Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History 20140817

Towson university is in maryland. This class is just under two hours. Are going to talk today on our subject of White House Communications operations, which is the name of our course. Today we are going to look at a question of when reporters came to the white house and how they did. And it makes a difference, whether it was simply reporters came to the white house because an individual president was interested in bringing the men them in, or whether it was institutional forces bringing them there. At the same time we will be discussing this, we will be looking at a research question. Ago, i had read about a reporter who was generally thought of as the beingwhite house reporter brought into the white house by Theodore Roosevelt. He was standing in the rain. Roosevelt brought him into the white house and said, poor guy, standing out there. Lets bring the reporters in and give them a room. The thing that bothered me about that story was, i just did not believe that was the way reporters could have come into the white house. Is president s from George Washington on have news organizations. Because that is the only way they can get to the public. Thethey have always needed public to understand what it was they were doing, because after all, this is a Representative Government and the people who are going to elect officials, me so it did not seem to of the publicneed for a president and president s are in a situation where power is divided. You have what one political scientist said was separated institutions that share power. The president cannot do a lot on his own. If you look now at president talking in the last few weeks and months that he was take executive actions, if he cannot get congress to pass things, he is going to take executive action. That is nothing new. President s have long used their executive power in instances where they cant get congress to do what they want. In that kind of situation, they have to build support for themselves and their programs. And they have done that why getting to the public, as close to the public as possible. And there is really no other way of doing that other than news organizations. So, that is what they have done. When you look at the relationship a tween the white house and the press, you see that it is an institutional in that,hip president s, no matter who they alsoneed the press, but it has personal elements to it. Some things depend on the president. Does the president like to deal with reporters, or does he not . What about staff . Those things come together. It seems to me that that price, wholliam Theodore Roosevelt said, let him and his friend, give them a room in the white house this was 1902. That story just did not sound right to me. But one thing about that story it was used by many people in their explanations of how reporters got there. The 1950s, for example, douglas cater, who was a reporter and wrote about reporting, he used the story, as did many other people. So, i thought, there must be a way of finding out if this is in fact the case. It, i first taught about thought, well, i am going to need to be in washington for a period of time, because the only place i thought i could find the answers was in the library of congress and in its manuscript edition. The manuscript edition of the has a lot ofngress president ial papers and it also has papers of people who worked for president s. You didth century, not have chief of staff. You had a person called a private secretary. A private secretary is really analogous to a chief of staff today. Nge during the Mckinley Administration and the latter part of the 1900s, latter part of the 1800s, before we came into the 20th century. So, i decided to see if there were papers of april who had worked in the you in the white house. Because there were not president ial libraries for those papers. Ts much of the papers really are in the library of congress. I found a lot of information. And it was a Research Project that i thought was interesting, it was really and fun seeing the cast of characters. I am going to give you some peoplefrom some of the iran across. I also found a literature. There were a lot of reporters who wrote about that time period. And a lot of the reporting was very vivid about their interactions with various president s. Goodher, i found a lot of information. I thought it was worth spending several months on. How the beat was established really does tell you whether it was institutional it was the growth and president ial power, changes a growingganizations, interest in a president and his family whether those were the factors that led reporters to end up at the white house. The story i think everyone took came, i think, from an accounting of a washington clark. Ondent, delbert in 1895,one day William Price, reporter for the washington star welcome to the white house. When politicians calling on occurred, heveland buttonholed them, asking what news they had to give. Before long, reporters from other papers joint price in front of the executive mansion, greatth them, ambrose the , fresh from his communion with the burning bush talking about talking to the president. Riding in the 1930s. From his viewpoint, it was price who started everything and everybody else followed along with him. , you can it apart see that is really not the case. , whose view of clark was he was a passive actor, that price stood waiting for news to come to him by being at the gate. If you look today at the white house, one of the things you , when you are walking up to the west wing, on are a lot ofere Television Cameras and right in front of the west wing to the side is an area of microphones. That is known as the stake out. In effect what price was doing was working a stake out where if people like nancy pelosi or harry reid come to see the president , they come out of the west wing, and then they come and talk to the microphones, and then will talk to reporters. This is, in a sense, what price was doing at that time, but he was doing a lot more. Price was not just a passive reporter. He was active as well. I went through part of the project. I tried to find out when he started riding about the white house and what he wrote about. He had a column called at the i could take which back to 1897. But he was there before 1897. He simply got his column then. In a discussion of how the white he waseat had changed, riding it in the early 1900s, he how it works. Out he said, as a matter of fact, the news secured at the white house is the result of the efforts of the newspaper men themselves. There is no giving out of prepared news. Their acquaintance with public men all over the country with cabinet officers and departments departmental officials enable them to get tips. These same friends develop the stories for them upon inquiry. Meaning you have to call them up. Sometimes it is a question of are digging to unravel a story, and actually, when you think about the kind of way he was working, it was very much the way that reporters worked today. So, how did reporters get to the white house. Once i discovered reporters had ,een there well before 1902 when the story had it that Theodore Roosevelt brought them in, well, when did they get there . You could say or were several things that brought them there. There were events that occurred and changes in how a president met with the public and reporters wanted to i just to the ways to adjust to the ways in which president s did their job. Increasingly, they went out thegst the public, as country became larger and the president had to travel to cover a larger area, reporters went with him. Ways in which reporters came to the white house on a regular basis was through crisis. When there were crises, reporters would come. This is in the period in the period, there are several things that happen. One of the important times was during the spanishamerican war, and at the end of the 19th century. During that time, there were a lot of reporters that came wasuse the United States involved in war and people wanted information and they needed to get it from their commanderinchief. If not in person, then through his staff. You could tell at that time period, that reporters had been there a while. In thatre instructions in 1898, there were instructions that the private secretary had given to the doorkeeper about reporters, which demonstrate that they are there. The instructions called on the to maked the police sure reporters were corralled on the second floor quarters of the white house. In the late 1800s, the west wing was not there. 