it seems to me is in those days you had morning newspapers which had a deadline of 6:30 in the evening. you had on television you didn't have any cable television and you didn't have any internet.

and you had let's say morning newspapers. you had brinkley and cronkite on. if i covered a story at the press secretary's briefing in the morning. i had until mid, late afternoon to do research. to contact other sources and so forth. and now, i think two things as a result of cable tv and also as a result of cell phones, basically everybody is a journalist. i've got my cell phone right here. i can type any thing i want to, hit the send button and it goes out to 10 million people in the world. >> you have a very good following. congratulations. >> that's right. >> and i think that's a really big change. >> i say to people, i was with cnn and i think cnn

revolutionized things. for the first time if a president gave a speech from any place, if we took it live it was going unfiltered to an audience. not through a network, not through a newspaper. secondly we were on all the time so we were filling the air with interviewing, information, debate other things. and that accelerated and illuminated the decision making process. the governess process. >> susan says, you go back to franklin roosevelt not only did the reporters not write about his disability. he was paralyzed by polio when he was 38, 39 years old. he recovered from that but never regained the use of his legs. the press entered into a conspiracy within itself.

the veterans when they saw a new photographer taking pictures of the leg braces would slap the camera and say, we don't take pictures of the president like that. and after that the reporters regretted it. they felt they should have let the people know. they understand access works two ways. when the white house staff and a president talk to the media they not only give information out but they also learn what we're doing. you don't get much of that with the trump presidency now. they don't really care much what we're doing. they just are constantly streaming out out twitter always on the offensive. >> we were talking about the relationship between roosevelt and the press and pictures and illustrations and a very famous

picture of lbj walking the grounds with a group of reporters. and there was a time when presidents and reporters could sit down or walk and the idea was for the president to be able to speak directly and share a thought process or whatever. does that happen now or it doesn't. have we lost something? >> we've certainly lost that personal relationship that reporters who covered the white house -- the president knows the reporters who cover the white house. he knows who they are not only by name but they get to know them usually. i don't know what's happening now but i know when you covered bill clinton. when you covered george w. bush. when you covered george h.w. bush and ronald reagan they knew who you were. they wanted to know a little bit about you whether they did it in the background or whether they did it up front. by asking you question, they knew a little bit about who you were. and where you were coming from. and would kind of play to that

a little bit. i see this now, and it may have a little bit to do with who gets into journalism today. it's an interesting question with me because, i remember the days when i wanted to be a journalist. i really wanted to be a novelist. i like to write and i was going to write this great novel. i found there was a way you could make money writing, i was going to write the novel on the side. but you like people. you like being around people. you wanted to build a relationship that way and write about it. telling people the story. so when you become a political reporter, you go out there and you become a political figure you write about who you are. you want to find out something about them personally. you want to find out about what they do other than just books.

i'm not sure that reporters necessarily want to do that. see we like politics and we like politicians as journalists. that's what you were attracted to. you like people. young people today get the sense that they don't like politics, they don't like politicians and they see their only role is to be critical. rather than just being given information, they lean more toward the critical side and they think that has an affect of what people feel about politics. >> it has a critical effect. you tried this thing called psych background as i recall. >> long story, i was thinking as we were talking about senator john mccain who's memory we're you know heavy on our minds right now.

and he was masterful at drawing the press in and having conversation. you enjoyed the give and take. i tried some of that with president clinton. and you know i wanted people to sort of get a sense of his thinking, and it's hard to do that if someone is going to sit there and transcribe everything word for word. so we created some opportunities once famously on air force one where the president would come back and sit and gab with the reporter. and i got asked well what are the rules for attribution. and i called it psych talk.

