between american presidents and the press. speakers include former white house press secretaries and reporters who have cover the presidency. the include mike who worked for president clinton and ron who served president for. white house historical association hosted this event as part of its presidential site summit held in washington dc. >> to introduce our distinguished panel of presidents in 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 of the committee that we work together on to bring this summit to life. this person has been incredibly instrumental and has added a lot to the planning of this including putting together this next panel for which he is perfect to introduce.

thank you. >> [ applause ]. >> thank you very much, anita. you have done a great job -- all have done a great job, haven't they? >> [ applause ]. >> it has been a super conference. i am here on the behalf of the association to welcome you to the presidential site summit. we are thrilled to have you join us for the unique gathering of presidential leaders, directors, education specialists, etc. thank you for the supporting -- for supporting our organization by your attendance. our first session today is presidents in the press throughout history. this will feature a moderated conversation with former press secretary white house association correspondent

former meets the press moderators, journalists, and other related speakers. they will discuss the role of media the press plays in documenting the presidency throughout history. following this panel, woodruff, the managing editor of the cbs news hour will interview presidential historians john meacham. the presidents relationship between the president and the press is a crucial one for all of us. when you look at all of the events that a president has where he speaks and looking from a presidents reagan through trump, a third of at least a third of the occasions where he speaks are ones where a president is answering questions from reporters. so it is an important relationship for us simply because of what information we get from them.

from the sessions that they have. the relationship is naturally a somewhat broad one. a woman who was writing about washington correspondence during the roosevelt administration talked about the nature of the relationship and the way in which it is 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 presidents, is least eager to reveal. in the final analysis, press conference -- conferences have reduced itself to a contest between reporters and officials adept at straddling. so the parroting and the

straddling is something that you will always see in the relationship between the white house and the press. writing in the early 20th century and -- in 1902, william price was one of the first white house correspondence who talked about news and how newspaper men at the white house get their news. there is some ways in which things have not changed. as a matter of fact, the news secured at the white house is nearly always the result of the efforts of newspaper men themselves. there is no giving out of prepare news. we are acquaintances with public men all over the country with cabinet officers, departmental officials, and members of congress. that enables them to get the first starter tips. these same friends develop a story based on inquiry. sometimes, it is a question of hard digging to put it minor to

unravel a story and that is still the case and you can see that in the white house press briefings that sarah sanders has for her predecessors ahead. the reporters are acting as finder is digging for information. now i have the great pleasure of introducing our first panel matter rotter -- moderator and frank is the director of the school of media and public affairs at the george washington university. joining him on stage is michael curry, a board member of the historical association and one of the planners of this presidential site summit. and press secretary, william. he also was the spokesperson at the state department before coming to the white house. ron who was the press secretary for gerald ford administration

and he also was at the white house as a respondent before that. richard who was a former white house correspondent and a columnist for usa today. he is now the adjunct professor of journalism at the american university. ken walsh who is a correspondent and journalist and columnist for u.s. news and world report and susan who works as a journalist in washington bureau chief for usa today. she is the author of the soon to be published biography of barbara bush called the matriarch. please enjoy this presentation. i know it will be a good one on the relationship between the presidency and the press and how communication between the two has evolved and how it has changed over time and the way in which it has stayed the same. >> [ applause ].

you all can sit wherever you would like and thank you very much, martha, for that wonderful introduction. i think on behalf of all of us, we want to thank you for what you do to preserve history and the connection between the presidents and our current occupants of this great country. i am really looking forward to this conversation. who knows where it will go but mostly, we will try to put some context into this relationship, often adversarial between the press and the presidency. i was listening to martha, and it warmed my heart when she talked about reporters at the white house, miners digging for information. ferreting out information. this reminded me what i was covering george hw bush.

he went out for a jog. we went out to cover the jog because this is not a swimming pool, this is a press pool. it was a small group of people. he was jogging by and we were in the middle of a debate in the country over the budget compromise. folks were negotiating at the time and there was word out there that the president was going to raise taxes. member what he said at the convention? so i screamed reading -- being the minor digging for information, are you going to raise taxes mr. president x -- president? he said read my hips. i thought i did my job that day, don't you? what we want to talk about here is the historical and contextual sense of the relationship between the press and the president. come to say that the press has

moved from watchdog to tax doll, there has always been an adversarial component but it has changed over time. so we will talk about that. and we will have some reflection of where we are today but not a preoccupation. i am just trying to contextualize it. so let me start by going down the line and asking each person which president they cover or presidents so we have a historical and biographical connection. >> thank you for having us and welcome. as you can see from my beard and the gray in it, i started a long time ago. i started covering in 1986 with ronald reagan during his second term and i covered george herbert walker bush, bill clinton, george w. bush, barack obama, and today, donald trump. i am sure will get to this but today is more of an adventure than ever.