1902. St wing is still in as the president s reach became greater, his responsibilities, world later becomes the leader, more is asked of him, and as more is asked, the larger his staff is going to be. The staff at that time, in that latter part of the 19th century, areataff were housed in an that is over the east room. Floor alongt second the area where reporters were supposed to be. In 1898instructions were proper facilities for the inss having been provided the east corridor upstairs, when youut the think of the front of the white house, it really isnt the front, but it is the side where the Television Cameras are, and where you go to enter the west wing. That is the north face of the white house. And there is a big portico in the center. Upstairs lounging about the north portico, on the steps and is pivoted and must prohibited and must be enforced. When you had a big story going on, reporters moved around anywhere they could. They would be at the north portico because they wanted to talk to people who perhaps were the president , and also doing the same on the of the roomnd a lot taken up upstairs, then they were going to be wherever they could. That was something that porters thought was somewhat messy and wanted better control of it. They established a set of rules. These rules that reporters were to follow really clearly precede when roosevelt was supposed to have brought reporters into the west wing. So, one of the things that i ,ound and these i found these instructions i found in the files. Most of them in the files of he wascourt of the of a man who came into the white in the Cleveland Administration. He came over as a stenographer. School at night to being an assistant to be private secretary and then in the Mckinley Administration and the Theodore Roosevelt administration, he was the private secretary, then it roosevelt appointed him to be the secretary of commerce and labor and then he became the head of the Republican National committee and he finally became. He treasury secretary he had a somewhat meteoric rise. Part of it, i think he was a smart guy who understood how a president that leverages resources, and one of them was publicity, how he could get his message to the public and all of the different resources there were. He recognized early on that be importantould for the president. He could see that people wanted to know what the president. Ooked like, who he was i could see in his files mckinley did not want to be photographed. Persisted. There was a woman who was a very good photographer, frances and he wantedton, her to take pictures of the president , which ultimately, she did. Mckinley allow this. , also when they were traveling, and one of their trips when he was working for Theodore Roosevelt i think this was when he was working for Theodore Roosevelt. He wanted to set aside one car on that train as a darkroom so they could send out, the for job refers could send out the photographers could send out photographs. Things he was particularly keen on was making sure they had some control over reporters and where they worked. Had specific instructions that reporters were place they were not to their feet on window sills. That noo had rules beggars or peddlers were allowed into the mansion, and pretty much lumped reporters in that kind of category. And police enforced the rules. Rules. Ere porters he was an assistant, porter. Thathey maintained corridor space. The importance about the space that they had, that they were allowed in that secondfloor corridor or is that they had a table. They had a table they could report from. And when you look at the floor, thef the layout of it, you saw that that table was right outside of the door of the president. The private secretary. They may not have had a broom of the wrong, but in a way, they had better than that, because they may not have had a room of their own, but anyway, they had better than that, because they had the private secretary right there. Hall. Esident was down the they did not talk to the president in the same way. Are established, there is no going back on them. When reporters come into the in theouse spanishamerican war, nobody is going to leave, because they they get good information, that people are available to talk to them, and they want to make sure that they continue with that. And what to continue with it. So, body watch coverage one of the first interesting cases of body watch coverage i found assassination of james garfield. He was garfield die and did not immediately. ,e was about to go on vacation railwayas shot at the station. They brought him back to the white house. He lingered. He was shot in june and he lingered until september and died. , what did theme public know about what was going on with him . Because people were very interested in it. At they were very upset about his shooting. Large crowds would gather. Those crowds needed information. So, one of the things that the is that theyid , aowed the press representative of the press to come in. A 24hour basis. The reporter, who was a wire service reporter, was allowed in the telegraph room, and the telegraph room is next door to what is today the lincoln bedroom, which was actually in control office space, and there is which was actually. Incolns office space but in the 19th century, it was a telegraph room. The reporter was allowed to be in the telegraph room. People who have nameduty was a reporter Franklin Hathaway Truesdale who works for the Associated Press. The private secretary at the time, joe brown, talked about needing a press representative, and truesdale was one of them. Press left one representative to send out bulletins every other hour through the night. So, truesdale wrote a letter to his wife that i found. I saw referred to, and it said it was not in the library of congress, but the truesdale letter is owned by the white house. So, i asked them if i could have a copy of it and see it, which they did. Right into his wife he puts a dateline of 3 00 a. M. I sit here now, the house is is quite as death. I listen to every sound. A fountain splashes on the lawn. Not a step is heard in the mansion. The president sleeps. So his job was to find out whether the president was still alive. So, what he would do is he left , and everyph room hour or so, he left the telegraph room, walked down the bedroom,he president s and he wrote that the president s door was ajar. Door andood at the listened for the president s breathing. Once he could hear him breathing , then he knew he was still alive. It is hard to imagine how such a inuation could be allowed period. Other time restless. Blic was they wanted to know what was going