security of jews around the world. and that is why you have never farmed out your security. you have accepted all of the help we can give. but i promise you, if you are attacked, we would fight for you. [applause] the truth of the matter is -- the truth of the matter is we need you. the world needs you. imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century for israel not sustained, fiber, and free. -- vibrant, and free.

we will never stop working to make sure that jews boys have somewhere to go. he will never stop working to make sure that israel has in edge, and whomever the next president is, it will be the same. because the american people are committed, the american people understand. so i say happy birthday, israel. happy independence day. may god bless you and may god bless and protect the united states of america. thank you all very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> happy independence day, thank you for being here. >> on the next washington journal, john lott. then colleen eubanks discusses child reform in the united states. and gregory korte will discuss the presidents' use of executive action.

>> during this month c-span is pleased to present the student documentary competition. it is an annual competition that encourages middle and high school students to think critically about issues that affect the nation. students were asked to create documentaries based on the theme the three branches and you. the winners entry focuses on the individual disabilities education act. >> the discrimination of people with disabilities are is something we have all experienced in our own personal lives. prior to the individuals with disabilities education act, or

the i.d.e.a., students with disabilities were not given an education. ms. romo: you would not give are you down syndrome or disability like that. ms. runfola: the doctors told us he should be institutionalized which is what they did in those days, and she, being a nurse said no, that is not going to happen. mr. wendorf: students with disabilities are protected class and deserve a level of support both in instruction and another ways that go beyond the needs of their nondisabled peers. >> when it was time to go to schools, the schools were by law supposed to take the children in, but they resisted. they do not have a special ed classes.

but he learned how to read and write. >> the i.d.e.a. is a federal law that ensures students with disabilities are provided a free, appropriate, public education, achieved through services catered to their specific needs. >> i.d.e.a. helps the state work with schools across arizona to make sure that we do everything we can to deliver special services to students who need them. in arizona, we serve about 129,000 students through i.d.e.a. out of a total school population of about 1.1 million. >> the i.d.e.a. is important to me because i have a sibling who has down syndrome, so her entire education is formed around the i.d.e.a. molly kerwick: i am a part of

that community of children with the special education. mr. wendorf: there is a vital role that it plays. it is especially vital for students with disabilities. >> our job is to make sure educators have all the resources we can help them acquire in order to provide the differentiated services to students. >> my job is 100% driven by i.d.e.a., how i service students, what their services look like, their paperwork looks like, are they being provided with a free, appropriate public education and are they being taught in the least restrictive environment? >> both special education and general education students enjoy life skills from being in a similar environment. this inclusion provides benefits to all students. >> people with intellectual disabilities tend to need to have things shortened up and more direct, and i have naturally seen that the students

get that. >> for the typically developing students or what we refer to as general education students, they developed a lot of important interpersonal skills. they are more patient, more accepting, less prejudiced, they are able to appreciate the diversity of human relationships and the skills that we all bring. >> it is very important vest or ends are fully included in the classroom, they are being fully accepted by their peers and the whole classroom environment. severiano romo: i think a lot of that was because she was properly included. she was getting modified curriculum those relevant to what was going on the classroom. she felt like she was doing the work that the other kids were doing, and in doing so, she's out part of the class, a part of

the experience that school should be. >> people with intellectual disabilities are now being included in gened classes. it is a fairly new development when you look at the grand scheme of things, and it is not surprising that a lot of people do not know much about how to go about doing it. >> my sister has down syndrome she is seven years old, and in her old school, she did not have special education classes, so she was just with everybody else, and she loved it. >> we find they are able to develop stronger communication skills, stronger interpersonal communication skills. we know that they display fewer inappropriate behaviors, and there more often likely to interact with their peers. molly kerwick: now she is at a new school that has special education programs, she is not included in general education classes.

she is learning more, but she does not like school. i would say it is kind of disappointing. >> the problem that i am seeing is more with gened teachers, and they will be the first to admit it. they do not know about it teaching a person with disability. mr. johnson: a time for them to be more educated and to service such lead students in their classrooms better. >> it is a humanitarian issue. ♪ >> a lack of proper inclusion perpetrates the segregation between typically developing students and students with disabilities and can lead to harmful prejudice. mr. wendorf: i.d.e.a. is a civil

rights law. >> i think the i.d.e.a. has been executed well in the classroom. i also think there is room for improvement. >> special education is light years ahead. today they have so much more available. >> services to students with disabilities have improved exponentially. including children with disabilities in a classroom help them combat stereotypes that may develop at an early age. the more that children with disabilities are included in school, the easier it is for them to integrate it into society as an adult with a disability. >> to learn more about our competition and to watch all of the winning videos, go to c-span.org and click on "studentcam's." also, tell us what you think on facebook and twitter. announcer: next, homeland

security secretary jeh johnson talks about border security efforts. then reporters discuss experiences covering the white house at an event cohosted by the white house correspondences association. then, a ceremony for eric holder. homeland security secretary jeh johnson said that the number of people being apprehended at the southern united states border is down more than 25% from last year. he made the statement at a news conference. this is 35 minutes. secretary johnson: good

afternoon, everybody. i am here with some of our senior leaders, our deputy secretary, our director, our deputy commissioner. mark hatfield of tsa who is our acting deputy administrator, and our undersecretary of cyber security, and our chief financial officer. he is very pleased to be a new nominee. i want to take the opportunity to come out here and talk about a couple things. you all should have received the statement we just issued on

order security. i wanted to touch on a couple things for taking questions. i thought this was an occasion to talk about a couple things. first, as some of you know, on tuesday, i addressed the rsa conference in san francisco. the rsa conference is the largest conference on cyber security in the country. there were 3000-4000 people in the room and the moscone he center on tuesday. the overarching message of my address to the cyber security community is the we need to build a stronger partnership work well together, because cyber security requires a partnership between the government and the private sector. i announced reparation for the

opening of an office in silicon valley. i trust many of you here read the secretary of defense's remarks on cyber security delivered yesterday. and we are encouraged by the activity in the congress on cyber security legislation particularly the passage yesterday by the house of two cyber security bills, with strong bipartisan support. i refer you to the administration's statement of administration position that was issued concerning both bills. they are generally supportive of cyber security legislation. we have some concerns about the bills that were passed, we are supportive of legislation that encourages greater information

sharing between the private sector and government. we are also supportive of limits on civil and criminal liability for those who share cyber threat indicators with the department of homeland security, which is our national integration center. we are greatly encouraged by the activity in congress to pass legislation this year. that is a good thing. on monday, i announced the measures that tsa is directing to enhance airport security. in reaction to arrests that occurred in december of those suspected of participating and and illegal gun running operation from atlanta to new york through the use of commercial aircraft and -- in

the on board overhead luggage compartments. we were concerned about that. i directed to study by our aviation security advisory committee and that committee has come back with its recommendations, which i understand are now public. i want to commend that committee for working so quickly to address a former ability in our aviation and airport security. we are supportive of the recommendations and endorse them. we are directing a couple of things. as i announced on monday, continuous random and unpredictable screening of airline and airport employees as they arrived at her ports into sterile areas. reducing access points to stare while areas at airports. that will obviously take time to bring about but this is