>> that deposition of the president of the unite is -- united states is always on the record. >> always on the record. >> so these informal occasions where you sit back and have a beer and talk about life. that is not allowed because the president has to always be there and be accountable. there's some people particularly those who work for magazines who had more interest in color and flavor and what was really going on in the united scenes probably had more information for something like that. it was not a happy episode. >> that's right. but there's the other thing to be aware of. there were different things in the press core. the recorders are very upset when the president is not on camera on the record. we step back a little bit. a lot of us think well if you're getting -- i don't like

the idea of the president off the record. something the mike is talking about. you're getting the president's thinking. my thought was you want know as much about the president as you possibly can so when the president knows something you know what the president is thinking, you can put it in context and say that's the president i know. that's not the president i know to have some contents in. >> i want to turn us to the current -- i want to tie some of these past practices to where we are now for a little bit of context for a moment then go broad again. >> that's going to be hard to do. >> no you can do it. i know you can do it. you're very adept at these things. we're in a moment where we have more personal, more challenging, more you can argue

ideological view than we've had already. is this unprecedented. nixon had his enemies list. is this unprecedented and what impact will it have on the broad scope of things. >> it's not unprecedented. that's not new. i think the intensity of it now is different. i think when the president calls the press the enemy of the people as he did in a tweet about an hour ago, i think that's a different level of antagonism than we've seen from previous modern presidents. i think that is a -- a new place for us to be. i do think president trump deserves credit for being pretty assessable though. not only does he tweet which i think is excellent way to get a look into his thinking, the attempt to answer questions when he walks out into the south lawn to get on to his helicopter. he does a lot of interviews on

fox with friendly correspondents but nonetheless he's doing interviews with them. he talks to reporters, the reporters who have covered him for a long time. he has some off the record conversations. he does more than any modern president. in the early part he was one of the more assessable candidates i've ever covered. >> richard. >> there's an old expression in washington, never do anything or say anything you don't want to see on the front page of the washington post. and i don't think the current president understands that rule. but you know, thinking back again to my time as the press secretary to president ford, you know he was i think the pardon of nixon was so

unpopular it really turned the press against him. >> turned the press against him. >> yeah. >> you felt that at the time in the briefing room. >> yeah. as i said. it was very, very unpopular. and ford never really recovered his reputation i don't think from that. he is, i don't know, exactly how to put it. but i think he was popular until the nixon stuff came along. and ford was, he was popular in washington but not after this happened. and after the pardon of nixon i think was very, very unpopular. and i remember one time ford somebody asked ford about how he felt about this and he said,

something about those reporters, they get their -- you know he was critical of reporters. they get their information sitting on a bar stool i think was one of his favorite expressions. >> yeah, you know, their relationship changes from president to president certainly. because every president has a different penalty and the press core has its own personality and personalities change. the judgment of history has always been, i think gerald ford used to say it, wiston churchhill when we were backstage we were talking. history can't be judged until 40 to 50 years later. think about harry truman.

truman led the presidency with a approval rating of 22%. the lowest measure at that particular time. he's now considered one of the best five presidents or 10 presidents depending on the list you see. in retrospect, he could have run for reelection in 1952 but chose not to because he was so unpopular. and so he wasn't term limited out because it didn't apply to him when they changed the term limit law. but he didn't run because he was so unpopular. history looks back, and we think how did he do? he comes out pretty well. >> ford i think was very unpopular with the press. because he pardoned nixon and there was a lot of criticism of ford. he was probably our most athletic president. and as i said, and i remember one time there was all these

stories about him tripping and falling or something like that. and ford said, those reporters, they get their exercise sitting on a bar stool. >> he liked the bar stool. that was his refrain i guess. let me ask you this. in your experience as reporters. what was your most adversarial moments when you thought, it's getting really hot here. >> we've had our moments. >> and no bill clinton impersonations. >> no let me do a mike mcclury impersonation. i was working for usa today covering the clinton administration. in the morning my phone was ringing it would be joe lockheart who would be the -- lockhart. he would yell at me at stories that i had not done. stories i had not yet read on

usa today. the first time i got this call i said mike, do you think there was something inaccurate, are you asking for a correction. no he was just yelling. the third time he did this. i said you talked to clinton in the morning. mike would then say to joe to call susan and joe would come back and say i gave her hell. then you would go to clinton and say, yeah we really told them off. was that correct. >> yeah. you got that 100% correct. >> i got a few of those calls at cnn. i looked those calls. >> i always had the press secretary to make the call. then we'll be friends forever. >> i have a similar story to add to that. one day i get a phone call from scott mcclellan who's the white house secretary at the white