>> ron. i covered the white house for nbc news and then i changed sides and became a press secretary. >> i am richard benedetto. i covered the white house starting with ronald reagan and george h to be bush, bill clinton, and george w. bush. >> i am susan. my campaign was in 1980, my first campaign. i covered president carter's final campaign trip and i covered the white house national politics. >> i served president clinton for two years at the state department in 92, 94 and went to the white house in 95 and spent four years which is comparatively a long time for a press secretary to be there but i had an extra bonus my last year because of an intern. >> i remember those days well. as much as i try to forget them.

i was privileged to interview many presence. mike, let me start with you. as we have noted, there is an often adversarial relationship between the press corps and the white house. and yet, there is often a fundamentally shared objective of both sides which is to inform, engage the american people. the world consumes them with in a very profound way. why is it important, and this is unusual, the press corps is there. they are the presence on the premises. the presidency is under such a constant glare. >> i think it goes back to -- back to something fundamental

to our democracy is that we hold people in power accountable. not every american every day can walk out and ask the president what are you up to today? so the press is there in effect as a surrogate for all-american people to ask questions and sometimes they are uncomfortable. every president goes up to washington -- they did not feel like they were getting the flattery and great coverage that they deserved, that has been something that they would relatively comment. i think every president maybe up until now has understood that the press is a fundamental element of the way in which we protect our democratic process in our country because it is the way in which we scrape out and ferret out the truth about what is happening in our nation. >> this is from the journalist's perspective? >> i will use a lesson i learned. i wish i had done this question

first. >> that has never happened before. [ laughter ]. >> i have done research with bush 31, bush 33, clinton and reagan. i want to thank the archivists and others with their fantastic help that you gave to somebody who did not actually know. it was really helpful and a great resource to the nation. so thank you for that. i think it is important that people who cover the president every day who understand what he says is a little different than what he said the day before. it is forcing for the people around the president, it is important that people do other kinds of coverage of the white house and step back to have a somewhat broader and more historical perspective. it is part of our role as envisioned by the founders to have reporters, a free press that has -- is watching the president and holding him or her accountable in a way you can only do if you are really

there, being there is an important part of doing good journalism. >> ron, you have been both the journalist and the press secretary. you were there. i am interested in how you see that relationship between the president and accountability? >> well, it seems to me that i was president ford's press secretary. it seems to me that the attention that we paid to i don't know exactly how to put this but it seems to me that that the reporters who cover the white house, i think, they need to -- what i was covering the white house, the rule was

-- let me put it the other way. when i was on the other side, what i was president ford's press secretary, there was a role that never do anything or say anything you do not want to see on the front page of the washington post. i think a lot of our public officials do not understand that rule today. tell me your question? >> this balance between the presence being there physically in that sense of accountability that mike was talking about. >> my feeling about that is i covered the white house and then i was also in the white house. 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. that is the rule i follow.

>> can is a print reporter with different deadlines than we are accustomed to thinking of today. in a world where social media and cable television and talk radio are on all the time. do you see if this coverage has changed dramatically as the velocity of information has increased? >> i think you started off with the lapdog, watchdog, attack dog division. that is a very good way to think of it. i think we have moved from watchdog to attack dog, mostly that. part of that frankly is because president trump has put us in a position of being enemy of the american public which is what he calls it's. thick media as he says. i know we do not want to draw on -- fake media he says. i know we do not want to draw on trump. i wrote a book about this called feeding the beast, we -- where is the beast in the

media? if you look at our history going back to john adams, lincoln, and some of his really prosecution of the media during the civil war, woodrow wilson talked about how shameless and colossal the errors were constantly in the media. jefferson after supporting newspapers and then turned against the media. there is a whole history of how this relationship has been very adversarial. now i think it has gotten to the point of -- think a lot of us on both sides are comfortable with this, and unhealthy situation where both sides are on the intact -- on the attack. >> do you think the notion of access and accountability have changed over time? >> yes. there is a long history of this. teddy roosevelt took pity on the reporters of his time and allow them face in the white house. that started the briefing room tradition a long time ago. even he was critical of the media.