on. They did not want to depend just on the white house itself. By that organizations point were regarded, especially the Wire Services, as objective reports of what was happening. He was allowed that access. Period, an time interesting case of body watch occurred not of a president , but of someone who was elected and soon to become president , or in several months, and that was abraham lincoln. Elected, the was Associated Press hired a villard, tonry follow him, to shadow him in springfield. He sat in a corner in his office and listened to the discussions of lincoln with various people who were coming to discuss cabinet positions. There one reporter was me, andong period of ti he came with lincoln to washington when he took the before he springfield was inaugurated. Theard would have been First White House correspondent if he had been interested in it, but he decided not to, and he wanted something more exciting to report on. And he went to new york, became interested in finances, and ultimately he became a railroad baron, and a very wealthy man. He and lincoln had a very good relationship. Once the civil war started, he and so i to washington went looking for his footprints, too, and he had an autobiography , and in it, he talked about seeing lincoln, and lincoln asking him because as a civil war correspondent, he went to the battles, so, lincoln wanted battle. On a particular i think it was fredericksburg. And so he did. Trusted by lincoln from the time he had been with him in springfield. Watche after the body coverage of garfield, you also , a around the same time little later, president ial travel. When president s started taking long trips, reporters wanted to be there. Increasingly one element here is president s made news. People sought the president as increasingly an important figure. Even though as far as the president was concerned in the latter part of the 19th century was a period where congress seem thee dominant, but president was becoming increasingly important and news organizations saw it and wanted to be with him. You saw Something Like the following of garfield and his assassination, the more interest there is going to be by news organizations covering the president s travel. Sure they could get at any time what they wanted, which was access to a president. So, president s have been traveling since the beginning. George washington traveled. There were trips that president s took that were called slings are round of the circle. The swings around the circle were efforts to get to the population and give speeches, to see people. One of the interesting things i that was a little booklet accompanied a trip and laid out a trip Theodore Roosevelt took. And that trip was in the early thes, and it went through western part of the u. S. In that little booklet, it had each city they were going to travel to and when they were going to be there, who they were , and factslk to about each city, like comedy people there were, what was the temperature like how many people there were, what was the temperature at the time they were going to be there. Toy were clearly trying accommodate the needs of reporters. And that was done during the wasod when George Cortelyou working for Theodore Roosevelt. Time, there were reporters following the president. In what became the body watch erage of a different type harrison took a trip, harrison, Grover Cleveland, and mckinley all traveled a great deal, because the country was expanding. And they took reporters with him. First, there were not a lot of them. Benjamin harrison in october of 1890 traveled to the midwest. He went for 10 days. There were 10 people in the president s entourage, and two of them represented the major press associations of the era, which were Associated Press and what became Associated Press, the united press. They had access to them because they were in the same cars. You would get a feeling for how between there was an exchange of letters between the people who headed the news organizations and the president. So, the heads of the news organizations were very happy to have the reporters travel with the resident, and with the president , so they wrote and thanked them. Be as were letters that were in the library of congress. At and so you got a good sense of the organizationsws and following the president , and the president wanting to have them there. People that is including the president two reporters. The manager of Associated Press personally thank the president. The Associated Press is not unmindful of the attention given its representatives and thanks you earnestly for the goodwill you have shown as are your through your kindness to him. This was a trip in 1891, a trip to california. The president replied to his note and said the president noted that mr. Clarke won the respect and regard of every member of our party. We were fortunate impress representatives in that they could be trusted not to commit any breach of propriety. Indeed we were without any restraint in their presence and they freely mingled with us as members of the family. That is the best kind of access that reporters had had, with a president for that amount of time, that could be measured in days. It and wants other reporters knew about that, they were interested in having the same kind of access. They, too, wanted to be members of the family. , each time there were more reporters that traveled with the president. The president ial party got larger as well. On one of the trips on one of elijah hallford, who was a private secretary, talked a reporter who accompanied the president on his trip. Even a little before this, in 1887, on a trip that Grover Cleveland took, the president s private secretary, emmanuel were 10said there people lamonts diary was one that was pretty cryptic. He would just say, any people were, and, who they what were the basic things that happened. His diary, he did not have a lot of time to sit down and note things. Differenttelyou was and his diary was different because he was a stenographer. He has started as a ,tenographer, so in his diary it was pretty complete for the did it, buthe unfortunately he did not cover he was intime period government. In 1897, lamont noticed noted or were 10 people, including the president and mr. Cleveland. There were two press Association Representatives and an artist. That is three people out of that small group of 10. And so, they are beginning to interested in image and having an artist along with them, because this is the period before cryptography is being used a lot. At they obviously had photography by that time period, but they were not included in the trips. Lamont noted that during the three weeks of their journey that they had the 10 people three being press they 4000 miles, passed through 17 states, crossing three of them twice, and the president had been seen in between 1that varied million and 5 Million People. The senses ran to 50 Million People. Hat was a large number when they went to towns for example, when Theodore Roosevelt, and the others as well. They would stop in a city. The president would stay on the train. The local press would get on and maybe do interviews with some of the people. And then get off. So, you had a traveling traveling press corps, but then you had a local press corps that would, on would come on. 1891 and years between 1901, travel increased enormously i president s by president s. Of people that were demanding to join the trips grew much larger. In the 1901 trip, because they were going to be Pacific Coast and this was with president mckinley they left and thenn on april 29, they came back on june 15. ,hat is a large