something that we need to move in the direction of. recurring criminal background checks for airline employees also. and a new rule that employees who work in sterile areas, if they intend to travel on commercial aircraft, must pass through our tsa checkpoints for screening before they can on the aircraft. this week was also the one year anniversary of our unity of effort and initiative, which i directed on april 22, to tell the -- 2014. more centralized decision-making and the department, particularly in the areas of acquisition and budget decisions, consistent with the unity of efforts initiative, we have realigned seven major headquarter's

functions greater efficiency and effectiveness for the american people and the taxpayer. we have put in motion are acquisition innovation initiative. we have put in motion our joint requirements ross s concerning acquisition, and perhaps the most significant think we have done, is our southern border campaign strategy, which many of you should be familiar with, which became operational on february six this year with the appointed of our tax force. the southern border campaign strategy is now operational. devoted on a dhs wide aces to water security. i am pleased that we continue to fill the vacancies in senior-level positions and the department of homeland security with the confirmation of russ last week to be our undersecretary. we have now had 12 said a confirmed presidential

appointments in the last 15-16 months. this morning, i swore in our new assistant secretary for health affairs, who took the job in february. over the last 15-60 months, we have had 12 confirmed presidential appointments, two senior-level positions in the department, as long as three new assistant secretaries. the health affairs, public affairs, and legislative affairs. i expect that we will announce the president's nominee for tsa administrator soon. the main purpose for my visit here, which i want to talk to you about, is what you see reflected in a statement, which we have handed out. concerning border security. this is an effort on our part within a part -- within the department to be more transparent about our border

security numbers, our numbers of comprehension. i want to be more transparent when it comes to the numbers. at the six month mark, midway through the fiscal year, we want to provide you with a report on apprehensions on the southern border. thus far through march 2015, there have been 151,000 -- 151,805 apprehensions at the border. what is significant about that is that that number is down considerably from where it was this time last year. it is 20% less -- 28% less than the number last year. the number this year of

apprehensions is also lower than it was in 2013, as well as 2012 rate it is down considerably in all categories. total apprehensions unaccompanied children, family units, and single adults. the month of april, if we project out looks pretty much the same. apprehensions at a significantly reduced level. this is all despite the improving economy in the united states, which typically operates as a factor for illegal migration. why are we seeing these numbers? first of all, i believe it is due to the nations investment over the last number of years in order security. our border patrol has now more personnel, more equipment, more technology than at any point in

our history. our nation's investment over the last several years and border security is paying off. the spike and illegal migration into the rio grande valley, a number of additional resources on the southern border, which are still in place. we engaged in an aggressive public messaging campaign south of the border and in this country about the hazards of the journey from central america into the united states. and to correct the misimpression that the coyotes were putting out free passes -- permisos. we believe that has resonated in central america. for example, some of our messaging in spanish at bus stops in guatemala city. it is widespread, with operation coyote which is a joint

operation, which we announced last year with the department of justice, we have cracked down on the smuggling organizations, the coyotes, and we haven't working in a concerted and consistent fashion with our friends to the south, particularly in the central american governments the president, the vice president, and i, and a number of others, have been engaged in this, working with over central american friends to deal with the situation of illegal migration into this country. having said all of that notwithstanding the lower numbers, we are not -- and i want to emphasize -- we are not declaring mission accomplished. we believe there is more we can and should do when it comes to strengthening border security. that is why in our budget submission, we have made requests for additional technology, additional resources. we believe that surveillance technology is the wave of the

future is the wave of the risk-based approach to border security for the future, and that is reflected in our budget. the southern border campaign strategy, whichever for to a moment ago, which became operational on february 6, is also part of what we believe should be border security for the future, a more strategic comprehensive approach to border security, utilizing the relevant components of our department in a coordinated way, and not through stone pipes. the president's executive actions also stress border security. we have prioritized for removal those apprehended at the border and those who are recent illegal arrivals into this country after january 1, 2014. these are things that were announced as part of the

president's executive actions which i signed into implementation in the department on november 20, 2014. we continue to stress that our executive actions do have a component to strengthen border security. that is the future. we have done a lot, we will continue to do so. i want to report those numbers today, and i am happy to take questions. reporter: deportations are also up in mexico, you have any worries that asylum-seekers are getting turned away in mexico and being stranded in their own countries? secretary johnson: i know that mexico is also focused on border security on their southern border. they have taken steps in the last months and years to strengthen their own border as well as do a number of things in

terms of guest-worker programs from central america into the southern part of mexico. i suspect the numbers that we see from mexico reflect those new efforts. reporter: in the last several years, the department has talked about the drop in removals being a sign of changing dynamics at the border. the numbers are down significantly. where does that impact -- what are you doing in the middle of the country in terms of domestic enforcement of immigration law? secretary johnson: you are correct that the removal numbers midyear are down at this pace from where they were last year.

i think that that is due to a couple things. i think our new policies are in transition, so i hesitate to predict what the removal return number is going to look like at the end of the year. i do believe that the lower removal numbers at this point in the fiscal year are also due to a couple of things. one, the lower apprehensions that i have talked about, the lower number of apprehensions. the spike any legal migration that we saw last year peaked -- you can literally pinpoint the day -- june 10-2014. it declined sharply into the month of july. particularly the numbers of the kids have stayed at a lower level. i think that the lower removal numbers are reflecting lower apprehension numbers that we are

seeing this year as well as the last part of last year. in addition, i also think that the lower removal numbers are due to the changing character of the migrants who are coming across the border. not so much migrants from the continue -- contiguous countries , we are also dealing with migrants from non-contiguous countries, central america, who are asserting claims of credible fear. as you know, a duty kidding, -- acai them claims can be time -- asylum claims can be time-consuming. i believe the lower numbers are due to the changing nature of the migrant population crossing the border illegally. the last thing i will say about the lower removal numbers is secure communities. secure communities, which we

ended on november 20, had become legally and politically controversial. to the point where, depending on how you count, something like 100 jurisdictions across the country had passed laws ordinances, signed executive actions that limited or outright prohibited their law enforcement's ability to cooperate with our immigration enforcement personnel. in a transferring somebody in their jails over to us for removal. so that had become a huge barrier to our interior enforcement. it was getting to be a bigger and bigger problem, in terms of our ability to get at the criminals. we want to get at the criminals. that is part of the president's executive action to more sharply -- sharply focus on the criminals. we ended the secure communities program, which was a real

inhibitor to our ability to conduct interior enforcement and replaced it with irony enforcement programs, which is a different program, which i think deals with the legal -- legal and political controversy and replaced detainers with request for notification. we are seeking the transfer of a criminal based upon a conviction for a fine list -- a defined list of crimes. i and the senior leaders of the department are now out literally on a road show, talking to mayors and governors about the new program about lowering the limitations that have been placed on their law enforcement's ability to cooperate with us. the new enforcement program -- we are out there working with local law enforcement governors, mayors, telling them

about the new program, because we want to more effectively work with them. on the of limitation of interior enforcement. reporter: i want to ask you what support is the united states dividing to mexico to patrol the south border, and what plans are to reinforce that control. second, i would like to ask -- mexico has signed an agreement to allow united states agents -- custom agents, to carry weapons as protection. his there any reciprocity in this agreement? will let agents be allowed to carry weapons? secretary johnson: when i talked to our mexican friends in the mexican government on a range of issues, including our shared order security interests

including lawful trade and travel and so, the mexicans and we are concerned about border security, but they are also concerned about public safety about fighting transnational crime. we have had those conversations, as well. and doing things like preclearance or having our customs folks on another side of the border, whether it is mexico or canada, whether it is preclearance, let's put a departure in europe, it is in my is something that should be the wave of the future, because it leads to greater efficiency in lawful trade and travel. it also leads to an enhanced border security homeland security, because we are pushing our homeland security out a little beyond our borders are we have had conversations with a

number of countries, not just mexico, by doing that, i signed, with my canadian counterpart, an agreement on comprehensive preclearance at the airports, at the rail ports, and land ports, which will be a framework for establishing preclearance across the board with that particular country. i wanted -- i want to do more of that thing. we have had a range of discussions with the mexican government about that and other things. reporter: but the agreement to allow u.s. agents to carry protection for themselves. secretary johnson: there are a number of things that have to happen when it comes to agents across borders. we have had those discussions but it continues to be a work in progress.