franklin roosevelt was very much friendly with the reporters who covered him but was very much at odds with the owners of the newspapers and the editorial writers. i'm sure ron and mike understand how different that is but even roosevelt who thought of as the guy who did great press, sometimes, if you like the reporter's story, he would call reporters into his office and he would be right the reporter. one time he had the reporter stand and a quarter and the reporter did it -- in it a corner and the reporter did it. >> that would be a tough thing to go home to. what did you do today? >> i stood in the corner with a guns cap. >> the accountability, the american public wants to know a lot of things all the time. we cannot provide them with

everything but we try to give them a window into the thinking and the operation to the white house. the presidents try to keep as much information back as possible. we want to get as much information that we think the american public once. one of the things that is interesting about this particular president, i haven't heard other journalists say this but people criticize donald trump for using -- so much. as a journalist, you should love it because you get the president thinking every single minute that you would never get with any -- >> the difference is you cannot ask a question and challenge that in any way then. >> yes. that is where the tension comes. you get the information. he hears his position on whatever it might be at that particular moment. we cannot question him directly on that. but nonetheless, we still get a chance somewhere else down the line to come back with it so

that weather we -- whether we like it or not, you're getting information. we would wait with other presidents, two, three, four, or five days or more to you still would want that. >> mike, as i recall, there was a series of illustrations of the press and the press secretary and the global office. i remember one was roosevelt sitting at the desk and what looked like fawning reporters gathered around. you talk about this lapdog, watchdog, attack dog. let's go back to blacked out. there was a very differential sense, at least it would appear in watergate time. >> i think that is right. it was a collaborative effort. i think the president sort of coexisted with the press corps.

it was heavily interested and sometimes heavily invested in telling the presidents story. that then began to break apart because of television, because of the changes in technology in the media itself and also because what we have been talking about. the press woke up to the fact that they had a responsibility not to be the propaganda machine for whoever happens to be present at the time. they were holding those accountable. to comfort the afflicted -- >> yes, but i do not want to say propaganda machine because that is way too strong but during world war ii and times of war, there was a fundamentally different relationship and certainly again free watergate and pre- technology game. >> that is absolutely true. that is the changing nature of this relationship. it became much more of what we now call the adversary relationship and the adversity

and the two conflicting institutions built during the latter part of the 20th century. it is 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 presidency, the white house, they could just hear about all the great things that we are doing and they would understand what a great job. of course, the presidencies fundamentally to report the truth. the problem is when they skew a part in what matters most. and what is the agenda that the press has. then you get this adversarial sense. >> it is definitely a cozy relationship with the white house press corps and presence during fdr's time when reporters did not tell americans the presidents was in

a wheelchair. during john kennedy's administration when reporters were aware of his personal behavior, and i think that ended with the watergate scandal -- that actually ended up here of coziness and may reporters fill their obligations. >> i would actually go back a bit because misleading the american people about the media -- >> i totally agree. the vietnam war was followed by the watergate scandal led to a collapse of that feeling of cozy trust, trusting institutions. it may reporters feel that their obligation was not to find out not to be friends with the president but to be a watchdog when things with the president -- whether it was war or something else. >> i think there has been a very big change in the relationship since i was -- since i covered the white house. then i was ford's press

secretary. and the big change that seems to me is that in those days, you had morning newspapers which had a deadline of 6:30 pm in the evening. you had on television, he did not have any cable television and you did not have any internet. and you had morning newspaper and cronkite on at 6:30 pm at night. when i was at nbc, if i covered a story at 10 a clock in the morning, 11, or whatever, the press secretary briefing was in the morning, i had until mid to late afternoon to do research, to contact other sources, and so forth. and now, i think 2 things as a result of cable-tv and also as a result of cell phones. basically everybody is a journalist. i have my cell phone right

here. i can type any damn thing i want to. it goes out to tenley people in the world once you hit the send button. i have a very good following. >> [ laughter ]. >> i think that is a very big change. >> i was with the and and. -- for the first time, when the presidents gave a speech from anybody, it was not to a newspaper. secondly, we were on all the time. accelerated and eliminated the a way that we couple questions, not only is that was paralyzed when he was 3839