block of time and one where you could certainly get a good sense of what it is the president was doing. On that particular trip, there were 40 people that were passengers. You had nine press representatives. A photographer, two telegraph operators, three stenographers. , in his files, all of the requests are there for news organizations. He had to limit the press three wireon to services, three washington magazines. And three because he was day loosed with requests. Reporters and their organizations new this was a knew opportunity to this was a great opportunity to see the president. People may want to know different things. When youre passing through colorado, you will have different questions than when you are in ohio. So, they could get a better sense of who the president was. Now in mckinleys kays, case, mckinley would often come back and talk to reporters. These were off the record sessions. But he liked reporters. He was comfortable talking with them. He would come back and talk about a variety of things. But reporters knew that they should not be discussing it outside their particular group, and they did not. One thing they did not want to do was jeopardize their situation. One of the when i am saying that mckinley liked reporters, it particularly warmed the hearts of reporters. Mckinley was traveling to asheville, north carolina. He had a group of reporters with him. He went into the vanderbilt mansion in asheville. By the peopled that ran the mansion vanderbilt was not there they that reporters were not welcome. And in his riding, in his writing, William Price was on the trip. He always wrote about these trips. So, he talked about it and what the president s response was. Returnsident courteously the answer that the newspaper correspondents were his guests, to unless they were accompany him, he would be unable to make his promise to visit. It did not take long for the superintendence to change his let reporters then. That is something we do not see much of, that friendly kind of relationship. But i think mckinley had a because helationship held most of the cards. He could decide who was going to be at that table if he wanted to. Allowld refuse to somebody to go on a trip with him. That is not something a president is not going to have control over today. So, i think when you look back iod, reporterseruio are getting more information, getting more access, but there are a lot of rules that they are going to corral that access. Today, and some of the same rules, but the expectations are different. We expect really of all of our governmental officials. It is not just the president. We expect you know a lot of the personal lives, whether it is members of the house of representatives, the senate, even the gubernatorial level. At our expectations are different. We also want to know about policy and how policy is made and their justifications for what they are doing. Today, a president s life is much more public than he was at that time. There areident about 500 speeches a year on average. If you look at president s, clinton, george w. Bush, and that is the range of how often they speak. That would not have been true in that time period. About 750 maybe gave speeches. Speeches in eight years. That is the middle of the 20th century. The expectations have been much from how often we see a president s and how often to speak a president to the public through reporters. Like today, the white house had a press conference, president hollande president took questions from reporters. Things, one of the ways we were finding out more about the president , one is the routines that were established century,re the 20th was the president ial interview. Today, interviews are in importance aspect of a presidency. That is particularly true with president obama. President obama in his first five years, at the fiveyear mark, had 759 interviews. That is with a lot of different news organizations. Small wichita, station,levision interviewing one of the anchors, and he did that during the government shutdown, because there were a lot of federal employees in wichita. A muchcould be with larger audience, like he had an interview with the low rightly that precededly the super bowl. You are getting to 111 Million People or however many are watching that. The audiences are very. But president s over the years have found interviews to be an important aspect of how they want to communicate with the public. Not just giving speeches. The president s in the 19th century who used interviews johnson. Andrew Andrew Johnson was doing interviews with washington tryespondents as a way to to survive impeachment. He was having his impeachment , and he the senate decided to do interviews to his actions. And one of the people he talked to was a correspondent from , cincinnati commercial. Was ae matter discussed most always nearly empty ending in beating impeachment when he was doing interviews. Each party asking and answering questions and turned. While the interviewer did not take notes, he queried the president s. If he was willing, that the result of the conversation should go to the press. Can i use this . There was anything that he desired to be suppressed, meaning what was off the record . So, the president would decide what parts of his interview he wanted out there,. Nd what parts he did not that actually has it is not the case today that when a allident does an interview of the parts of that interview are going to be used, but that was a time period when the rules favored the president. One of the important aspects of the growth of the white house and the establishment of the beat was what was going on with news organizations. At that time it was newspapers and Wire Services. And what they were doing. The early days, you had especially in the period before the civil war washington was not really an information center. And you did not have a lot of reporters assigned to their. One of the people who i found to be particularly interesting i found a book by a correspondent who came to washington in the 1840s. His name was lawrence go bright gobright. He talked about how he got information. Time before the white house beat. In his book, he was saying that if you wanted to get information, and the president was a part of its and you wanted the president ial angle, what you did was you went to the white house and talk to the president. At that time, correspondents did not have a beat. They just went all over the country. Instance, thee reporters were not given the specifics about a union battle that was one won. From is just a telegram the War Department saying the union forces had one. Failing to obtain that this ight talking at the department, since they could not get what they wanted at the department of war, several of the correspondence hastened to the executive mansion because it was not yet called the white in order to secure the desired information from the president. Needings a cabinet going on when they got to the white house. Officials were leaving the room, the representatives of the press had no sooner sent and their cards inhim that he welcomed them a loud voice. Walk in, walk in, take a seat. The president then told them he knew why they were there. To know more about the good news. You gentlemen are keen of sense and always wideawake. That was the way they could get information. A particular beats, because the information was from all over town from a small group of correspondence. In 1874, he had been in washington for a fairly long time, and he was riding about correspondence that timeents at and what a correspondence must do to get news daily. Drop in on commutative congressmen, dine with diplomats, chat with promenade errs on the avenue that is pennsylvania avenue listen to the conversation of those who may be passengers on streetcars. Short, he must ever be on and that is the portrait of a cross cutter, the reporters of that time had those responsibilities. To get the stories he went to those various parts. It was not hard to go from one story to another as far as time was concerned. From 1870 until 1900, news organizations changed. They proliferated. Newspapers proliferated. Until period from 1870 1900, the number of newspapers two 2226. 