White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Ed Chen's White House

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Ed Chen will soon be stepping aside as President of the White House Correspondents’ Association but he’s still got his day job to keep him busy.

The Senior White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News recently sat down with Hans Nichols, fellow Bloomberg News correspondent and guest interviewer for WHC Insider, to talk about what goes on behind the scenes in the press room and what it’s like to cover the Obama administration.

The two also covered Senator John McCain during his bid for the Oval Office, and Nichols asked what it would be like if McCain were behind the press room podium instead:”Do you think he would have done those weekly briefings?”

Chen: “It would have been very interesting every day, and I also would have kept a suitcase here, packed, at the White House because you never know when a President McCain would have decided to go to Russia.”

Bloomberg’s Ed Chen & Hans Nichols for WHC Insider from whcinsider on Vimeo.

WHC Insider Interview With WHCA President Ed Chen

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This weekend Ed Chen will end his reign as the President of the White House Correspondents’ Association. Before he hands the mantle over to Reuters’ Caren Bohan and heads back to Bloomberg, Chen spoke with WHC Insider’s Tammy Haddad at the White House.

The Senior White House Correspondent has honchoed the Press Corps during the transition into a new administration. Recently, Chen and several colleagues sat down with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and White House staffers to discuss grievances from both sides of the table.

“We had a mutual exchange and we worked out a lot of issues, and cleared the air. And I think things will get better, especially from our perspective, with greater press access,” said Chen.

Speaking of sitting down, Chen has offered his seat in the press room for a day to Lloyd Grove whose recent article in The Daily Beast questioned whether social media like Twitter and YouTube would be the end of reporting from the White House as we know it.

Ed Chen at the White House from whcinsider on Vimeo.

Robert Gibbs and WHCA Clear The Air?

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It was nice while it lasted, right?

As reported by Politico’s Mike Allen, mere days ago White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with a delegation from the White House Correspondents’ Association, headed by Ed Chen, WHCA president and Bloomberg News White House correspondent.

Chen asked for the meeting “to clear the air because in my 10-plus years at the White House, rarely have I sensed such a level of anger, which is wide and deep, among members over White House practices and attitude toward the press.”

The two sides spoke on a number of issues including improved press access. Chen told Politico that he felt “very good about the collegial give and take.” Read the full interview from Politico.

Would Chen still feel that way, however, after watching Gibbs’ interview on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Howard Kurtz? Gibbs admitted he does “wonder at times what it would be like if we turned the cameras off and we could just have a discussion. I sometimes joke that I know when somebody thinks they have a good question, because when I walk in they’ve already got their makeup on.”

Gibbs also lamented the cable “spin cycle” and marveled at Twitter, which he called a “fascinating, fast-moving medium.”

CBS News' Mark Knoller To Receive WHCA Award

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Courtesy CBS News

We’ve heard that voice for more than thirty years. Now CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, 58, known around the Press Room for being the unofficial statistician of all things presidential, will be honored by the White House Correspondents’ Association with the Aldo Beckman award for sustained excellence in White House coverage. Knoller was a reporter with the Associated Press before joining CBS News in 1988 and has covered every president since Gerald Ford.

Check out Politico for more on Knoller’s award and others to be handed out at the 2010 WHCD.

Grove Attacks WH Press Corps: The View from Michael’s

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Former Washingtonian and Washington Post reporter Lloyd Grove has picked up the attack against White House correspondents launched by Ana Marie Cox last year.  Ana Marie, did you spend anytime with Lloyd at Michael’s when you visited your new GQ editors in NYC? Grove’s Daily Beast blog recently harrumphed against the hardworking, hard tweeting members of the most exclusive club in Washington journalism – the ones who report to work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

While I enjoy Michael’s like the next media maven, what’s so wrong with covering the leader of the free world 30 feet from his office and home? Grove’s complaint about Robert Gibbs tweeting reminds of when we began putting Ross Perot and President Bush and a former governor by the name of Bill Clinton on Larry King Live in 1992.  Our newsroom colleagues lamented the end of journalism, but social media didn’t just start on the Internet; interactivity has always been an important part of journalism.

Ask Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s communications director, how much his press shop likes responding to the five reporters who call with follows on each White House reporters’ tweet.  Take a quick look at the stories and interviews done by NBC’s Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie as well as ABC’s Jake Tapper; you want them to pull back and tweet from Café Milano?

Tell WHC Insider what you think after reading Lloyd Grove’s column.

Inside the ABC News Booth at the White House

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Inside the ABC News Booth at the White House from whcinsider on Vimeo.

The glamour that is associated with being a White House correspondent, and the glitz of the premiere political beat, wears off pretty quickly once you’re actually inside the cramped and sometimes clammy work spaces where the press corps spends its days and often its evenings and nights.

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jake Tapper gave WHCInsider a tour of the press set up and operations inside the West Wing.

Check out our earlier story on the renovation of the White House Briefing Room.

Jennifer Loven — Leader of the WHC Pack

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Jennifer Loven with President George Bush at the 2008 WHCD.

Jennifer Loven with President George Bush at the 2008 WHCD.

The White House Correspondents Association “represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the administration on coverage-related issues,” the WHCA Web site says. Spearheading that duty is the WHCA president — currently Jennifer Loven, who covers 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for the Associated Press.

What does the duty involve? “As president of the association, you’re the go-to person between the White House and the reporters,” past-president Steve Scully of C-Span tells WHCInsider. (Loven declined to talk.)

“You mediate on issues like travel, or seating, on just about everything,” Scully continues. “And you really have to ride herd on the White House to get answers on anything that might come up.”

If anyone can get answers, it’s likely Loven. As NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd recently told WHCInsider, “Jennifer Loven decides when the briefings begin and end. [White House press secretary] Robert Gibbs knows. When it appears the pertinent questions of the day have been asked and everybody has gotten a shot, she closes it down.” [Read more…]

WH Press Corps: "Bootlickers"? Respectful? Or Just Surprised?

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Video of the WH press corps suddenly jumping to its feet when President Obama made a surprise visit to the briefing room last week has been stirring up the blogosphere. Why? Because it’s paired with a vid of the press corps remaining seated when Bush once entered the briefing room. CNN’s Jeanne Moos investigated. Check out the video below to see what she found.

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.