years old. but the news photographer actually entered into something of a conspiracy among themselves because you don't see pictures of him without -- with come on to the white and say we don't take pictures of the president like that, so later on some of them regretted this, but that is one thing, the other quick point is that when i started covering reagan, reagan's people understood, even though he was a conservative, he could get coverage because they understood access works two ways. when the white house staff and president talk to the media, they don't only give out information out, but they also learn what we are doing. you don't get much of that with

the trump presidency now, they don't really care much about that, they are just constantly screaming out through twitter or other things, always on the offensive.>> we were talking about the relationship between roosevelt and the president. and there is a very famous picture of him walking the grounds with a group of reporters and there was a time when residents and reporters could sit down or walk and the idea was for the president to be able to speak directly or whatever, does not happen now? or does it not? have we lost something? >> yeah, we have certainly lost that personal relationship that reporters that cover the white house, the president knows the reporters who cover the white house, he knows who they are not only by name, but he usually gets to know them. i don't know what is happening

now, but when you covered bill clinton and george w. bush, and george hw bush, and ronald reagan, they knew who you were and they wanted to know a little bit about you whether they did it in the back round or upfront, by asking you questions they knew a little bit about who you were and where you are coming from. and what kind of place that sets. it may have a lot to do with who gets into journalism, to finish the question with me, but i remember when i was going to be a journalist. i liked to write, i was going to write this great novel, but i found out there is a way you can make money writing, but you like the people, you like being around people and you want to build a relationship that way and write about it.

you tell a story. so, we wanted to go, the way you become a political reporter, you go out there and meet these political figures, you want to write about who they are, more about that, you want to find about the person, you want to find about what they do other than just govern, so that would be the attraction. i'm not sure that young people today who want to be journalists want to do that, i get the sense that what they want to do, we like politics and we bike -- we like journalism. you like people. younger people today get the sense that they don't like politics, don't like politicians and they think their only rule is to be critical. rather than just being given information. they lean more toward the critical side and they think that has an effect on what they think about government and policy.>> they are really undermining that, but the sense of sharing the thought process

that has been something that has been on people's mind. you called this thing called spike background, which i call. >> we were talking about senator john mccain whose memory we were heavy on our minds right now, and he was masterful at drawing the press in, having conversation, he enjoyed the give and take. i pride some of that with president clinton. i wanted people to sort of get a sense of his thinking and it is hard to do that if someone is going to sit there and transcribe everything, word for word. we created the opportunities on air force one when the president would come back and kind of sit and gab with the reporter. i got asked well, what are the rules for attribution here? i said why don't we just call

it background, it is like according to someone familiar with the president, who happened to be the president, president clinton is thinking x, y and z, but there are strong -- well, particularly from the associated press. which took a very firm stance that the president of the united states cannot talk on that. >> they are always on the record and so these informal occasions where you kind of sit back and have a beer and talk about life, you know, that is not allowed because the president has to always be accountable. now, some of them, particularly those who work for magazines that have more interest in color and flavor and what was really going on behind the scenes, they probably have some appreciation for opportunities like that. it was not happy.

>> that's right. the other thing to be aware of is there were different constituencies. they were very upset a lot of us think i don't like the idea of the president off the record, but something mike is talking about, you get them thinking, you want to know as much about the president as you possibly can so when the president does something, you know the president is thinking, you can put it in contact and you can check -- you can say to yourself that is the president i know or that is not the president i know. >> i want to tie some of these past stories into where we are now.>> that is going to be hard to do. >> no, we can do it. so, in the current moment, we

are in a situation where we have more antagonistic, more personal, challenging that you can argue ideologically driven then we have seen before. the president is going so far to call immediately people as enemies and fundamentally dishonest. is this unprecedented and what impact will it have been the larger scheme of things? >> you know, a president to have conflict, or as mike knew during the impeachment debate of his administration, that is not new, i think the intensity of it now is different and i think when the president calls the enemy of the people as he did in a tweet about an hour ago, i think that is a different level of antagonism than we have seen from previous presidents.

i think that is a new place for us to do -- to be. i do think he deserves credit for being pretty accessible, though. not only does he tweet, which i think is an excellent way to get a look into his thinking, he tends to answer questions when you walk down to go to the helicopter, he does a lot of interviews on fox with friendly correspondence but nonetheless, he is issuing interviews, he talks to reporters sometimes, some that have reported his -- reporter -- covered him sometime. we do have a look into what he's thinking that we didn't always have with other modern presidents and i think that is a good thing. that is something he did during most of the 2016 campaign. he was one of the more accessible candidates we have ever had. >> as i have said there is an old expression in washington, never do anything or say anything you want to see on the

front page of the washington post. and i don't think the current president understands that rule. but, 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 and -- you felt that at the time in the briefing room in your dealings with him? >> yes. yeah. and i say say, it was very, very unpopular and he never really recovered his reputation i don't think from that. but, he -- i don't know exactly how to put it, but i think he was popular until the nixon stuff came along, you know.