574 that was much larger than the increase in populations. 6 of the870, population received a newspaper, was up toater, that 20 . So, you had much more interest in what was going on because the papers were a lot cheaper. At one time, they were more at one time, they were more expensive because of the way they were produced. Once you have technological changes, that is going to affect how newspapers and Wire Services are going to report because you have so many newspapers. How are they going to keep on top . What kinds of ways would they use to try to get an audience . Newspaper and had washington correspondents and new everybody else was hunting for news, what were some of the ways you might try, strategies editor andry as an publisher . What kind of strategies might you use to make sure you got your own audience . Any ideas . You could target some of the people that would be reading the newspapers. That would be women. In addition to doing regular news, you might begin getting interested in social news. Particulararget. Thnic groups you had various migrations of irish comingians, into the United States. You would have papers that focused on their interests. That had been a practice given before this time period. When he came to the United States, he came from germany. He established german newspapers in the midwest. He really had not spoken english well when he came to the u. S. As newspapers grow, you are going to have more ethnic and also more papers that are going to show interests in particular niches. One would be women. One could be the white house, right . You could put more attention onto the white house as a beat. Something that happened with William Price. Column price wrote his. T the white house he was the first person to have a column specifically in that niche category of the white house. Times a sense of how between precivil war and postcivil war, in the , when he came to new york in the 1840s he said the newspapers rarely contained more than half a column of washington news. Washington was not seen as the center of news. Washingtonivil war, and the departments of government as well as congress became of much more interest to the public as a whole. When he came to washington in ie 18 40s, go bright said was for six weeks, the only newspaper correspondent in washington because congress was not in session. Reporters did not see any reason to stay if they were not in session, so he found himself as the only reporter around. More newspapers and ase interest in washington more is being done in the postcivil war period, and a lot of reporters came in during the civil war and many did not leave because they saw the federal government, that a lot was going on. Their organizations knew they needed to be there. Gradually as you develop more of a Washington Press corps, you have them interested in developing standards of reporting, particularly when reporters got caught up in some scandals. The development of things like the Gridiron Club. The Gridiron Club was established in 1885. It was a place for reporters and officials to get together for fellowship sod they would have links to one where even if they had had conflicts with one another, they would have times when they would get together in groups. Both sides would get together. The Gridiron Club still exists. Both sidesce where make fun of themselves, a lot of as youprecating humor sometimes see with the White House Correspondents Association another time when reporters and officials get together. Is on theence is that record, on television, and gridiron has not done that. True toe maintained their origins. Although the record, parts of speeches do leak out in this time period. They saw a need to try to bring each other together because as there are more correspondents in town, you can get more conflicts between the two sides with reporters getting increasingly nosy and wanting to get information, particularly during the scandal periods. That the officials did not want to provide. With the increased newspapers and wires, you have more interest in other types of reporting about washington. Cant all be just pieces of legislation and president ial speeches. Some of the subjects of interest became the president ial family. Went through newspapers, the washington evening star, which is what William Price work for. Star forugh the several years trying to find the first story of his. One thing i thought was what was going on at the white house, not just the president , was of interest to people. Had hishe president s , his daughter was in a train affected by flood. That was a frontpage story. When the first lady would give teas, sometimes it would be a small piece on the front page or inside. Often, people were interested in what it was the first lady w ore. Particularlyople notrested in a white house, just the president himself, but the operation of a white house as an institution was a reporter, emily briggs, who wrote around the 1870s. She wrote under the name of olivia. She did not use her name in reporting. She reported in the Philadelphia Free press. Listen to her comments. Think of what it tells you about reporting and what her expectations were of what was fair game for a reporter and why. Cover social events. Them, noto a lot of just at the white house but also at dinners for department secretaries. Felt it was a private reception held by a departmental theretary, she said, newspaper correspondent dare not, cannot, without violating all delicacy and good taste make a pen picture of the men and women who the dare dear people at home like to know all about. Privatere invited to a party, keep your mouth shut about what is going on. You cannot write about it and cannot do drawings either of who was there, what they looked like, what they wore. But when the party is given by the president in the white house, she said, it is altogether a different affair. It is public. It belongs to the people. When we go to the executive mansion, we go to our own house. We recline on our own satin and ebony. We are received graciously by our own welldressed servants. The people have a right to know the exact state of the situation. Party at theto a mention becomes public property and has no more right to complain he has been caught in the net of the news fish whondent than the has swallowed the hook of an honest fisherman. What do you think of that idea . Today think reporters feel had that same view . If theyre going to social events . Today, the social events are a little more open. Feel,ople certainly reporters feel, an obligation to like, the state dinner taking place tonight for president hollande. What kinds of things are we going to know about that . Yeah . Who is there. You will get a guest list. Period, olivias time period, she would report on some of that but may not have known who all the guests were. But today, the white house will put out a list. Although it wont put it out until right before hand. I have not seen it come through as to who the guests are. We will know what they look like, what they wear, because news