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| PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS | |
 March 19, 1999 
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TERENCE SMITH: It was an evening of levity after a year of tension between the President and the press. He spoke last night at the Annual Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, which was carried live on C-SPAN.
TERENCE SMITH: The President poked fun at his favorite tactic for limiting his exposure to questioning by the White House Press Corps. SPOKESMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, the prime minister of the United Republic of Kozakidor , Sholeb Arnspad. (laughter and applause) PRESIDENT CLINTON: Your Excellency, welcome to the United States. The podium is yours. (Laughter and applause)
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| The relationship. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: Now, Terry Smith is with us now. What is the conventional wisdom, Terry, about the relationship between President Clinton and that White House Press Corps, a lot of whom were at that dinner last night but also who asked him these questions today?
JIM LEHRER: Yes. Now, the press corps thinks that these White House news conferences are the single most important things in the world. Why? Why are they so important to them? TERENCE SMITH: Well, the valid argument, I think, is that it provides a window into the President's thinking, and as well as the range of his opinions and his views. It is sort of our equivalent of the prime minister's question time in parliament in Britain. It is an opportunity to ask about different policies, and there was a fair balance today in the subjects raised. But of course the key is for the press it provides that one ingredient that they want so much at the White House, which is access, access to the man, access to his thinking. That's what they are. JIM LEHRER: Now, there are have been people who've criticized the press corps at these news conferences in the past and saying the way they use them, in other words, the way the press uses them is kind to kind of show off, kind of show how tough they are. For instance, most of those questions, we were just listening to them again in our excerpt, they all began with a lecture before they got to the question. And that seems to be you have to do it, right? Is that the -
JIM LEHRER: And also, for those who are not aware of this, there is a standard procedure that is followed at the beginning of a news conference. They alternate between the AP and the UPI for the first question, correct? TERENCE SMITH: Right. JIM LEHRER: And then the other wire service, Reuters is called upon, and then the networks, all the networks, that's four more, always are guaranteed a question. Now, what's the process after that? TERENCE SMITH: Well, there's a terpsichorean logic to all of this. They go through the networks, they go through the major newspapers. But the President then adds has some latitude and some considerable control of course on who he selects. And he can pick the questions to a degree by the questioners that he points to. JIM LEHRER: And he has a seating chart, does he not? TERENCE SMITH: He does, right in front of him he has a chart and everybody -- every seat is assigned, and he knows exactly where people are. For example, at the end there, he turned and deliberately sought out a Bosnian woman reporter who so identified herself. JIM LEHRER: There that was no accident? TERENCE SMITH: One has to assume he wanted to end on that note. |
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| Rating the press. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: Mark and Paul, how would you rate -- Mark, how would you rate the press's performance today in this news conference?
JIM LEHRER: Paul?
JIM LEHRER: Terry, were you a White House correspondent, and it's been suggested many times in the past. Why doesn't the press -- in other words, you're reporter "A" you're reporter "B" and you're reporter "C," you ask the first question, the President, whatever President it is, gives an answer - why is -- you're called on second. Why don't you follow up to the answer, instead of asking your own new question that you've been working on for three days? Is that the way it works? MARK SHIELDS: Because as Terry pointed out, I've been talking to my editor, this is something that interests our paper, we feel we're further down the road on a story. We want to get the President's answer. I just wanted to make one post script. JIM LEHRER: Yes. MARK SHIELDS: Bill Clinton is not alone in this - I do recall a great President saying we will not trade arms for hostages and my selection of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court had nothing to do with race. PAUL GIGOT: You're going to work in Reagan and Bush when Al Gore is President? MARK SHIELDS: Suspicion of the press did not begin with Bill Clinton by any means. JIM LEHRER: Yes. TERENCE SMITH: One point, Jim. If you want to see how things have changed since the last full-scale Washington press conference, it was -- I pulled the transcript today. It was April 30, 1998, and the first question, "Do you stand by your previous denials of any relationship with Monica Lewinsky?" That's where we were. JIM LEHRER: That was April, so that was -- I mean it was - TERENCE SMITH: It's almost a year. JIM LEHRER: Yes, yes. MARK SHIELDS: It was after his original denial.
PAUL GIGOT: Well, the press is a competitive institution. Everybody is competing with one another, both in an institutional sense with the people you work for and then as individuals. The White House Press Corps is not a -- it's a club, but it's a club with people competing with one another for access and stories and in a sense the limelight. You get singled out if you ask a particularly telling question, a particularly good question. I agree with you that you could probably get more out of a President if you followed up, but a lot of the reporters there have been spending, as you said, three days trying to find the precise language with which they can ask a question so it can't be answered with a yes or no answer or with a dismissive one-liner. JIM LEHRER: Most of the questions were in about eight parts, you know, or - PAUL GIGOT: Well, you give a premise, you want to set up a premise so that he can't as easily get away from it. JIM LEHRER: I don't mean to criticize my colleagues that are asking questions. But I'm going to ask you a question, Mark: Do you think the President should have more of these now now that he's broken the ice, after 11 months, should he institutionalize them or just should continue to kind of whenever he feels like it?