and ford was, you know, he was popular in washington, but not after this happened. i think that was very very unpopular, i remember one time, somebody asked him about about how he felt about this and he said something about those reporters, they get there -- you know, he was critical of reporters, they get there information sitting on her barstool i think was one of his favorites, but yeah, well you know, the relationships change from president to president because every person -- every president is a different person and personalities change. the judgment of history have

always been, and i think gerald ford used to say it, that when we were backstage, that history, you can't be judged until 30, 40 or 50 years later and you know, think of harry truman, harry truman left the presidency in 1952, 53. with an approval rating of 22%, one of the worst, the lowest measures back at the time. here is now considered one of the burst ellipse is one of the best presidents you see, so in retrospect looking at his presidency, he could have run from -- run for reelection but chose not to because he was so unpopular. and so, he wasn't limited out, because it didn't apply to him, but he didn't run because he was so unpopular. history looked back, how did he do? he comes out pretty well.

>> well, ford i think was very unpopular with the press because he pardoned nixon and there was a lot of criticism of him and he was probably our most athletic president and as i said, 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 barstool.>> he liked the barstool, that was his go to. >> let me ask you this, as your experience as reporters, what was your most adversarial moment? did you have something that you thought this is getting really hot?>> no bill clinton

impersonations. >> i was covering the clinton administration and when the morning phone ring, he would yell at me about stories that i had done that other reporters had done and stories that i have not yet read, in usa today. like the first time i got this call i was saying are you asking for a correction? no, he was just yelling. it was the third time and i thought oh, i know what is happening. you are talking to clinton in the morning and he saying god dammit usa today and then he would then say to joe, call susan and joe would come back and say i gave her health and then he would go to clinton and say yeah, i really told them off. is that correct? yeah, she got that 100% correct. i got a few of those. i like those calls.

that is the key element there, i always have my deputies do that, i always had him make the call. you know, well, then we will be friends forever.>> i got a similar story to that. monday, i get a phone call from scott mcclellan at the white house and he said the president didn't like the story you wrote this morning and i said what did you like about it? he said he just didn't like it, it was george w. bush. the story was that president bush takes big pride in the fact that he has three places he has never changed his mind and it was on the front page of usaid today -- usa today that they. i said what was wrong with the story? anything inaccurate? he said no, i said what did you want? he said nothing i guess. well, 3 o'clock in the

afternoon comes, he calls again, he says the president is still mad about that story. i said i knew what was going on. so, i said well, what do you want? he says tonight, tell him you have been admonished. >> [ laughter ] i do go back, he probably went back and said i told him. >> not to talk about the clinton's administration or not, but -- during these periods where we would have this process going on, i remember one time going over there and having an interview with the senior political advisor, i got down with him and he paused and said am i supposed to be mad about something? i said well -- and he couldn't remember. >> did you remind him?

>> no, but i mean we have all had these i think, the chief of staff president, many times, at rogers who would do the calling and complaining, there's always that kind of an adversary relationship, i think what bothers a lot of us now is the idea where an administration is undermining the institution of the media i undermining us. >> you think that is the case? do you think there would be lasting change? we have talked about this, the dynamic process of the relationship -- >> i think the current administration is definitely intent on underlying credibility. partly, what president trump wants to do is his supporters will only believe him and not believe anything else.>> let me ask a question of mike and ron

here. central to the jobs that you have had 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 are the spokesperson for the president of the united states but you are being paid by american taxpayers and you have relationships with the media in that room that depend on a degree of trust and credibility on both sides. >> i like to think of that balance, thinking of the geography of the white house, form where all of you have been in that office, and the press secretary in the west swing -- west wing. beautiful piece of real estate. it has a beautiful fireplace