reporter: the first lady of honduras says that her country is still -- the numbers they have been seeing this year are lower think last year. she points to the fact that the reason for this is because mexico is finally enforcing more vigorous immigration laws. you said the investment that the united states has been doing is finally paying off. i wonder, how much of the credit on those reductions goes to your neighbors in the south? secretary johnson: i believe that a large part of the reason for it -- and i said this in my

prepared remarks -- a large part of the reason for the decrease in but are seeing on our southern border and what we are seeing happening in migration from the south is also because of the efforts of the government in honduras, guatemala and el salvador. for example, the first lady of guatemala was very active in a public awareness campaign to encourage young people to stay home. and i suspect the same thing is true in honduras. i think we saw last summer all three governments step up their own public messaging campaign, and we know that the message seems to have gotten through from the north to central america, that the misinformation at the coyotes are putting out about permisos in this country

has been corrected, and that people now believe that it is harder to cross our southern border illegally, and therefore they ought to be careful about investing the money it takes to smuggle somebody, to smuggle a child or family member, and to the southern part of our country. you know, sometimes it is 6000 -- $8,000 -- but over the try to charge. that people risk a failed investment. because people are being apprehended at a greater rate. i believe that a large part of the reason for the lower numbers is simply that the misinformation from last summer has been corrected, and word has gotten out that it is now harder than it used to be to cross our southern border, because of the additional resources the additional technology, the additional surveillance, and the additional people. and all of the things we have done in the last year.

reporter: immigrant advocacy groups are concerned. they claim that i.c.e. and agents are not following the new priorities that were announced last november. how confident are you that that is happening, is it really taking time? secretary johnson: i and people in the front row and people in the audience have personally gone out to workforce engagements to educate the immigration enforcement workforce on the new policies. i believe that the new policy, the new prosecutorial policy is clearer than the old guidance, that was an objective of mine when i wrote it, to make it clearer, to make the lines clearer. but it also adds within it

opportunities for the exercise of discretion. i believe that training and educating the workforce on a new policy is critical. i know that for my department of defense days when i participated in a number of personnel policy changes their, over the four years i was there. and i know from personal experience that change does not always happen overnight. but i also know that if there are miss impressions in the workforce, it is the responsibility of the senior leaders here in the room to correct the misimpressions. i have heard the same thing from various groups and organizations. we are doing our best to identify misimpressions that may exist in our workforce. i believe the policy is clearer that used to be. there is less room for misunderstanding. reporter: there is a concern

secretary, that once a decision is reached in ordinance and appeals court, how quickly, if it is in favor of the president's decision, executive action, are you ready to move -- secretary johnson: i wouldn't want to predict on how quickly judges will reach a decision. even when i was practicing law, i always hesitated to reject when judges would reach a decision. we will evaluate whatever the next decision of the courts is, and, and respond accordingly. i know that president obama and i are both very committed to fixing our broken immigration system. we issued a number of executive

actions on november 20 something like nine of them across the board -- i talked about the emphasis on border security, for example. in the memo that i issued on the increased emphasis on border security, the realignment of prosecutorial discretion, which was not the subject of the litigation. we will evaluate whatever decision comes out of the circuit, and we both evaluate the next that's. we are still very determined to do what we can within our existing legal authority to fix the immigration system, and reform it in many respects. we have 40 done that. we did a lot of that on of over 20, which is moving forward. when it comes to the deferred action program we will take a close look at what the next court decision is and move from there.

reporter: we are still talking about apprehension numbers as a yardstick for judging total flow. five years ago, you had operational control and scrapped that yardstick and it was supposed to be replaced in 2012. is a replacement for operational control or some other yardstick for border security, is that -- will we see that soon? is that coming soon? secretary johnson: good question. i believe that apprehensions are an indicator of total attempts to cross the border. i believe it is a sure indicator of total attempts to cross the border. can we, should we measure more precisely total attempts to

cross the border? can we measure the to nominator the numerator more effectively? i am interested in greater transparency, and i have asked my folks to assess, and we are doing that right now ways in which we can measure with greater assurance total attempts including turn backs getaways, as the border patrol likes to refer to them, there is an effort now in congress to establish border metrics, border security metrics, that within the secure our borders first act of 2015, the effort had border metrics was something and is something that i actually am drawn to -- greater clarity, greater transparency.

so, there are a number of other things about that bill that i strongly object to. that i thought that that was a good feature of it. i have asked my own folks to look at the same thing, and it is a work in progress right now, but i do want to come to a greater public understanding of how we should measure our effectiveness on the border. and so, we are doing that work right now. last question. reporter: thank you. i was wondering if you comment on reports that we saw last week that mexican intel officials found evidence of alleged isis or terror training camp on the southwest side of the mexico border. and also more broadly speaking, how concerned is the department with the potential of terrorist

coming across from the mexican side into the united states? secretary johnson: we are always focused on that possibility. i don't have anything to confirm or really comment in any intelligent way on the report that you cite. we are on the sharp lookout for potential terrorists crossing our border one way or another. and it is something we keep an eye on. frankly, when it comes to counterterrorism, when it comes to terrorists, i am very focused on those who may already be in the country who may be directed toward acts of violence inspired by what they see on the internet. as i have said married to -- many times, i think we have moved into a new phase in the global terrorist threat and we have moved to a new phase of how we must respond to that thread. it is no longer just one

centralized organization that trains terrorist operatives and then dispatches them overseas to commit terrorist acts in some particular country. we now see effective use of the internet, social media, by groups in an attempt to recruit people who may already be overseas. in their own homeland, we are more concerned about the independent actors, so-called lone wolves, who may be inspired her drawn to an act of violence by something they see or read. we are also concerned about the relatively new phenomenon of foreign fighters. and so we are concerned about somebody who leaves their home country, whether it is here, europe, someplace else, goes to the hot spots in iraq and syria for an extremist purpose, leaves that part of the world, comes back to their home country, and is inspired or indoctrinated to commit an act of violence in

their own country or the united states. whether it is the day they arrive were a year after they arrive. one of the things that i want to see us work toward is greater security assurances around the visa waiver program. there are a lot of countries in our visa waiver program it is a good program that should not be scrapped by any means. there are a lot of countries and our visa waiver program that have the foreign fighter issue. and so i want to see if there are greater security assurances that we can get as part of that program from countries for which we do not require visas for their people to come here. that, most often, is by air. we are talking -- we are talking about air travel. that is one of the things that we are very focused on.