organizations are going to at the booksellers area which is downstairs on the east wing shortly beyond the place where we will seein, so who all the guests are. If the guests want to, they can come over and talk to reporters and be interviewed and talk about what they have on. We will find out what the menu is. That was done yesterday. Had anst ladys office event where they talked about the menu. Niche we have even more reporting. There is a blog called foodarama. It, it ise gone into interesting because the woman who has the blog is very interested in the first ladys garden, what kinds of foods they beekeeper. They have a beehive at the white house to produce their own honey, which i think they are , and in the state dinner also greens they grow there. It is hard for a white house today to not have information come out on all of these social events. Most people did not go along with what bolivia or emily briggs wanted to report. She got a lot of blowback from her view that everything should be public. Led in anhink she important way in 1870s to say this is our property, these are our officials and they have an obligation to let us know what they are doing. It is a very modern concept that has gone from social reporting to reporting about all of what a president is doing in the policy area. She got, from the white houses point of view, pretty nosy. Having the view she did that all of what goes on in that white the arearticularly in she was interested in, the she felt she that could go and talk to anybody. If she could get them to talk. Her assumption was people should. Espond to her queries the higher ups in the white house were not particularly happy with her. On one occasion, she went to talk to the white house steward. He was the head of all their operations. Today, we have a white house usher who is responsible for the residence staff. Today, the staff numbers about 100 people. They are under strict instructions not to speak to reporters unless they have been allowed to do so. The white house and asked about some of their household operations. House wasr the white short on porcelain and silver flatware. Madam, there is not enough silver in the white house to set a respectable lunch table. Those kinds of instances where people reported what the white like porter,ls, john addison porter, and George Cortelyou as well did not want to have out. Standards of what should be of how white house staff should behave and where reporters should be. 1902, i found in cortelyous written. Mphlet he had specialtled, instructions to the chief doorkeeper and those under his immediate supervision. Cortelyou provided that the giving of the information to representatives of the press or to any others except in the strict line of official duty concerning any matter relating to the white house or the executive office is strictly prohibited. With thisid exception, all persons making requests for information must be referred to the secretary to the president. You can see, as the president becomes more of a center of interest, as the staff grows larger, as he is traveling more and doing more and becoming leader, whichrld happens in the theater roosevelt administration, you see more for thatng developed increasing number of reporters who come to the white house. All of this is happening before said ton roosevelt is have brought reporters into the white house. In looking at the rules, people in washington looking at reporting and how they were covering the president and increase ined the people who were elected officials who had a good sense of what publicity was about. One person writing, henry boynton, was writing in 1891, noted the importance of the press to successful Public Officials. Of that small body of press of public men who make up the most successful class, with few exceptions, they have made the closest study of the machinery of the press and the facilities which it offers. The people who have succeeded are the same people who have understood the press and most likely the people who have used the press before they came into the white house. See one of the interesting things between the civil war and early in the 20th century, and then through the 20th century too, that there is where people who afterecome president having held the particular position seem to have a good sense of public city. They know how to deal with the press. Resource used it as a in their earlier official positions. Does anybody know what that position would be . If you look at backgrounds of president s and think of people who were particularly successful in publicity, in this particular time period we are thinking about Theodore Roosevelt. William mckinley had a good sense of publicity. If you look at it, some of the people becoming president , where do they come from . You certainly see it in the 20th century, too. [indiscernible] there are some senators. But there is another position that has been particularly important. Yes, governors. We look at president s who were successful in their publicity. If you start in the latter part of the 19th century and look at president s who were successful, what president s do you see who were governors . It is not just a governor but big state governors. Why would a big state governor in particular have a good sense of press relations . They understand what the people want and what they want to hear and how to control the media. They would have had a Large Population to deal with. It is not something they could deal with by themselves. Some states are retail states where the president can go out and know a lot of people because the state is small. For example, bill clinton knew a lot of people throughout arkansas because he went to so many different places. If you look at big state governors, there are a lot of very successful big state governors. William mckinley represents that. Yes, rutherford b. Hayes, were both governors of ohio. Had a goodeland, who publicist operation as far as his staff was concerned, he knew how to do it, not do it personally but have other people run good press operations. And Theodore Roosevelt, and of course crichton roosevelt, franklin roosevelt, they were all governors of new york. In those positions, dont with the press on a regular basis. They dealt with the press on a regular basis. Theodore roosevelt when governor of new york used to meet regularly with the press. With a see pictures bunch of correspondence standing on his desk when he is talking to them about what he is doing. He brings that into the white house. If you go into the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson was governor of new jersey. That also was a large state. It still is. But it was a large state at the time. He had a good sense of publicity. When he came in, one of the first things he did was create the president ial press conference. He did that knowing he was going to have to deal with reporters because he had dealt with reporters in new jersey, so he knew what he had to do. He had to spend time thinking about his publicity. In fact, he wrote his own press releases, not just his own speeches, but he wrote his own press releases as he came in. Deal knew he wanted to with reporters in a group, in a large group. In the First Press Conference he had a couple of hundred people. Press conferences earlier, you would not have pulled together 200 people. Roosevelt, franklin he was the governor of new york and had a terrific sense of publicity. The same thing. He was used to dealing with reporters. It toply had to adjust what he was going to be doing as president. But he knew where the press fit into governing. All those people did, whether mckinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, franklin roosevelt. Look at ronald reagan. Ronald reagan was governor of california and had a very good sense of publicity and he came in as well. He knew what things they could do and what he could not do. Value of getting out personally and getting your image out and what it was you plan on doing. I think as we look at it, we can see in the latter part of the , we start getting people as candidates who do have a good sense of placidity publicity. Thatynton wrote in 1891, the people who succeed are ones who have the good sense of what the resources are. Part of that is assembling a staffand having a good that is going to help you. Case, mckinley was interested in using the press when he was campaigning. His 1896 campaign was an important one in the use of the press because he put ads in newspapers, and he made sure reporters had advanced copy of speeches copies of speeches. That was the same kind of thing he brought into the white house. At their sense of publicity, it is going to mean they are going to bring in people with them who know news organizations well. Papers of through the , andarious secretaries their papers are in the library of congress, one of the things a uniting factor in the secretaries chosen from about 1883 through franklin roosevelt, except for cortelyou. Pressyou did not have experience but had a good nose for resources and how to use them. Most of the people who held that secretary position had substantial experience in the news business. Many of them had either worked reporters likeas Elijah Halford or had owned newspapers or were publishers. President s recognized what they because gradually they are going to be doing more and more. That is going to require they get to the public more often in a favorable light and get the public behind them in whatever they are doing. They bring in people who have that kind of background. A reporter in the latter part of the 19th century who wrote about washington covered every branch of government. He talked about the person who work for cleveland. Cleveland did not like reporters. He did not like to deal with them directly. Instead, he wanted to use others. A person who worked for him and he was governor of new york, his name was daniel lamont. Lamont had a good nose clevelando get involved in and what to have him stay out of. And how to get information to reporters. Briefings forr reporters. Lamont, he felt , steely as a reporter felt lamont complemented the president s weak points. He was superb at advancing publicity on whatever policies the president had. Where cleveland was abrasive with reporters, lamont was not. Manage men how to and affairs. During his day in the white house and while secretary of war, because he then moved up, he was sort of a ministering angel to the wounded feelings of public men and smoothed over and rubbed out many differences which might have become serious and embarrassing to the administration. One of the things he worked on is president cleveland got married in office. He was in his 50s. He married a woman in her early 20s. With a number of newspapers increasing, you can imagine what that was like as far as the story was concerned. Cleveland did not want newspapers nosing him on his business, but there was no way he was going to avoid it. To deal with the demand of news organizations for information but also helped keeping the privacy of frances fulsome the most francis folsom, who cleveland married. Her mother went to europe before she married cleveland. Everyone wanted information on her. They went abroad to escape publicity. When they were coming back to new york, as you can imagine, there were a lot of reporters there. Did, they went out on a smaller boat and took them off the ship and took them into another place. Of how toood sense avoid things. But ultimately when they did get married, reporters staked out deep creek, the place they went for their honeymoon. Reporters staked out the place to try to get pictures of them. You can imagine what cleveland auto that. Not a lot. During this time, you have established routines for both the white house and press. One of them is the president wanted to get information out and be able to control it even when he released it. That would be with the state of the union message. The president is required to give a state of the union message. But there is nothing that says he has to do that in speaking directly to the congress in person. In fact after adams, you dont have the president speaking again in person until Woodrow Wilson. How did they get their message . They wrote these big messages and sent them out. They sent them out through the post office. The way it worked, the reporters talk about how they got the message. Are always handed to papers by postmasters. One of the ways of dealing with their own publicity was to use the resource of the post office, something president s and their staffs no longer do. You can see why the appointments of postmasters were important because they were going to be important to president ial publicity. They handed them to the some hours before the document was delivered to the congress. Be off the record until the time of delivery. The reason they needed to do that is because they wanted people writing about it that understood what it was about. To be in aant position of reporting on the having a sense of what the policies are, being able to talk to people about it, and writing an informed story. It is in the interest of the white house, the president and his staff, and news organizations that reporters that something accurate tells a story about the policy that president is proposing. You want an informed story. Yeah . Reporters . To the news organizations and the news organizations gave it to the reporters. It was embargoed to a particular date. At that time when you embargoed something, it was going to be a matter of days. The likelihood you have something embargoed that is going to hold over a several day period increased the possibility that was going to really be held. S found in fact people did leak it. All you need is a couple of weeks about the programs. Eaks about the programs to give the information to everybody else. Broken,embargo was everybody else is going to publish it. They had came to was people sign an embargo. Case, ident mckinleys found these in quarterly ofs quarterly you courtelyous files, he had several copies of these statements reporters had to sign. It is received by the undersigned in advance under the express condition it is to be held in confidence and no fortune, synopsis, or intimation published or given out until after its delivery date has been andn by the president on then another line to be filled in. If for any reason set speech will not be delivered until a later date, under the same conditions no synopsis or intimation shall be published or given out until its delivery. Organization had to sign it and say they would promise to adhere by these rules. Increasingly, they are setting up the rules. Not rules of combat, but the rules of operation because they want to get out more information but still want to control it. They try as they might to control it. Would a president today released a speech that was embargoed, that they would have a speech released,before it is before he gives it . Can you think of any speech is a president might give that there is an embargo on . Embargoes still do exist. The state of the union message. Just like mckinley wanting to in thee material reporters hands, but at the same time not give it out. Then thought to do was to provide briefings to