and it that you can light up a things are not hot enough already. >> but it has a back door, which is convenient when you are trying to escape the ones at the front door. but if you go out that backdoor you turn right and 50 feet away is the oval office and turn left, 50 feet away is the briefing room where you conduct a briefing every day. that geographic metaphor is exactly for me the nature of the job. it is this balance between keeping satisfied those who are seeking information who have legitimate questions and produce information that ought to be published and also serving the president who signs her paycheck. representing the president and respecting his point of view, what the administration is trying to accomplish. that balance is every day and

you are never going to keep either side of that equation happy. you get the president saying you and your friends in the press are trying to destroy everything good about this present -- about this country.>> you and your friends. >> he -- yes. [ laughter ] pretty close to it. >> i hope he's watching. >> but, but -- the difference and the important difference is as much as he would fuss and fume about it, then he would go back to reality and he would stop meetings sometimes and say get mercury in here because the press is going to be all over him on this and i want him to hear what we are talking about. and it was not because he wanted me to go give my 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 that 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 meeting, because my job as i interpreted it was to answer 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 is 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 answer, secretary of the treasury could, but most of them, i need to be able to reflect the president views, so i have my daily meeting with the president. i don't know whether they still have that nowadays or not, but i thought that was very important and ford agreed to it. >> a couple more and i would like to open it up for questions to the floor if we can. one of the other things that we talk about is the notion of credibility, for both the presidents credibility and the white houses credibility. both are under seen today. there's a little trust among some anyway and the information that is coming from the white house. i certainly remember when i was at the white house, if the president said something or the press secretary said something that was mistaken or a

misstatement, there was effort to quickly correct the record. i remember they would walk around with a big cigar, they would actually light it, walked through the press office and say what i said -- and it was a very good relationship there, he got a lot of credit for that. but, we are not at that place now. now, there is a very particular and personal and somewhat say grandstanding environment around it. where do you see this question of credibility now in terms of -- again, plugging into all of the technology we have, cameras, social media, and how we regain a sense of trust in the information that is emanating from the white house? >> i think the credibility is the number one most important

asset that journalists need. it is under fire. we have all these new ways of delivering information that are faster and go farther and are more transparent and that has been to our peril in some ways. because tweets go out instantaneously without a chance to check with a second source or to double check the information against -- in other ways. and so it is actually increased what is our fundamental obligation, which is to be careful. so, we want to be first but we want to be right. we need to always remember that. we need to be more transparent with readers and viewers about how we get information and whether we can trust it. that is especially true when there are so many stories were rely on anonymous sources. the president tweeted out this morning if you see anonymous sources in a report, stop

reading, reporters make that up. for legitimate news organization, that is not true, we try to limit the number of anonymous resources we can, we try to limit that is much as we can. you can see now according to five sources, three of them were in the room, it is all an effort to build credibility and what you read and when we make mistakes and we will, we need to correct them in a way that is fast and that is honest. it doesn't mean we try to weasel out of it and says we made a mistake on this, we apologize we are going to make it right, we are going to try not to make the same mistake again. i think the only way we can avoid that 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 things, one, just to show you the kind of things we are up against, so many

people can get their information from sources that are completely unfiltered, completely uncorroborated and so in other words, taking the secondary road, because people can get any view reinforced on the internet, whatever they want to do. as an example i give a lot of speeches these days, there was occasion where i gave four speeches over a few weeks and i got the same question after each space -- each speech presently -- privately asked. why don't you guys in the white house do the bigot -- biggest? the same -- we all know that michelle obama is a man. now, how do you deal with that? i say, well, where did you hear that? and people said in exactly the same way, i don't know, but i know it is true. that is what we are dealing

with. >> where were you giving your speech? >> all over the place.>> he was on the barstool.>> [ laughter ]>> i was getting my exercise. [ laughter ] but the interesting thing, it was the same question asked -- the same way. that is part of it. the other thing, i think from one side to the other side, we have to have the same suggestion. the politicians need to understand that we are not monolithic in the press, there are some good reporters and some bad reporters. they need to know us well enough to know the difference and we need to understand that they are not monolithic either. they are people we can trust in government, people with good sources, people who aren't and we have to make that decision.>> before i open it up to questions, i would be interested in this, i think most of us have had time in presidential libraries. we spend a lot of time there.

and in the context of this conversation, the context of the fraud relationship between the press and a healthy adversary relationship is good -- and the larger trend that we've got about people not understanding, people not being aware, of ahistorical culture, that is not a good thing, what do you think that presidential library, historical sites can do, through their work to help people see, understand, bring to life this weird relationship that the press and the presidency have? >> well, one suggestion, and all of you who are here have those kind of responsibilities, is to highlight the importance of the relationship between the president and the presidency and the media.