house, and he says the president didn't like that story you wrote this morning. and i said well what didn't he like about it. and he said he just didn't like it. it was george w. bush. i thought back what was the story. the story said president bush takes a big pride in the fact he never changes his mind where there were three places he changed his mind. it was on the front page of usa today. i said what's wrong with the story. anything inaccurate there. well no, well what does he want? he says well, nothing, he says well 3:00 in the afternoon comes. this is in the morning. 3:00 in the afternoon he calls again an says the president is still mad at that story. and i said i know what's going on. he says you call and tell him he's a big blank. and i said well what does he want. he said can i tell him you've

been admonished. i said you can go back and tell him whatever you want. he probably went back and said i told him. >> not to talk about the clinton frustration. i remember one time going over there and having an interview with doug a senior political advisor. and he paused and said am i supposed to be mad at you about something. i said -- and he couldn't remember what -- >> what he was supposed to be mad about. >> did you remind him? >> no, well i don't know what it could possibly be. but i mean we've all had these fusses i think nuno and chief of staff for president was a very difficult chief of staff to get along with. there's always that kind of an adversary relationship. i think that what bothers a lot of us now is the idea of

whether we're at the point where an administration is under mining the institution of the media by under mining. >> do you think that's the case and do you think there will be lasting change. we talk about this. dynamic process of a relationship of the press. >> i think the current administration is definitely intent on under mining the credibility of the mainstream media. partly, what they want, what president trump wants to do is get to the point where his supporters basically his base will only believe him and not believe anything else. >> let me ask a question about mike and ron here. which is tenfold, tension to the job you've held as press secretary. how does a presidential press secretary balance the commitment to both serving the president and serving the public through the relationship with the press. i mean yeah you're the

spokesperson for the president of the united states, but you're being paid by american taxpayers and you have relationships with the press in that room that depend on for a degree of trust and credibility on both sides. >> i would like to think of that challenge, thinking of the white house. all of you have been in that office that the press secretary has in the west wing. it's a wonderful piece of real estate. and it has a fireplace by the way that they will turn on for you if it's not already hot enough. and you turn left 50 feet away is the briefing room where you conduct the briefing every day.

and i, that gee graph metaphor is exactly for me the nature of the job. it's this balance between keeping that a stride those who are expecting information. producing information who ought to be the public's right to know and also serving the president who signs your paycheck. representing the president's thinking the president's point of view. what the administration is trying to accomplish. that balanced the nature. and you get the president saying you and your friends in the press are trying to destroy

everything good. >> he would say that, you and your friends. >> well, close. well, yes. >> i hope he's not watching. >> he would stop meetings sometimes and say, get mcclury in here because the press is going to be all over him on this and i want him to hear what we're talking about. and it was not because he wanted me to go and give me opinion on what happened. but he wanted me to have the understanding and the context of what decisions were being made so i could report on it accurately and truthfully. i don't think we have that circumstance. >> ron i know when you started working for gerald ford you had a conversation with him about the need for you to be near him. your proximity to the president. >> well what i told him when he offered me the job was that i needed to meet with him every day before my press briefing. because my job as i interpreted it was to answer the questions

from the press as the president would answer them if he were there. which means two things, one, i had to find out how he would answer them from him. and also, i said i wanted to attend all of his meetings with cabinet members and so forth. and kissinger didn't like that too much but basically that's what i did. i had a daily meeting with the president. and i could attend any of these cabinet meetings and other meetings. so i would come in in the morning and my staff would put together a list of the questions they thought i would be asked at the briefing. and then, some of the questions you know kissinger could ask, answer. secretary of the treasury could. but most of them needed -- i need to be able to reflect the president's views so i had my daily meeting with the president. and i don't know whether the press secretaries nowadays still have that or not. but i thought that was very

important and ford agreed to it. >> to all of you for a minute then a couple more and then i would like to open it to questions on the floor. this has been a fascinating conversation. one of the other things we talk about is the notion of credible. the presses credibility from the white house and the white house's credibility from the presser. both are under siege. there's very little trust in the information that is coming from the white house. i certainly remember when i was at the white house and when i was chief of cnn if the president said something or secretary of the press said something, a misstatement, there was an effort to quickly change the record. during bush, it was a very good