provide information. Other and several oricials in the mckinley Cleveland Administration would on a daily basis for reporters so they could give some background information. They made sure reporters were on and let themck know if they were wandering off, if they were going to be publishing something not accurate, white house officials made sure they knew their information was not accurate and , much them off of stories as what happens today. Seeng this period, you can coming into the modern period you have space at the white house. Whichve regular ways in the two sides in a structured way dealt with each other. It is a growing institutional relationship. By the time Theodore Roosevelt was supposed to have brought ,eporters into the white house in fact reporters were already there. Routine and a tacit understanding of how they would work. But that was important for both sides. The institutional relationship was important for both sides because reporters increasingly newsd the president in the story and the president s needed the press in order to govern, to make sure the public new what it and helpingoing explain what his policies were and what his hurdles were in trying to get that policy through congress. Time, a lotrices had already been done that brings us into a modern period. We have a lot to be thankful for in prices coming to the white house. He is an interesting figure to study. I guess one of the things i would like you all to know is research is interesting. Past,nd a lot about the in the past tells you about the president. Is the payoff in this kind of research. Going back to price, we learn a light on a lot on how the white house was structured and how it is a process of accretion. It is not one person or president making a decision. Rather, there are institutional developments that take place in the press and within the white house that brings us to the relationship that occurs in the 20th century. Much of which we have today. What questions do you have . Who has one . Ok. [indiscernible] i have a couple of questions. If you could pick something about the process of your daily dotine or any other routine, you see any flaws in it . As it developed . The experience of working there. They white house benefits the more information they get out, even if it is bad news. You want to gather the information. Make sure you have it all and let it out at one time. Dont, it is trickle and drip. It is one day of bad stories after another. I think president s and Staff Benefit by the more information out there. Clinton used to talk all the time. He would do press conferences. He would do short question and answer sessions. In the period obama has done about 120 question and answer sessions, think about reporters coming into the oval when there is a visiting head of state and he answers maybe one question. Not like a press conference today. In those kinds of circumstances, if obama has done say 120, clinton had done about 750. The staff groaned that he was always doing these. But the reality was people knew who he was. They could see him day after day talking, even if it was on a subject he was not supposed to be talking about, when they were trying to get him to talk about subject a and he would go off on something else. What the public new through that knew from that was that he was always talking about his policies and trying to press for them, that he was very knowledgeable, and he was on the job. That became important when the Monica Lewinsky case came about, which was at the beginning of his sixth year. The public had a sense of who he was. When the impeachment came about, i thought he benefited by the fact he talked all the time because it told you a lot about policymaker. Er and people saw him on the job. That is one thing i think i would change. Just get people to understand it really is to their benefit to have the president talking and explaining. The explainers are not your staff. The explainer is the president himself. You have more . I do. Lets get somebody else first. Come on. Yeah. [laughter] ok. The rules usedd to favor the president in terms of communication with newspapers. Now you would say it is more in the reporters, right . I would not say they favor reporters, but it certainly is more equal than it was. The president has the information and can decide when he will release it, even if it is to his benefit to release it at a particular time, he may choose otherwise. Ally, we have the notion Public Officials have to discuss what it is they are doing. With expect them to discuss it. We alsoxpect expect documents will come out. With the freedom of information act, you can get documents and you cannot get documents from the white house because it is not covered by the freedom of information act. If you want to know what a white house official is saying or doing about benghazi, you go to the state department because the state department is covered by the freedom of information act. Now thanet a lot more you once could, so they use that as a resource. The Public Attitude president s should explain what they are up thend provide information, candidates and president s do it to themselves as candidates by telling people hours will be an open administration. Richard nixon said that as he bee into office, ours will an open administration, open to critics as well as friends. Most president s have said when they come then we will release everything. Obama made that a major point of his campaign, that transparency was going to will rule. Once you get into office, you find you cannot give out all those records. There are reasons why you have to keep them under wraps, for you think that there are reasons. The reporters will be relentless about it. They will not just use the freedom of information act. They will try to talk to people who work in departments and also in the white house and get them to talk. At a certain point in a presidency, i think staff people have to start thinking about their own legacy, not just the president s legacy but about their own legacy. I found in interviewing it is much easier to interview people in the latter part of the president s term in office because people recognize they need to explain what they have been doing during their time with the president and casting their own good light on it. Lets get some more questions. Yeah. You were discussing the set of actors that can use information from the executive office. As far as sources for the news and reporters, do you find a lot of information comes from leaks from people lower on the totem pole compared to more of the more wellknown actors when they are searching for information not explicitly said in a press conference . Leaks can come from anywhere. They can come high or low. Listening to bob woodward talk operating as af reporter for the washington carl in crowbars bernstein broke the watergate story. He talked about how he would try to develop relationships with all the people in an office. Then what he did, because i have asked people if they talked to them with various books he was working on, and if they did, why they did it. One person said i did talk to him. By the time he gets to you, he has memos with your name on it. [laughter] you dont get those memos necessarily from high up, but lower down and work your way up. Thank you very much. Have a nice evening. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] each saturday evening for classroom lectures from across the country on different topics and eras of american history. Lectures are also available as podcasts. And them website or from itunes download them from itunes. All weekend, american history