there are wonderful photos, probably materials that would really lift us up, so that those who visit your site see how important and how fundamentally important this relationship is since we function as a democracy. lift up and pick out those things that really, at this moment, the press is being called the enemy of the people, we need to understand how important this equation is and the way the presidents have functioned and in a way they can understand them throughout history.>> presidents of others have had their criticism, but how should that be represented as well? >> fully and fairly. i think some of the great letters, you know, the truman letter -->> i would otherwise deliver my response on the bridge of your nose -- that

letter that bill clinton had hanging in the oval office at one point, so, there are things like that that kind of highlights some of the tension and some of the adversarial is him in the relationship, but i think putting it in the right context is what is important. >> i think that makes a big difference. i was thinking about some of the events marking the 50th anniversary of 1968, which by the way was a pretty tumultuous year. i think it is in terms of trying to get the data. i have also been struck by how helpful some of the programs the presidential library can be because presidential libraries -- and former presidents have kind of a credibility, i think they gain credibility once they leave office sometimes. presidential libraries have an availability to pull from past administrations. to talk in a way that is what

sometimes helpful to do. i think that has been a real asset. >> i have had the privilege of doing research there for years and they are are fabulous resources that i just am so pleased to be able to do research, there are a lot of things you can get online now, it is very easy. easier than it has ever been. i think one thing in the context of that is maybe posting the first amendment might be a good idea. and -- just leave that up there somewhere. as an exhibit. i think that also programs are helpful and i think that they do a good job with this already. i have to be about to go to the bush library to do a program on white house photographers. dealing with the photographers

including his own photographer, extraordinary accent, but he allowed the pictures out there so people could see what he was like as a person and i think that actually helped him and helps the country understand. i think maybe a permanent exhibit on presidents in the media. >> i have been to the ford library and grand rapid. i think one of the effects that -- 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, you can get a more broad view of what was going on, who was saying what and with the passage of time, you will know, oh, he was right

about that, wasn't he? i think that is one of the great things about the presidential library.>> i think the presidential libraries and presidential sites, too, could do more programs or big exhibits about the relationship between the press and 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 that needs to be done, but it is sort of like the foundation of our democracy. like the foundation of our democracy. that the relationship between the public and the public

officials is -- is -- is conducted through the press. and the media. and so that it's fundamental to just -- for people -- i don't know what they're doing in the high schools these days. they could be doing a lot more. i think that all educational institutions can be doing a lot more in talking about the relationship, especially in these times when the relationship has become so controversial. >> one of the interesting dynamics here, anyone with a question make your way to the mic, is how the technology came. there would be those who said we don't need you anymore, the president can communicate directly -- >> they would be wrong. >> they would be wrong because we need independent trained eyes, ears and brains on the power. >> we also need to teach media literacy in our schools. we have, you know, get beginning at an early age with kids, get them to understand where

reliable sources of information are and what's not reliable. and what the important role of the press is. most of you know allen miller, he used at the la times he runs a program in news literacy now and that is fundamentally important. >> go ahead. >> thank you, frank and everybody for a wonderful panel session. i'm reflecting on comparison between yesterday morning's panel on presidential memory and history and what both richard and frank talked about today, and that is how the perception of a president changes over the decades after they leave office. and the -- my question is, if that's true, that means that the perception of the president that's presented by the media currently is not accurate, and whether that's fake news or it's not fake news, i wonder if -- since i don't hear it very often, if there's any reflection that you hear among journalists and people who study this issue

as to whether there could be a better job done by journalists instead of just always apologizing for how good journalism is and how the president is the one, like you were saying, that's always just angry over being covered in that way, if history changes the view, then maybe journalism is not doing its job today. >> good question. we have about seven minutes left so we'll do this quickly and take as many questions as we can. >> i would disagree saying what we cover today is not accurate. it's not complete. it doesn't have the benefit of history. we don't know what the consequences of what a president does until we see those consequences unfold and sometimes they unfold in ways that are more positive than we think and sometimes they unfold in ways that are more negative. i think it is important that we keep a sense of history's skepticisms. we shouldn't declare a president over or a presidency a success.