ok, thanks a lot of a buddy, have a good weekend. -- thanks a lot everybody, have a good weekend. announcer: on newsmakers senator sherrod brown is our guest. he will talk about trade legislation working its way through congress. watch the interview sunday at 10:00 and 6:00 here on c-span. announcer: here are a few of the book festivals we will cover the spring. this weekend, we will be in maryland's state capital for the annapolis book festival. in the middle of may, we revisit

maryland for live coverage of the gaithersburg festival. in june, we are live at the printers row lit fast. announcer: she was considered modern for a time, called mrs. president by her detractors. as one of the most prolific writers of any first lady, she provides a unique window into colonial america and her personal life. abigail adams, sunday night at 8:00 on c-span. examining the public and private

lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama. as a compliment to the series, c-span's new book is available: " first ladies: lives of iconic american women." is available as a hardcover or e-book. announcer: the white house correspondents dinner is tomorrow night. ahead of that, the correspondents association hosted a discussion today with reporters about their experiences covering the presidency. they spoke about the access they received as members of the press, the use of social media and how they decide which stories to cover. this was cohosted by "national

journal." >> everybody else is going back to work. this is a great group, thank you all for coming to be part of this conversation. this is our annual scholarship panel. we have our scholarship winners sitting in front. they will have a chance to ask questions as we go along. i hope this will be viable for everybody you if you've been covering the white house for 10-20 years, there is always something to learn from your colleagues who do it well. these are the four white house correspondents among the winners of rw hca excellence in performance of journalism award this year. i will introduce them to you by name. and then it will tell some stories.

i'm cohosting this with carol lee. she is a white house correspondent for the wall street journal. we chased her all the time. it is great to have her perspective on this panel. to my left is josh letterman. he works -- jim works for abc news. scott berkley -- scott horthly is a member of the whca board. let's give them a hand. [applause]

when you look at these four people and the way they cover the beat, they show a diverse approach to covering the white house. each has excelled in a distinct way of doing their jobs. i want to start with josh letterman. has anybody heard of the fence jumper? that's a man who climbs the fence of the white house and typically gets tackled for the make across the lawn. one eye, that was not the case and josh letterman was standing his post at the booth. what you pick up from there? josh: most of the correspondents had already left for the evening. the news was basically over. there were a handful of us from the television networks that were still in the building. we started to hear a commotion

outside of the press briefing room, and a few of us ran outside to see what was going on. we could see that there was something going on. those of us that spent any meta-time at the white house know that lockdowns at the white house are relatively routine. it's an event, but not a particularly remarkable one. there seemed to be something -- a level of alarm that the secret service was displaying the suggested that this may have been a little bit something out of the ordinary. i headed into the press area of the white house, which is at the entrance to the west wing, for those of you who spend a lot of time there. i was trying to figure out what

was going on, and nobody, they said everything was fine. at that moment, secret service agents stormed in from the west wing with these really large like, semiautomatic weapons. they are tactical teams on the grounds of the white house, but it was the first time i had ever seen one of those in shooting position inside the actual west wing. they immediately pulled those of us in the press offices down into the west wing and into the basement. it ended up that i was down in the basement with most of the white house officials -- obama's senior advisers were also being

evacuated to the basement, and shortly thereafter outside into this middle ground between the entrance to the west wing and the eisenhower executive office building. this is another indication that something was happening that might have been a little bit different than the usual fence jumpers that hop over and it's kind of and a story, game over. the fact that they had evacuated most of the white house. in my years, i had not remembered any time that there had been an evacuation of the white house. you could tell from the way they were making sure that any foreign nationals have been in the building were escorted out to the street, just from the general behavior, that there was something more to this story

than the usual fence jumper. >> you posted something just before midnight. how did you start "the wire" reporting? josh: it came from a uniformed secret service agent that was not supposed to talk to press, but was in the fray of people running around and basically told us that there was somebody who hopped the fence and that's what we were dealing with. so, from my phone i filed a quick story that hit "the wire" about that situation. at the secret service really went on lock down, they would not talk to anybody. they were scrambling people to come down to the headquarters to deal with this. they were getting their ducks in a row before they were talking to anybody. around 10:00, they kicked us out of the white house, as they do in the evenings i relocated to

my apartment and we continue to just hammer all of our sources to figure out what exactly had gone on around midnight, we found out that there had been a fence jumper. but he had actually made it inside the white house, which was unprecedented that raise all kinds of questions about whether the security protocols they have to respond to fence jumpers is really adequate. we knew this is going to be a big story, so we popped out an alert around midnight. from there, we started building a breaking story trying to wrap in both the details of what happened in this incident, and the broader implications from the secret service. >> he does reporting from twitter that night. josh: this was late on friday evening, and there was nobody around. the flurry of reaction you would start getting unsolicited on a

thursday afternoon or something from members of congress and interest groups that want quotes for stories for all of us fleet or drunk or at parties or doing something else. but i happened to notice a tweet from someone who was the incoming chairman of the house oversight panel with jurisdiction over these issues. saying something about how alarming it was. i made contact with him through twitter will he find out that he was on a plane flying home to his district and that he was not landing until 3:00 or 4:00 washington dc time. i was able to get him to agree to do an e-mail interview over his -- using his in-flight wireless while he was on the flight. through that process, we learned that there had been a series of other security breaches that he

had been investigating for more than one year to be able to get that reaction. >> reporting in the digital age. [laughter] >> i want to make this comment for the younger journalists in the room. this speaks volumes about the importance of beat reporting. if the reporters had not been there, the secret service would have said there was nothing to worry about. if josh had not been there at a regular basis and understood the rhythm of the white house and realized that something important was happening and sort of be able to pinpoint where it was happening, that's all part of the beat reporters' tool kit. let's talk to some been the -- let's talk to somebody who had done so they totally different. he reported at the white house

and then he got on a plane. tell us that story. >> this is about the release of allen gross, who was in prison in cuba for five years. it was a >> sources in cuba had been covered. i had sources there and i was there during the crisis for many years. i had sources there. i worked them as well as booking the white house sources as well as some sources in town that represented allen gross as well. i first started getting interested in the story because i wanted to interview allen gross. that was the impetus of it. he was in prison. i thought i wanted to go back to cuba and it would be a good way to do it by going back to cuba. i started making inquiries to the cuban government.

they said -- we don't think this is going to happen. allen says he is going to die at the end of the year. by starving himself to death. we are not going to give him any interviews. that was from the start. i found up who his attorney was and we started working with him wondering if we could get in there to see him or get video. we started getting heads from sources -- we started getting hints from sources that something was in the works. neither cuba or the united states wanted this man to die in prison. there was the issue that -- there were cubans in the united states imprisoned. three of them were still in prison. the cubans wanted a prisoner exchange. the united states it did not want to do an exchange. they were debating about it. i started working the white house, my white house sources. and trying to find out what

stage they were in. at first, i remember a very high up source in the national security council telling me that something was percolating. and that was about two months before the release. it is interesting where it happened. i will say that one of the things that we are getting away from are the networks, some magazines and newspapers are getting away from traveling with the president all of the time. we keep pushing back to our bosses about, at least at the network level that there may not be a huge story that we are breaking when we are with the president, but we have unusual access to the people who normally do not return your calls when you're in washington.