relationship there and he got a lot of credit for that. but we're not at that place now. and now there's a very particular and personal and some would say grand standing environment around this. where do you see this question of credibility now in terms of again plugging us into all the technology we have, the cameras and social media. how we regain a sense of trust in the information that is imnating from the white house -- imminating from the white house. >> we do have the obligation to give information that's more transparent. and that's been to a peril in a

sense. >> to a peril. >> to a peril i think because there's no time to double check information in other ways. so i think it's actually increased what is our fundamental obligation. we want to be first but we want to be right. we need to be more transparent with readers and viewers about how we get information and how they're being trusted that is especially true when there are so many stories that rely on anonymous sources. the president said this morning, if you see the word anonymous sources stop reading, it's not true. reporters make up anonymous sources. that's not true. we try to not use anonymous

sources. it's all an effort to create accountability. when we make mistakes which we do, try to correct them as soon as you can. i think the only way we rebuild the credibility we lost is to do our job every single day as well as we can and to kind of hold on tight. because these are turbulent times. >> a couple of things, just to show you the thousand of things we're up against. how many people can get their information from sources that are completely unfiltered, completely uncorroborated and so in other words we in the mainstream media are taking the secondary road. because people can take any view on the internet. as an example i give a lot of speeches these days. there was an occasion where i

gave four speeches over four weeks. and i got the same question, a person came by asking the same way. why don't you people in the white house press core do the biggest story in washington. this was a couple of years ago. i said what would that be. the reply was we all know that michelle obama is a man. how do you deal with that. i said where did you hear that. the people said i don't know but i know it's true. now that's what we're dealing with. >> where were you giving your speech? >> all over the place. >> he was on the bar stool. >> yeah i'm getting my exercise. but the interesting thing is, the same question asked in the same way. that's part of it. but the other thing is i think for one side or the other side, we have to have the same sort

of suggestion. the politicians in the white house need to understand that there's good reporters and bad reporters and they need to know us well enough to know the difference. there's people we can trust in government, people we can talk to people we don't. and we know how to know the distinction and it works both ways. >> i think several of us have had time as presidential libraries you mentioned that in your early summit. when i was working at the reagan library. and in the context of this conversation, the context of the flawed relationship between the press and the healthy adveresrial relationship which is good between the press and our current home. and the larger friend that we have about people not understanding their government. people not being historical in

nature. we're rather a historical -- what do you think they can do to help people see, understand, bring to life this weird relationship with the press and the presidency? >> well, one suggestion i have to all of you who have those kind of responsibility ies is to highlight these type of relationships between the president and the presidency and the media. there are wonderful photos. there are probably archival material that will lift this up. see how important this relationship is and the way we function as a democracy. so lift that and pick out those things that really at this moment in which the president

being called the enemy of the people, we need to understand how important this equation is in the way in which the presidents have functioned. and in the way we've come to understand them throughout history. >> there is criticism and presidents in -- all presidents really have had their instance. but how should that respected. >> fully and fairly. some of the great letters, the truman letter i would otherwise deliver my response on the bridge of your nose. that letter bill clinton had hanging in the oval office at one point. so there are things like that, that highlight some of the tension and some of the

adverserial relationship. >> in 1968 by the way was a very tumultuous year. is it important to understand what happened yesterday. presidential libraries have and former presidents have a kind of credibility. i think presidents gain credibility once they leave office sometimes. seen as a little less political. presidential librarys have a way to pull together officials from past administrations to talk in a way that is sometimes officials who might be reluctant to do some other form. i think that has been -- i think that has been a real asset. >> well i've had the privilege of doing research at presidential libraries for a number of years for the books i've written. and they've been lovely

research. there's a lot of presidential libraries you can go online. maybe posting the constitution is a good idea and just leaving that up there. as an exhibit, also programs are helpful. and i think that -- and the presidential libraries do a good job with this already. i have to be -- about to go to the bush library in college station to do a program on white house photographers who are saying about president ford wanting to deal with the media. dealing with the photographers, including his own photographer daniel fenely extraordinary access. but he allowed the pictures out there so people could see who he was as a person. for presidential libraries to continue the great programs they do. maybe permanent exhibits on the

