Washington’s Oscar weekend begins May 9 as Hollywood and New York’s biggest celebrities come to town for an evening with the President, Vice President, official Washington and the media.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wasted no time in pointing out that the press corps was decked out in their “Sunday best” for the debut of the new seating arrangements in the James S. Brady Briefing Room. With the President traveling in Atlanta, GA on Monday there was no daily briefing back in Washington, DC. But on Tuesday it was back to business.
“Church is full today,” joked Gibbs. “That’s good to see.” Here’s the briefing from C-SPAN.
Most eyes were on the Associated Press who now occupy the front row, center seat once warmed by Helen Thomas – but there were several changes made by the White House Correspondents Association and a whole new seating chart – one that may require a booster seat as Gibbs pointed out to America Urban Radio Networks’ April Ryan who could barely see the podium from her spot behind NPR reporter Ari Shaprio.
“Ms. Ryan, you’re going to have to ask that gentleman in front of you to sit down a little,” joked Gibbs. “He’s a little on the tall side.”
Ryan moved up from the fourth row to the middle of the third row next to Politico, which also moved up from fourth to third row. That put Ryan directly behind NPR, one of the contenders for the Thomas perch. NPR was given Fox’s old seat in the second row, directly behind the newly ensconced AP. Fox moved up to the first row in the old AP seat. Got it?
Obama’s premiere Oval Office speech last week was the worst of social media and the best of social media.
Mashable ran “Obama Speech on BP Oil Not A Hit with Facebook and Twitter Users” after taking data provided by Crimson Hexagon from “83,000 Tweets and public Facebook comments” over a nine hour shift. But taking such things into account can provide little feedback, especially when 15 percent of the poll were annoyed they missed So You Think You Can Dance and the other five questioned why so many people would anonymously make fun of the president.
Whether it’s happenstance or kismet that President Obama chose to speak an hour before Game 6 of the NBA Finals for his first Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill remains to be seen. The president’s confidence in the Lake-show may falter tonight, but his message for BP and the coast likely won’t.
The New York Times makes the case that comparing the oil spill to the economy may not be far off, “Now the president must strike the same sort of balance in talking to the nation about the oil spill. And he has chosen to do so from the familiar office that Americans since the dawn of the television age have come to associate with big moments — for them, and for presidents.” Read more…
Move over Ryan Seacrest, ABC News’ Rick Klein and GQ’s Ana Marie Cox had the red carpet covered at the Washington Hilton for the 2010 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Check out the dynamic duo on ABCNews.com as they talked to folks from WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to Senator Scott Brown to Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow.
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.
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.”
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?
The Politico CLICK interviewed White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs on what it’s like to be recognized at gas stations, Chuck E. Cheese, and on the street.
“I don’t think you really get the appreciation until you’re walking down the street and you can tell that people are looking at you, and then they look at you again, and sometimes they point,” Gibbs said.
President Obama stressed bi-partisanship on health care legislation in his interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd yesterday, but also … perhaps … maybe hinted at a deadline for the Senate Finance Committee negotiations.
Not according to Robert Gibbs’ morning gaggle with reporters today. Politico reports “Gibbs said there’s no ‘firm’ date … and dodged a question on the public option.”
No, not what they’ll talk about … what they’ll drink. On Air Force One this afternoon Press Secretary Robert Gibbs ended the speculation over the beer selection for tomorrow’s meeting:
From Time magazine’s political blog:
“The President will drink Bud Light. As I understand it — I have not heard this, I’ve read this, so I’ll just repeat what I’ve read, that Professor Gates said he liked Red Stripe, and I believe Sergeant Crowley mentioned to the President that he liked Blue Moon.”
Click here for the rest of the story from the Swampland.
It’s still unclear whether Gibbs will be making the beer run, as he suggested in Monday’s daily press briefing.
Helen Thomas and Chip Reid argued with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday about the administration’s efforts to control the press.
Thomas didn’t let it rest there, she told CNS news that the Obama administration has passed Nixon’s in those efforts, “What the hell do they think we are, puppets? They’re supposed to stay out of our business.”
Read the rest of the CNS news article and the transcript of her exchange with Robert Gibbs here.
At issue: the Obama press office arranged to have a Huffington Post reporter submit a question to the President based on questions sent to the President from people in Iran.
President Obama introduced a new strategy to bond with members of Congress at the annual White House Congressional Picnic.
President Obama set up three top officials to take a dive into a dunk tank. Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emanuel and Peter Orszag volunteer to have their Commander-in-chief have a lot of fun at their expense. WHC Insider wonders if this is the first time a President has gone so far to make some friends and win more votes on Capitol Hill.
NBC News VP Mark Lukasiewicz briefs camera crews during a pre-production meeting in the Old Executive Office Building on Thursday, May 28.
Mark Lukasiewicz (a.k.a. “Luk”) was the Executive Producer behind one of NBC’s most revealing portraits: “Inside the Obama White House, Brian Williams Reports.” WHC Insider reported Luk’s production plan to create the most personal look yet at the White House and this President. Today, we go behind the scenes with Luk as he tells us how they got the “get of the year.”
Linda Rozett: How long did it take to get the administration to agree to appear under this sort of microscope? How did you convince them to cooperate?
Mark Lukasiewicz: We began that conversation very early with Robert Gibbs and other Obama advisers. The conversations got more serious in February, and then got even more serious after the White House Correspondents Dinner in May. NBC has done this kind of show with virtually every administration since Nixon; it’s a very long tradition. President Ford was the only exception, since he wasn’t in office long enough. It’s been our practice to approach each new administration to participate, because it’s an opportunity to introduce the nation to them and how they work.