when you are in china, or in burma, or in higher -- four in hawaii for two weeks with the president, there is a lot of time to talk in formally with people who are your sources. it was on one of these trips that a very high a person told me, before the end of the year. we had, we focused on that. all of this time, we were not getting any stories about it. as with all groundwork. only it -- only an occasional piece about how allen gross was and what his physical condition was. generally, we were not doing a story about it every day. we actually nailed down the week it was going to happen. i nailed it down from a source not at the white house. i went to the white house and i said -- i am about to report this. is that -- and this was an

interesting question for you guys to talk about as students. we went to the white house and i said, this is what i have, i know it is going to happen this week for he goes on vacation. if i report this, is that going to jeopardize allen gross's life, because he had threatened to kill himself if he did not get released. they said -- i will get back to. to their credit, they did. he said ok, you have it. it will happen on that day. here's the deal. if you wait, you can report it first, and then we will verify it with everyone else immediately afterwards. as soon as he is wheeled up and out of cuban airspace. my producer and i flew to miami and waited for a call from josh earnest. i was in front of a live camera,

i got the call from josh earnest, and we went with the story, and broke it on good morning america. part of the deal also was that our anchor would it an interview with president obama about -- not just about prisoner exchange but about the new era of relations between our two countries. he was able to sit down with president obama and talk to him about that. and i want -- and i went on from miami to cuba and reported on the evening news about the reaction in cuba. >> i would highlight one point that he made in all of that. that was an incredible story. he did not get his very solid information from inside the white house. that is most often the case. the--stuff comes, not from them. so often, you get good things from some warehouse and then you go to them. if they want to play ball, which they clearly did with you, and then they will. if not, you have a choice to

make to do your own story, either way. my question for you is -- did they make his life this threatened to taste you? -- threatened case to you? >> the case they made was that if we were to -- in general what they were concerned about was inflaming miami before it happened. and in some way, that would cause some kind of incident that would stop the negotiations and therefore indirectly put allen gross's life in jeopardy. because he had threatened his own life at the end of the year. this was december 17. we were getting close to the end of the year. they made -- they did not make that case that strongly. they said -- this could foul of

the negotiations. there wasn't any that they made it clear that there was no one right now who is anywhere as close to the story as you are. it will not break somewhere else. if you are patient, you will have a much better story, we will not jeopardize the man's life. we decided that we would have -- we had a pretty good clean kill and we might as well stay with that. >> how do you develop a source like that who will tell you at the critical moment that things are percolating? and have enough knowledge about that person's workings that you can trust them and read them correctly? >> part of it is who they are. this person was involved with the negotiations. he would know that. if you knew that someone had this kind of direct -- he was not a third-party or someone in the press office. this was an individual who was a

drip -- who was directly involved. and how do we get to know them? just like we said. going on these trips. i have to say also, and each one of us works for distinguished organizations. it is not necessarily the reporter, in general it is also because of our audience and our readership. we work for an organization that has some influence themselves. everyone on this panel has influential viewers, we have massive viewers as opposed to less influential folks that listen to npr. we have 10 million viewers. when they want to talk, they

want to talk to us. that is one of the ways. >> i want to go now to scott horsley. i love his reports because i know when i hear his voice, i tune in, because he has chosen something located and he will explain it to me in a way that makes sense. what about personal favors? his concept of pensions moving by comparing it to pension smoothie? he puts it in a blender with the audience. anyway. scott, could you talk about how you approach the story, how you choose your stories. scott: you try to get good sources. but we do in radio is that we do not have the advantage of pictures. we try to bring sound into the story either it be a blender of the smoothie or something else. sound is the one thing that the white house thinks, not at all

about. i don't know how many times we have been on the road with the president, and they will have choreographed a beautiful picture of the golden hour, he is standing in front of a colonial building in cartagena and the sun is sinking at the right angle. it is gorgeous. just then, the children's choir comes out as we are walking away. that would've been nice. or on the campaign trail, the evident loved to visit factories and they would always shut the factory down, the assembly down or whatever it was, so he could go through and make a tour. there would be no sound. no industrial hum. i told someone that it would be nice to hear what the factory sounded like. they took us to a spaghetti

sauce bottling plant. i learned a lesson about why they shut down the assembly line. they were crowded around to get their picture taken with the president. it reminded me of eight lucille ball moment. -- of a lucille ball moment. part of the trick is to think about a story that makes -- part of the trick is to make us -- part of the trick is to make a sound that makes the story come alive. the first thing the president did was go to the bob marley museum. they didn't let the press pool into the museum, only photographers. there were some great pictures of the president looking at the old albums. it was especially frustrating to

me, because we could hear faintly, strains of one love playing, which would've been a nice sound for our greater -- for our radio story. >> scott e-mailed me -- whenever there is a problem with access, the members of the pool start e-mailing to each other. he told me that the soundtrack of this huge conflagration in kingston was, one love by bob marley. >> what kind of beads are you looking for at the white house? you do the story of the day. are you looking for a particular mix in your beat reporting? scott: we try to report the news of the day. there was a time when mpr thought of itself as a supplementary news source. we thought all of our listeners

were getting the breaking news in their papers and we would be something different, they analysis. the jfor better or worse, for many people, we are not a secondary resource anymore. we are a primary resource. we feel compelled to keep up with the same day news. oftentimes, what differentiates us is our explanatory journalism or our context. you mentioned josh's experience after two and a half years, you can say, this is unusual. peter can say, with greater perspective, this is unprecedented. where this is not at all unprecedented. -- or this is not at all unprecedented. one of the things that we try to bring is some sense of context and history. some sense, when the president

is being pressed to respond to ferguson that this is been something that has dogged the president since skip gates. >> moving to peter baker from the new york times who has covered three presidents in three different eras. in fact, in the last year, he has written about the obama white house, the clinton candidacy, and the bush family's effort to build a dynasty. tell me a little bit about the changes you a scene. how does covering this administration compared to the others you have covered. >> scott is right, in some ways there is nothing new under the sun. every white house comes into office thinking, we have reinvented the wheel, and we will do it differently than everyone else before. we are hot stuff because we won a national campaign. and they are, they have done something extraordinary.

they come in and they are certain they will do something that has never been done before. particularly in the first year or two. you hear a lot of -- first times, or never before his. -- or never the befores. the modalities are different, we are doing twitter and your cat -- meercat. i don't know what that is. some aspects of it are different, there are differences in modalities and tactics but not in broader themes. as you watch the obama white house's struggle with his second term, it feels pretty familiar to anyone that watched bill

clinton struggle with his second term or george bush. it is not the same. syria is not the same thing as an impeachment. so each of these are different but a lot of the broad strokes a lot of the currents are familiar. as scott said, it is great to keep that in mind when we do our reporting and help our readers and viewers and listeners understand that perspective of what is going on. that is what makes the job fun in a lot of ways. >> do you have the perspective that many of us in the witches -- which is, how do you maintain what other people envy which is fresh eyes and a new take. have you work that into your reporting? >> i do struggle.