JIM LEHRER: Because he didn't want to be asked about it. MARK SHIELDS: That's right. JIM LEHRER: Yes. TERENCE SMITH: He's come out of his protective shell now and he can do them if he chooses. There is a great deal of preparation time for a President. John Kennedy said it was like preparing for final exams twice a month for these news conferences. So there's a certain element of time, the President's time in it. But he certainly helps himself when he does it. JIM LEHRER: Well, gentlemen, thank you all three very much. MARK SHIELDS: Thank you. |
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PRESIDENT
CLINTON: I want to thank you for your invitation to come have dinner
with 2,000 members of the Washington Press Corps. (Laughter) I accepted.
If this isn't contrition, I don't know what is. (Laughter and applause)
I - (applause) -- I know it's been a long time since I had a press conference,
but I remember it well-- all those questions that day about the nomination
of Zoe Baird. (Laughter) look, you can probably tell I'm a little nervous,
you know, being around all these reporters tonight. So if you will forgive
me, I'd like to employ a method that's worked pretty well for me over
the last year.
PRESIDENT
CLINTON: Now, your Excellency, this is just a dinner with the press.
Tomorrow is the real press conference. I look forward to seeing you
there. (Laughter) Now, I know that the press corps has been busy preparing
questions for me, so I've been working on the answers. Never mind the
questions; here are the answers: Yes, Helen. She was first, Sam. I'll
get to you, Sam -- not yet, though. The longest peacetime expansion
in history. No, I didn't watch it. (Laughter and applause)
TERENCE
SMITH: Well, despite the levity last night, it's obviously very strained.
It's sort of an atmosphere of mutually assured suspicion on both sides,
President and the press. There is a major repair effort underway at
the White House. The President has had groups of reporters in quite
recently for private dinners with him. The President and the First Lady
even brought chocolates back to the press section of Air Force One on
Valentine's Day. There are a direct effort to try to improve that relationship,
to project an image now of an administration back on track.
TERENCE
SMITH: Jan Smith even citing George Washington and swearing to tell
the truth. Sure, reporters show off in situations like this. They're
on national television, they feel the limelight, the spotlight, perhaps
they're trying to impress their bosses. This is a moment, and so they
work hard at phrasing the questions, they frequently discuss with their
editors what the right question is for the day, what the most important
point is to be made. So sure.
MARK
SHIELDS: I thought it was responsible. I thought the questions were
good, they were -- there was a suspicion, it's understandable, Jim.
I mean this is a man who had two cabinet meetings last year, one to
lie to them about the relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the other
to apologize about it. I mean, so there's an understandable suspicion
in dealing with him, and so if that crept in -- but I thought they were
respectful questions. I mean -- I didn't think they were prying questions
or sort of prurient questions. It's always amazed me, the mystery to
me has been that Bill Clinton, the man of just ineffable charm, has
failed to charm the two most easily flattered institutions in Washington,
the Congress and the press. He just hasn't done it and the Clintons
came to the city with an attitude toward the press that was at the best
suspicion and at the worst hostile. I mean it was the press that made
him a front runner, named him that in 1991 and they blame the press
for the Wall Street Journal news story about his draft and then
the break in the story about Gennifer Flowers. So I mean there's always
been this terrible ambivalence and sort of hostility toward the press
and I think the press feels that.
PAUL
GIGOT: It does feel it, and it also feels that they've been lied to
on occasion, and not just in Monica Lewinsky, but going back right to
the beginning with Gennifer Flowers. And for all of that, I thought
that the President got off pretty easy today from the press corps, I
mean with the exception I thought of Kosovo and China where there are
a lot of follow-ups and a lot of probing to get into -- to parse the
distinctions and to try to draw the President out. On the impeachment
questions, they were just one time and he got off -- got away with the
answers saying, "I don't want to talk about it." 
JIM
LEHRER: What about the coherence question and the way these things come
over as -- for instance, Carl Cannon of the National Journal,
he actually apologized to the President for saying, you know, I'm bringing
you back to China because these things keep dangling out there, but
there's no -- I guess that just goes with the territory. 
MARK
SHIELDS: Jim, I think he does it, as I said earlier, I think he does
it as well as anybody. I think he ought to. I mean, obviously the past
11 months he didn't do them, partly because of his hostility toward
the press, but in greater part I think because of the subject matter.