After that, we had a number of meetings on the details: the number of people involved, equipment to be moved in, where we would have cameras, and work space. We had a space in the Old Executive Office Building. Finally it became a matter of finding a date that worked.
From the outset I had the strong impression it really was only a matter of when, not if. The White House understood the value of this project in terms of introducing this administration to the country, to their key players. I didn’t sense any hesitation on their part.
Were there any restrictions on what you could shoot (rooms off limits, security, etc.)?
There were conversations with the Secret Service to make sure we weren’t doing anything inadvertently to compromise the President’s protection. And there were definitely areas we would have been happy to shoot, but were told no. Not the residence floors of the White House where the Obamas live. Not the Situation Room, for example, and limited opportunity to shoot in the areas occupied by the National Security people.
But the restrictions were really minimal in terms of where we could shoot; and almost all of them had to do with security.
How about the staff — any restrictions there?
No. But there were some logistical issues — making sure we could carve time out of the day to have access to the key players. Once we had agreement, we needed to make sure Brian Williams could stop in on certain people, that they’d have a free 15 to 20 minutes on their calendar.
Obama Walks to Oval Office -- courtesy Antoine Sanfuentes
Mark Lukasiewicz (a.k.a. “Luk”) is one of the biggest names in TV news, yet he operates behind the cameras and lights — and notoriety — as a Vice President of NBC News.
He has been leading NBC News’ digital efforts and on the side (ahem) over the years he has created and produced some of NBC News biggest events, the most recent: NBC’s “Inside the Obama White House, Brian Williams Reports.” With amazing access and resources, he and his team shot 150 hours of tape and created two primetime network hours, which also appeared on NBC’s cable channel MSNBC.
WHCInsider talked to Luk about the two-night special report, both of which captured a “top 10″ TV ranking for that week. about how the NBC the program came together.
Linda Rozett: Did you plan what everybody would be shooting beforehand, or did you just show up with lots of people and start shooting … and sort it out in the edit room?
Mark Lukasiewicz: The White House puts out a public schedule each day, so we certainly knew in advance some of what would be on President Obama’s schedule. But in terms of exactly how it would unfold, there’s no way to know that. You just roll with it. In the end, the broadcast included an entire chapter on how the White House managed the Sonia Sotomayor story — and that episode completely unfolded before our eyes. No one could have predicted it.
Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest and NBC News VP Mark Lukasiewicz on the South Lawn of the White House, consider camera locations for "Inside the Obama White House: Brian Williams Reports" – courtesy Subrata De
In the process we followed, every producer submitted an outline of their best material, what they saw what was noteworthy, what unfolded. Each submitted the outline by midnight on Friday, a few hours after they left the White House.
Before leaving the White House Brian, Subrata De and I were also able to compare notes — and overnight I put together a 12-act outline of the two hours incorporating all the best material from the producers, and laying it out and structuring it into a rough narrative.
By noon Saturday everyone was back in New York and the entire team went to work on that 11-page outline, in a two-hour meeting. We moved some things around, added some things, took some others out. And at the end of that meeting, a producer/editor team was assigned to begin producing each act.
Sunday was another full day in a “war room” on the 5th floor of 30 Rock, where Brian worked with each producer/editor team and scripted each act in sequence. Brian recorded his scripts for those acts Sunday evening. By Monday morning, we were screening a largely completed version of the two-hour special. It was an incredible process.
In addition to the NBC Special, didn’t you have time on MSNBC?
On NBC, we had one hour on Tuesday, June 2, and one hour Wednesday, June 3. We combined those into a single, two-hour program on Friday, which also ran on MSNBC on the weekend. And very soon, it will be a DVD.
And had our own website for the broadcast: www.whitehouse.msnbc.com. Pieces of video that we let run longer and stuff that didn’t make the broadcast, we put that on the website. We also had web-exclusive elements — our web producers were involved from day one; and msnbc.com had its own editorial team with us at the White House. They had access to everything. The website also has the full two-hour video, as well as all the previous “Inside the White House” broadcasts going back several years
With that much material, you must have had some good stuff that got left on the cutting room floor … what were your favorites that just didn’t quite make the cut?
There is. We had 150 hours of material. One thing we couldn’t get into the Monday, Tuesday broadcasts, but got in on Friday was a section about White House photographer Pete Souza. The producer who shot that material made the case for a great segment; a lovely and fascinating little glimpse of how the White House photographer works, how he works with the President. The segment told the story behind a particular photo, hanging in the West Wing, of a young boy in the Oval Office. The picture shows a 4-year old standing in front of the President’s desk and Obama is leaving over so the young boy can touch his hair. Souza told us the little boy had recently had his hair cut and wondered if their heads felt the same. In the photo, Obama is leaning over so the boy can feel his head.
How would you describe Obama’s comfort level with cameras following him that closely for an extended period?
I can’t speak for the President on this, but it appeared that he was very comfortable. We certainly had extraordinary access to him all day long in different settings: casual interactions with immediate staff members, casual interactions with the First Lady, walking from place to place, backstage, meetings in the Oval Office, in the Roosevelt Room, in the limousine, getting off the elevator in the morning and getting on the elevator in the evening. He seemed very comfortable.
American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi attends the White House Correspondents dinner at the Hilton Hotel on Saturday May 9 2009 in Washington D.C. DioGuardi ...www.americanidolreload.com/.../white-house-correspondents-... […]
American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi attends the White House Correspondents dinner at the Hilton Hotel on Saturday, May 9, 2009, in Washington, DC DioGuardi ... […]
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Obama’s premiere Oval Office speech 