we have done this before. someone else manages to take whatever it is and find a fresh aspect of it. and bring new eyes to it. and i kick myself for being too hesitant. we all have partners. i have two great partners. they are seasoned and veterans and they also bring a freshness to it. that helps to have perspective and to bring different strengths to a team like that. and then, i read about it in the wall street journal. and i feel like an idiot for not recognizing the great potential of the story. >> when i knew i was going to do this panel, we get the benefit of the printed full reports.

one print reporter is assigned each day. when christie or peter or carol do full duty, all of these folks that have these experiences, they could easily phone it in. they never phone it in. their reports are so detailed even on a completely throw away trip. you never know what is going to be throw away, six weeks later. you never know when some seemingly meaningless detail on a nothing adventure to cleveland, to give a speech that no one will care about two days later will take on new meaning later. >> that is the concept of the cool -- pool. we spend a lot of

our time fighting for the access of the pool. to gather information, and their first responsibility is to share with the rest of us. they share our reporting with everyone else in america. before we write our own story. that is because it is a big responsibility, and we feel like the public has a right to know, and that is a public service that we perform. i want to ask the panel peter i cannot help but notice the u.s. mbeki to -- documentation over there. what are the big challenges, what are the biggest challenges for you in covering the white house and how do you overcome them? peter: i have -- it is actually

pretty useful. for anyone that has not read it or taken a look at it, there were 70 of us that responded this year. they asked a lot of questions. some of them -- i asked some of us who have covered multiple administrations 3% named barack obama as a most friendly. that is because we are in the middle of it. we are currently frustrated with them and we have lost over the frustrations that we had with bush and clinton. part of the adversarial relationship that goes with that. another finding was -- how many times have you questioned the president, 65% of our colleagues said never. to me, that is a shame.

to me, the most telling 1 -- how often have you interviewed someone from the white house -- 50% of our colleagues said never. we don't get a chance to interview him as often as we would like, but we ought to be will to speak with someone that was beyond the press conference. most of us have not been able to get past that while in the last week and that tells us something about the nature of the white house. if you talk to your colleagues here who have done it longer than i have, you will see that you will hear that bush and other administrations had a lot more contact with a lot of senior people beyond the press office. i have seen that through many administrations how that has shrunk slowly but surely. you have to be what josh's.

you have to be there all of the time to recognize opportunities to take that knowledge and translated into stories at the right moment. you have to use sources outside of the white house's, and then come back to the white house, as we did with cuba. and push them to answer our questions if they will not volunteer it. you have to be listening for sound. literally. you have to take all of those experiences and not count on our white house handled -- handing things over. >> i wanted to ask a different question. one of the things that has come up a lot is with the ability for the white house to now go to twitter and facebook and interview others with youtube stars and local news anchors at the white house. and a host of folks. if you look at the president's interviews, he largely does them

mostly with people who are not in the white house covering him on a day to day basis. they are not as familiar with his policies and where he is going. they are parachuted in to do the interview and then parachuted out. it raises the question of -- does being a white house correspondent matter? why does it matter? if people can get information from elsewhere, what is the difference? >> i think you need it all. i don't think it hurts to have outside people come in and ask questions. we are in a bubble. we have to recognize that. this is where we live. where we work. i know you do and most of us do, we try to get out of that. i am lucky in that i have a partner as well. who does most of the day today. i go in and i tried to work

outside of the box. i can't blame the white house for wanting to get out of that room because when i do, when i go to denver or seattle, they are not talking about the same things that we are talking about. they are not focused on that. they are not focused on the intricacies that we are. where we see that most, is at the white house briefings. too often the question in my opinion has been to get an argument going. to get some kind of conflict. there are very few questions or not enough questions that are actually asked to solicit information. the follow-ups have to often be more combative because the information is there, but the

original question is frequently designed to pick a fight rather than seek information. i think people outside the beltway, when i visit there, are tired of that. they are tired of the noise. they want the kinds of questions that sometimes we hear in local news, people come from out of town and they asked questions that we took let. the viewers back in denver care about it. i think we need both, and we need the inside stuff on occasion. i think that they are wise to go outside of us. i do. you are right about some of the competitive -- competitiveness. the va hospital scandal. >> the v8 has been a mess for years. the american public generally with like to see the system work better than it does.

there is no reason that it has to be a public -- a political scandal. the white house briefing room kind of lost interest in the story. to that extent, maybe the administration lost a little focus on it also. i do think there is something to it you say about the combative tone of washington media. i also think, when you talk about the challenges of the be, my colleague used to say, if you get to a story and there are a bunch of other reporters there go find a different story. it is very good advice generally, but not always a -- not always applicable to it we do. it is rare that you will really be in a whole different playing field then the dozens of your

talented colleagues. >> when you do, those are some of the most important moments. we are all intimately and painfully aware that we are no longer the only game in town. there is no one up here from medium or tumblr or other ways that people are getting their information. that has also created some issues with outside media coming in or the white house completely bypassing the media and going to the people to their own social media challenge -- social media channels. the access that we maintain as beat reporters at the white house is the accountability function. that is one that people who parachuted in for a story are not in a good position to really do. one phrase that they have been using for a month, and suddenly

it disappeared. you notice it because you have been hearing it every day. it turns out that there is a policy change many that. the issue that you pressed deeper, and like jim, you break a major important story, or uncover some type of shenanigans that are not likely to be uncovered by someone who is coming in because the white house is trying to reach a different segment of the population. >> i don't personally object to the white house running an offense. i think -- it is up to them to craft their message and try to explain their policies and beliefs in a way that is persuasive. if they want to speak directly to the american public by whatever medium is available to them, i actually do not object to that at all. my concern is that they not go around the independent and adversarial press corps which is at the white house every day and has a situational awareness that

you are talking about. i like the diversity of voices. i like the different biases. i like them all. more voices is better. we need information to work with. i feel like the beat reporters are at a critical part of that mix. we have about 20 minutes left to take some questions. >> you mentioned "medium." at comes up a lot. do you think, it has been a tipping point to the obama administration as far as getting information out. is that a president we will see going forward, or is that something specific to the administration? >> i cannot imagine the next administration will do anything next.

it will have even more tools to sidestep this. christi parsons: that's part of the challenge of fighting fighting something i haven't heard of yet. >> when we challenged him about this, he said every administration would do this if they had the tools we had. it's hard to argue with that. scott horsley: it's fine for them to find all of these other things. if they were doing that and not answering questions at a briefing, or not making the president available, which he has recently been very available -- as far as press compasses are concerned. jim avila there has been a unique rash of press conferences lately. that would be an issue, i think. if they want to put an

unfiltered message. first of all, audiences are smart enough to know that that is an unfiltered message. they really are. that's fine. if they did that and then the president didn't come out or josh didn't come out and sit in front of us, to me that would be an issue. i don't find it is issue as long as we continue to do that. there is an issue that they do not make people outside the press office available. that could be a problem. i would doubt that you have that problem. and i don't really have that problem. but i understand, smaller organizations or maybe smaller and fox news -- one they would deem as combative might have an issue. that i don't.

peter baker: we don't do that today. with the former chief of staff at the end of his day he called reporters. he tries from time to time to engage, i'm saying that the culture has changed. in the culture is that people are involved in a lot of these decision makings are less available, more separated from us by a paid staff that is paid -- >> i remember reading a piece in "the new yorker," he said he wandered down to the ennis see offices -- the nsc offices --

just wandering around the west wing -- >> by congress, right? you can walk around congress and he will find sources will you talk to former for the most part. the white house, physically, you are not able to go very far. you are restricted to a very tiny space, basically good which is why -- >> vestibule -- >> the ones he spent all day there are heroes because it is incredibly cramped a claustrophobic. you cannot walk the halls, you cannot say, hey guys, what is going on? it's so much more -- >> [indiscernible] >> it's a shame, because fewer non-scripted spontaneous conversations that would lead to understanding and clarity.