presidents and the media sort of without all the blemishing shown but nevertheless understanding the importance of their relationship. >> ran what do you think? >> i've been to the ford library of course in grand rapids. again i think one of these -- that presidential libraries have is that you can step back from the kind of day-to-day political coverage and so forth. and you know with the passage of time know with the passage of time, get like a broader view of what was of what was going on, with the passage of time, you will know, he was wrong about that, wasn't he? and i think that's one of the great things about those presidential libraries. >> i think that the

presidential libraries and presidential sites too produce more programs of exhibits about the relationships between the president and the presidency because it is an important one. the public is aware of it. they don't think about it in terms of how it is supposed to operate. maybe we don't get enough of it in the schools of that kind of discussion and that kind of examination. it needs to be done because it is sort of like the foundation of our democracy that the relationship between the public and the public officials is conducted through the press and the media. it is fundamental for people. i don't know what they are doing in the high schools these days. they could be doing a lot more. all educational institutions can be doing more in talking about the relationship especially in these times when the relationship is so controversial. >> one of the interesting

dynamics and i would invite anybody with questions to make their way to the mike. technology means so much. there would be those that say we don't need you anymore but communicate directly. >> they would be wrong. >> they would be wrong. >> they would be wrong. >> we need eyes, ears and brains. >> we also need huge media literacy in our schools. we have to get beginning at an early age with kids, get them to understand where reliable sources of information are and ways not reliable and what the important role of the press is. most of you know allen, used to be at the la times, he runs the literacy program and that is fundamentally important. >> thank you, frank, and everybody for a wonderful panel

session. i'm reflecting on comparison between yesterday morning panel on presidential memory and history and what both richard and frank talked about, how the perception of a president changes over the decades after they leave office. and my question is, if that is true, that means that the perception of the president that is presented by the media currently is not accurate on. and whether that is fake news or it is not fake news, i wonder if since i don't hear it often, if there is any reflection that you hear among journalists and people that study this issue as to whether there could be a better job done by journalists and instead of just always apologizing for on how good journalism is and how the president is the one like you were saying that is always just angry over being covered that way. if history changes the view,

then maybe journalism is not doing its job. >> good question. we only have about seven minutes left so we will do this quickly and take as many questions as we can. >> i would disagree by saying that what we have covered is not accurate. not complete and doesn't have the benefit of history. we don't know what the consequences of what a president does until we see the consequences unfold. sometimes they unfold in ways that are more positive and sometimes they unfold in more negative ways. it is important to keep a sense of history and skepticism and may change overtime. >> there has to be more humility in the media about how it is done. there is too much back padding and let's fess up and take our

awards. we have to recognize the media is a plural world. the wall street journal is media and nbc and fox, all of these are media. and that is the need for on media literacy. especially in online news everything is streaming instantly and more context is needed. but also back to your thing about new consumers, you will hear from julie woodruff, gives people contacts every day. plenty of contacts to do that. consumers will have to be smarter about where they go and we will need to help them and news organizations should help them and your question is, you know, if the airline industry, an airline company has a level of press that media does, they would be flying those in the

airplanes and that's needs to be done. >> with the george w. bush home, all of you mentioned the impact of social media where people perceive your stories to be real, fake or whatever, there was a time in this country when major events would bring the country together most recently 911 and the deaths of presidents and first ladies and hurricane harvey and katrina. what responsibility do you feel the press should have in allowing the country to use the time of these events to allow themselves to come together at least for a brief period, a time, and what period of time do you think that should be? >> i think one way of looking at this from a journalist point of view, i was brought up in the idea and the field on that you have an educational function and public educators

in some ways and we have entertainment function. too much of what we do is the entertainment function and the lines are blurred as frank said. all of these different groups, you look to these panels on televisions, who is the journalist and the commentator and the politician and the strategist. it is blended together. i could understand the distinction what the journalists are anymore. as far as consensus, they are difficult to encourage from a media perspective because we are polarsized. the death of john mccain is an indication for people to beat on each other. i mean this is the nature of where we are now and i hope we come to the point that we can be more unified. a limit to what the media can do. i mean, we can try to do this sort of thing and have rally moments and political conventions used to be unifying and this is a hard to see anymore. >> exactly. what we will try to do is take