we should keep in mind we're a snapshot in time and that may change over time. >> i think there should be some -- i think there needs to be, if i can, much more humility in the media about what is done and how it's done. there's too much back padding and too much let's dress up and take our awards. we have to recognize that the media is a very big, very plural word. "the washington journal" is media, so is bright bart and cnn, especially in the cable news and online world where everything is streaming instantly and all at once, more context is needed. you're going to hear from judy wood rough shortly. the news hour gives context every day. people have to be -- news consumers are going to need to

be much smarter about where they go and how they consume. and we need to help them, and news organizations need to help them too. your question is -- if an airline industry, had the level of public trust right now that the media had right now they'd be flying empty airplanes and that needs to be addressed. >> all of you mentioned the impact of the immediateness of social media and the way people perceive stories to be real, fake, whatever. there was a time in this country where major events would bring the country together, most recently, of course, 9/11, the death of presidents, first ladies, hurricane harvey, katrina, what responsibility do you feel the press should have in allowing the country using

these events to come together at least for a brief period of time and what period of time do you think that should be? >> great question. ken? >> well, i think one way of looking at this from a journalist's point of view is i was brought up in the field that you have an educational function, we're public educators in some ways and we have an entertainment function. too much of what we do now is the entertainment function. the lines are blurred. all these different groups, look at the panelists on television, who's the journalist, the politician, the strategist, it's all blurred together so i can understand the public not understanding the distinctions to what is a journalists anymore. but as far as the moments we're hard to discourage from a media perception because we're so polarized. even the death of john mccain is

an occasion for people to beat on each other. this is the point we are at now. i hope we come to the point we're more uni fied. we can do this and try to have rallying moments. even political conventions used to be unifying for political parties, but that's hard to see. >> sort of. >> we'll try to take as many more questions as we can with quick answers from the panel. >> one thing that has happened to journalism that has affected the coverage and what people are getting to know is that back a couple decades ago, the networks and the major newspapers had full time reporters assigned to the state department and the pentagon and five reporters on the house side, five reporters on the senate side and so forth. you became an expert on your beat. you got to know all the players, all the sources and so forth. now for economic reasons,

there's been a big cut back and everyone is a general assignment reporter. you go to the office and get your assignment and you don't have this expertise of covering a beat. >> yes, sir. >> steve gilroy, i have a question for mr. nessen. talking about the relationship between the presidency and the press. when president ford pardoned president nixon, what caused you to resign and how did president ford react to that and how did it affect your relationship with him? >> i agree with you that was the really big turning point in ford's relationship with the press. and i think there was -- there was a feeling among the press that when the -- when the vice president, spearo agnew resigned, ford was appointed vice president by nixon. there was a theory that nixon knew he was in trouble and he

thought he would appoint ford who would be more protective of him. so i think that's one of the things that happened, and then about a month after ford 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 its time on leftover nixon matters and he needed to spend 100% of his time because the vietnam war was going on, 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 his vice president to replace the resigned vice president, then ford would promise to not -- to save nixon from -- >> the question about your resignation and how that affected you -- >> well, the way it affected me

was -- >> you didn't -- you didn't resign? >> no. it's the other way around. >> jerry -- >> resigned. >> jerry resigned. >> he resigned because he disagreed with the pardoned. i was covering the white house for nbc and i had covered ford as vice president, i was one of the ford five, travelled all over the country with him in this little two-engine propeller driven airplane. so he asked me -- and i wrote a book later called it sure looks different from the inside. 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, so that's why i took the job. >> we're almost out of time, so we'll be really quick. >> we haven't touched upon editorial cartoons and how much they act as a synthesis of these journalistic assessments, can you touch on that? >> mike and susan quickly and

then that's the last question because you have another terrific discussion. >> it is great humor. it is what we need more of at the white house and more context. we actually invited a bunch of editorial cartoonists to travel with president clinton from time to time and some of the wonderful images that came out of that are one of them hanging in my own house as a matter of fact. but they capture sometimes the essence of what is so improbably insane about some of the things that happened at the white house, and i think it's an important point. >> cartoonists are amazing. since i've been looking at barbara bush, i don't know if you saw the cartoon that showed barbara bush going to heaven and robyn greeting her there, her daughter who died when she was 3. cartoonists can hit a cord, can make a point, sharp or soft like that one that is beyond words. >> i would like to thank you all

of you on behalf of all of us, i would like to thank this terrific panel for their conversation. i think we'll leave you with this thought, which is that accountability is the key word, but it should also and must also and must continue to work both ways. accountability both for the white house and for those who are covering it. thank you all very, very much.