>> i have a question. earlier in the discussion, you talk about the leverage that free reign journalists had over the white house where they can possibly produce a story through social media, but their twitter handle says, hey, what happened? what leverage where you speaking of that we have two tell our stories to the viewers so that we can reach tens of millions of viewers, but why not come to us? >> great question. >> i think him historically, we had more and leverage because any administration which ultimately was going to have to be responsible to voters -- even if they didn't like the press they had to deal with us to get the message out. that is still true. i think the public still does distinguish what they read in the new york times from one comes out in the west weing'ing's website. i hope they do.

it is less than they used to be. they have more avenues to distribute their message without us. in the old days, like or not they kind of had to deal with us. christi parsons: i think what scott was saying is that the leverage is that it's hard to turn away. >> they don't like having it described as state-run media. scott horsley: when we went public with our complaints occasionally when they really take us off, it tends to get the president's attention and that trickles down -- christi parsons: when we are not doing a publicly, we are there every day pushing and increasing anxiety, as we do. and that is often effective because of the leverage that we do have.

>> there is now an army of paid staffers that, you know, they are there to get between you as a correspondent and those actually making policy. i read somewhere in the last 30 years, there has been a 300% increase in the number of pr people as number of journalists has gone down. i'm wondering, they create pseudo-events and try to set the agenda for the day, and that's their job. i'm wondering, how do you find something else unique their? >>jim avila: i can't remember the last time we did a survey about whatever their agenda for the

day is. all of the news doesn't really work that way. we go in case something unusual happens at that event. but we don't cover that event. will be try to do -- what i try to do -- i can only speak for myself -- is focus on things that i'm interested in, that our viewers are interested in, and not worry about their agenda. about the white house agenda. and come from the outside in, come with information that they cannot ignore, because they know that my 10 million viewers at 6:50 are going to see this information, they need to get their spin on it, they need to get the information out about that particular issue. that's -- i read a report, that's my would say. " what they're doing is no different.

>> what they are doing is no different. the guy with the gyro copter at the capital, that would not have led the abc news that night. everybody does stunts. scott horsley: one thing that is if -- interesting is committee occasions and staffing in congress. it's either lea francis or francis lee, i can't remember. she has tracked the change and how many congressional staffers is messaging and communications as opposed to legislating or -- it's remarkable. i buy the change there is even daigle -- even bigger than at the white house. christi parsons: i think it -- if they are empowered, it depends particularly in the white house how the top staff the senior advisers, the communications director, the

press secretary, depending on who it is, decides to have people on the staff. and there is instances in which those folks are given a tremendous amount of leeway to share information, they are in the meetings, they understand what's going on. carol lee: there are times when it's not worth talking to them at all because they know nothing. if they do, they are not going to tell you because they are afraid of their own shadow, they are not empowered in any meaningful way, and so they are not useful in that sense. and the same goes for the hill. in fact, i can give you an example in the white house. his official title is strategic something communications director for the nsa. well he is probably the closest foreign-policy advisor and longest standing foreign-policy advisor to the president has. there is something to be known he probably knows it.

oh no, yeah, -- >> they are knowledgeable and in the meetings. carol lee: not at all. increasingly, there is a sense that they are just there to block people from talking to us, as opposed to then having information and being facilitators or -- you know -- a lot of times, you will call a senior official that is not in the press staff they get a call back from the press staff, which is always, like -- that is a designed system, and i sure are stars handed out to whatever senior -- >> the agencies to. carol lee: the agencies in general. >> there were some chuckles this week when the president bird a whole lot of jet field to fly to the everglades to celebrate earth day [laughter] .

the backdrop of the everglades got that story in every newspaper with a photograph of him on the walkway. that's how you get your message out. >> even go to the event they put on but you don't see what they want you to see. when they are changing the lexicon within the white house it is reflective of the change of policy or viewpoints, and those are things that are hard to hide if you're paying attention. >> to your question about the tension between setting your own agenda, there is a story they want us to write every single day, but we all will get e-mails 6:00-8:00 and we are all supposed to get super excited and pop out these stories at 6:00 about a progress report on nothing, basically.

and, you know, we are in a unique position that we have to cover everything. because even if their progress report on the audio industry is really not that interesting to most of our readers people in michigan do wondering about that stuff. we have conversations throughout the day, you know, every signal day about how much does this merit? this thing they are china make a big deal out of. -- this thing they are trying to make a big deal out of. and vice versa, what about the little thing that they kind of mentioned in try to brush under the rug? no that's actually the news today. we are going to make a big deal out of that and we are going to kind of briefly dispense with this thing that they are try to focus on. so, we have to do both and set of making a choice between one or the other. >> i googled the word embargo

yesterday and it came back, no news. [laughter] >> if it was big news, they would not get anything on embargo. certainly not to a wide audience that they are e-mailing it to. that's not generally secret stuff. life there was a story yesterday about the growing use of fact sheets by the white house. i saw a summary of the story, so i'm not entirely sure if the whole story -- the suggestion seemed to be that they are using fact sheets for executive action . our rule of thumb is that the longer the fact sheet, the less they are actually doing. the cuba fact she does a couple of paragraphs. progress report on fuel efficiency and not a mobile sector might be 14 pages. >> is usually a section called

building on progress we have already done. it's a long summary of things and we have already done and you are supposed to get excited about it. >> we have time for one more question. >> i think most of you have expressed support of the increasing ever city of voices in the news world. i guess my question is, with that diversity for those people who may be don't have the clout of "the new york times" or vigor known organizations, how do you navigate reporting of the white house reporting on washington d.c.? many sources come to your not a still it because the quality of the reporting, because of the audience it -- audience and the viewership? >> i started on the beat with "politico." it's not small, but it's not

"the new york times" or "the wall street journal or go i was also very -- i was low on a level of like, 10. and i made it my job to be there every single day. and do every little scrap of a trip that nobody wanted to do and trying to stick my head over the pack and just get in the mix as much as i could and talk to as many people as i could and i didn't have a family or anything, so i spent a lot of time not at home and out and meeting people, and just getting that step. any develop relationships in that way -- then you develop relationships in that way. when you are 3-4 years into it or a few months, somebody is

willing to talk to you not because you work for a news organization that they want to engage, but because they are around and they know you and a talk to -- the other way is to find a story you want to do or a topic that you really like and get in there and pitch stories and that's how you get in front of people who are behind the press operation and that's how you get into their offices typically, if you are not working for a big news organization. and also just sitting by back and notice and stuff. the president, when i was in a lower level of the team, there was obviously the senior people were going to be the big story of the day, and that was not left to me, and so i would do things like, oh, the president is giving a speech on abraham lincoln which is his favorite president, and he had to bring a teleprompter. and he took it everywhere he rent.