as many more questions as we can with quick answers. >> very quickly, i think one of the things that has happened to journalism that has affected the coverage and what people are getting to know is that back a couple of decades ago, the networks and the major newspapers had full time reporters assigned to the state department and five reporters on the house and senate side. you were an expert on your beat and got to know the places and sources. now, for economic reasons there's a big cut-back and everybody is a general assignment reporter. you don't have this expertise of covering a beat. >> i'm steve gilroy with the friends of sagamor hill. talking about the relationship between the presidency and the

president, when president ford pardoned president nixon what caused to you resign and how did president ford react to that and how did it affect your relationship with him? >> i agree that was the really big turning point in ford's relationship with the president. and there -- i think there was -- there was a feeling among the press that when the vice president, agney resigned, ford was appointed by nixon and nixon knew he was in trouble and thought he would appoint ford that would, you know, be more protective of him. that is one of the things to happen. about a month afford became president, nixon resigned, ford became president and then ford pardoned nixon. and what he said was he was spending 25% of his time, the

staff was spending 25% of his time on leftover nixon matters and you needed to spend one hundred percent of his time because the vietnam war was going on and big depression in the country and so forth. i think there has always been this view that there was a deal that if nixon would appoint ford as vice president then ford would promise -- to save nixon from -- >> and the question about your resignation and how that affected you? >> the way it affected me was -- >> you didn't resign? >> no. it was the other way around. >> he disagreed with the pardon and i was covering the white house for nbc and i covered ford as vice president. one of the ford five that traveled all over the country

with him in this little two engine propeller engine airplane and i wrote a book that it sure looks different from the outside and the reason i took the job is that i had covered the white house from the outside as a reporter, i wanted to see what it looked like on the inside and that's why i took the job. >> we are almost out of time. we will be really quick. charlie hyde with the presidential site. we haven't talked about editorial cartoons and how much they act as a synthesis, can you touch upon that and how much you think this has come to be defined. >> i am sorry this is the last question because you have another terrific discussion. >> it is great humor, that is what we need more of in the white house. we invited a bunch of editorial cartoonists that traveled and

one of them is hanging in my own house as a matter of fact. they capture sometimes the essence of what is probably some of the things that have happened at the white house and very important. >> quick last word. >> cartoonists are amazing. i don't know if you saw barbara bush going to heaven and her daughter greeting her there. cartoonists can hit a cord and can make a point. sharp or soft like that one that is beyond words. >> i would like to thank all of you on behalf of all of us for what you do. i would like to thank the terrific panel for the conversation. i think that we will leave you with this thought which is that accountability is the keyword but it should also and must also continue to work both ways, accountability for the white house and for those covering. thank you all very much. [ applause ] thank you all very, very much.

our coverage of the white house historical summit will continue with a story in jon meacham that talks about press relationships with presidents and since it began and compares it today and followed by historians how they choose which stories are chose. and various presidential sides talk about legacies and how they try to create exclusive history about this president. if you missed any of this week's american history tv program you can find them anytime online at c span library at c span dot org. this continues until labor day. on thursday we turn to the oral history and women that were members of congress. on friday we will show you discussions on world war i known as the great war and

including a look at soldiers on the western front and how the u.s. dealt with shell shock on. >> this weekend c span facebook you to flagstaff, arizona. with the help of our cable partners we will explore the life of flagstaff saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern. author don hugo will discuss? >> the grand canyon starts 70 miles east of here and right is where the canyon starts to widen and deepen and turn into the classic views that you see in most photographs or calendars and famous images. >> on sunday, at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, a visit to the lull observatory

to hear about discoveries including pluto and moon mapping. and a tour of the national monument. >> some may think of this as abandoned and empty but it is still a very important and living site for a lot of the descendants of people that live in the area. so hope people will come here to do ceremonies and pay homage to their ancestors. they believe they are still here. this is an important site for on many people in the southwest. >> watch c span tour of flagstaff, arizona, saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c span 2 book tv and sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c span 3 working with our cable affiliate as