White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.

White House Correspondent, Julie Mason to be host of SiriusXM's "The Press Pool"

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Julie Mason, veteran White House correspondent, will be hosting The Press Pool on SiriusXM P.O.T.U.S. beginning Friday, November 18.  “Julie combines wide-ranging experience with a passion for journalism and fairness. That matches the mission of P.O.T.U.S. perfectly. She’s intelligent, funny, engaging and connected—all of which will give listeners fresh insight into politics,” says Tim Farley, P.O.T.U.S. Program Director.

Jake Tapper and Julie Mason outside the White House gates

The three-hour program will will focus on “political coverage through the eyes of beat reporters, columnists, bloggers, and commentators and features live airings of the White House press briefings, as well as breaking news and unfiltered audio from Washington, D.C. and around the country” according to a press release.

“Mason is a 10-year veteran of the White House beat and longtime national political reporter. She has covered the White House for The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Examiner and most recently, Politico. She also co-hosted a daily political radio show, Mason & Jones, on KKTL-FM in Houston. She is a member of the White House Correspondents’ Association Board of Directors and a frequent contributor to MSNBC, CNN and Fox News Channel.”

ABC Reporter Suggests Televised WH Briefings may be Bad for Journalism

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Jake Tapper and Julie Mason talk about the daily WH press briefing from whcinsider on Vimeo.

In part 3 of our interview with The Examiner’s Julie Mason and ABC News’ Jake Tapper – a former print reporter for Salon.com – tell WHCInsider that televising the White House briefing may be bad for journalism.

“An argument can be made while televising the briefing, while wonderful in the interest of transparency, actually hurts the interest of journalism being committed,” said Tapper. “It becomes a show,” added Mason. “And often time’s reporters are judged on the questions they ask during the briefing, when it’s such a tiny part of what we do. It sort of becomes counterproductive.”

Most of the White House correspondents’ work is done outside the regular press briefings … and both Tapper and Mason joked that they had “occasionally fettered access” outside the scheduled briefings.

Go behind the scenes at the White House briefing room here.

Access: Obama White House v. Bush — No Diff

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In Part 2 of our interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper and The Examiner’s Julie Mason, the White House correspondents tell WHCInsider that the Obama administration’s Briefing Room is not much different than when President Bush was in office.

It’s a “different vibe,” said Mason, “but in terms of the access we get and the information, it’s very much the same.” Tapper said the Obama White House is an improvement over the Obama campaign – staffers can’t “dodge” reporters so easily: “[They’re] much more accessible here, because they’re right here as opposed to on the phone.”

Does that mean Ana Marie Cox got it wrong, when she said White House correspondents are not necessary?

“Has Ana Marie Cox ever covered the White House,” asked Mason. “I’m not sure what her credentials are … she was there for the dog story.”

“Having a vigilant press corps in that room is definitely necessary,” Tapper added diplomatically. “I didn’t find her piece particularly persuasive.”

"The Gibbsnotist"

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White House Correspondents tell WHCInsider.com that Gibbs’ briefing room nickname is “The Gibbsnotist” for his ability to “bring the temperature down” and put some correspondents to sleep.

Watch ABC News WH reporter Jake Tapper and veteran WH reporter, The Examiner’s Julie Mason, on reporting from the front and back rows of the White House briefing room.  Tapper talks about the change in his relationship with Press Secretary Gibbs from the campaign to the very public daily briefings.  Both agree that WHC tweets are not news but a good source of information.  The tweeting birds you hear in the background were not added in post but birds serenading the WH north lawn.