that's something that the folks who are writing the story of the day were not keeping an eye out for. then you start writing stories that get noticed, the white house folks realize that they need to do with you and talk to you. and it builds on from there. >> the news world notices who is leading on a story, who was on the cutting edge. i'm looking around its remit seeing a lot of people who work for organizations who are not as big as my colleagues, but they are leaders on particular stories. and for the white house and eventually decides it has to deal with those people on that subject matter. and that it doesn't matter how big they are, if you know what you are talking about if you really are the person who knows the most, people will talk to you. >> i is that one is acknowledging, there are certain limitations when you don't, jim talked about the cachet that some of the news organizations that represent have.

i worked for the hill, which is at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of news organizations in this town. the only way to make any headway at that level is to be smarter than the people who are too rushed with their daily deadlines covering the beat to be able to do, connect the dots between, here are three things up on the is doing, hold on, there is some overlap there. so, if enterprises, it's not going to be an announcement because, frankly, a whole lot of what we do -- a lot of the news that comes out of the white house is choreographed. and are not going to choreographic to give it to a small news outlet, unless it is a really specific niche issue. so you have to sort of show that your analytical skills and your ability to provide the context and analysis for your reader

gives you the ability to do a compelling story, despite that lack of access that some larger news organizations have. as carol was saying, it builds upon itself. people start noticing, gosh, that person is doing a great stuff, we should talk to him about this, he probably would have an interesting take on that, or she seems to really get this -- the intricacies of this issue. and it starts to build. >> let me say one more thing about how you get from a small place to a big place. be patient a little bit. it's not bad. i color -- i covered chicago city hall. that's how a learned how to be a political reporter and it was amazing. i covered rich daily, i covered grab you by the pals politics. -- grab you by the lapels politics.

the first thing i would recommend is not go to the white house tomorrow and start writing small stories and get in. go to springfield, illinois. go to some big city or even a small city and cover the city council meetings. you will learn what people are lying to you. you will learn who to trust. you will learn how to make sources. you there had a schmooze. those are all tools that are not natural, and a have to be learned. my biggest device is to go someplace small. >> i should say i started out that way, and most of us probably did, in florida, covering the annual fireworks story or whatever to a >> there's somebody be said a lot of mistakes, which you will do -- >> somewhere else -- >> then the white house. [laughter] >> the best stories you'll get

best about our never the ones the white house gave me, never. and they don't give us as many stories as people assume they give us. it is mythology. [laughter] we are not interviewing the president. i don't render an interview with the president breaking big news. you develop yourself, usually is coming from the outside in, it's coming because you are paying attention, you work from the ground up, those in the best stories. not the things of the get out. so don't worry about stuff like that, because it's not important. >> with that, we have run out of time. i want to thank you for you guys. and i want to thank our panel. [applause] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: the white house posting this ahead of tomorrow. we spoke about preparations. >> our staff is approximately 1000 team members in the hotel. maybe about 300 on-call banquet service. that evening is about 700 staff

on site. about 200 banquet servers. we have about 50 managers that service graders throughout the -- that serve as human graders throughout the building to get everybody where they need to go. you will not believe the number of people who did not know how to tie a bow tie. >> some of the staffers i understand, fairly often in the past several years, tell us a little bit about that. >> the executive chef, andre cote, this'll be his 11th dinner he will be serving. he began 11 years ago in the first night working was for the white house correspondent association dinner. >> tell us about the menu. you said there is a process in choosing it.

what is it this year? >> the menu is very unique every year. we are looking to source of local ingredients as much as possible from within 150 miles of the hotel. honestly, we are really interested in what is going to serve well for 2600 people in a ballroom and knowing the time constraints and the schedule that involves secret service timing, the show timing of the event and all of that. it is about what will hold well and move quickly on to the table. >> day of, how early does the kitchen staff prepared? >> the kitchen staff actually begins preparing a day or so in advance. there are some ingredients we are working on a few days in advance -- stocks and stuff like that. the day of, they are on-site at 4:00 in the morning, beginning of final preparation process. announcer: our live coverage of this years correspondents dinner begins tomorrow.

we will bring you the guest arrivals, followed later in the evening followed by speeches from president obama and host sicily strong. -- cecily strong. announcer: coming up, a farewell ceremony for outgoing attorney general eric holder. that is followed by joe biden talking about u.s.-israel relations. first, some of your thoughts on attorney general holders time at the justice department from this morning's "washington journal." >> we are talking about eric holder. mitch mcconnell worked quietly

against loretta lynch. after holding up lynches confirmation vote, mcconnell worked to ensure she would overcome a filibuster with a strong bipartisan vote against ted cruz and other conservatives. some gop senators say mcconnell wanted to avoid a battle over the nuclear option. the controversial tactic that harry reid employed in 2013 to reduce of the threshold for ending a filibuster of most executive nominees from 60 votes to us of the majority. one lawmaker said mcconnell quietly talked to colleagues about voting to advance lynch to a final up or down vote. that is in the new super this morning. in the washington times is this op-ed. in 2000 14, they came out with a book called obama's enforcer.

here is a little bit from this op-ed. as attorney general eric holder departs, he leads behind a demoralized justice department that has been politicized to an president degree. attorney generals are obligated to enforce the law in an objective, nonpolitical manner. they must demonstrate the highest regard and the best interests of the public and their sworn in duty to uphold the constitution and the laws of the united states. they have it filled that duty to the highest ethical and professional standards, but not eric holder. they write that mr. holder's failure to enforce a federal laws and immigration statutes on a whole they'll basis is a particularly acute betrayal of the most basic standard that applies to the attorney general. the nation's chief law enforcement officer mr. holden

instead has acted as a political lawyer evan overly partisan president, perhaps that is why mr. holder has one of the lowest approval ratings of any public official. here are some of the issues that he faced during his six years as attorney general. including same-sex marriage, voting rights act and voter id laws, criminal justice reform, civil rights, the financial crisis journalists and espionage act, and drone attacks. those are just some of the issues he faced. the numbers are on the screen. the first call comes from jerry into trite. good morning. >> good morning. i approve of his performance because mr. holder is trying to

hold certain people's feet to the fire. what he tries to do is to try to bring a tension to issues that some i think in the conservative right community would ignore. he tries to paint attention to issues like police brutality voting rights, and the justice system. i can speak as a 50-year-old black man that there are some within the conservative white community that do not want these issues to be brought to attention. i think that the attorney general has on a good job. >> that was jerry in detroit this is brian. >> high. good morning. i am a staunchly liberal democrat. i'm very hopeful that hillary be our next president.

however, i voted for obama twice in the general elections. it's great that mr. hagel is no longer secretary of defense, but by far my least, the cabinet member of president obama's that i disapprove of most was eric holder. i had not trusted him for a moment. now, i was a huge supporter of bill clinton, and eric holder had difficulties with the pardons. at the very end. i will not take that out on obama old holder. however, holder represents -- and i and i insensitive toward what the gentleman just said -- i'm a bleeding heart liberal democrat -- >> what is it about eric holder that you disapprove of? >> this is but i was going to save and then i will finish up peter. thank you. he