They very much see us as a stabilizing effect. We are providing them support. It is welcomed support. Surveys we do every 90 days or so continue to upper the support for army and police and the coalition in support of the army and police. They do not see us as occupiers persay or coming here for our own gain. Host richard on the independent line, thank you for waiting. Caller morning. My nephew is in his third year as a jag air force officer. He will be leaving for afghanistan in april for the first time. He has a two month old and a two and a halfyearold son. s mom is safety with worry that his mom is sick with worry about his safety there. I would like to call her and say it is fine. Happy thanksgiving to you and your family. We do everything we can to ensure the safety of the soldiers, airmen, sailors as well as civilians and marines we have here. Indaughters have served their very first assignment here in afghanistan. I have a lot of equity in making sure that this is the place that we sent our brothers and sisters safely. We make sure they are trained for the environment they will operate in. We ensure wherever we go, we take extra security measures and keep ourselves situationally aware. We know where people are. We also have the protective and defensive measures around the places we lived to ensure we can defend on any front that they may come. We work with our afghan partners. We use a system called guardian angels. These are men and women who have trained to carry weapons and provide security around the areas we work in ministries and various locations, etc. Ours has been my fourth t in afghanistan, and i can tell you i feel very secure with the systems and measures in place. Host gordon majors is a graduate of the academy in west point, and he is joining us from afghanistan. Jack is from illinois. Good morning. Caller morning, sir. I have a question. The all of noticing the vehicles isis is driving, fordss and and dodges. And all ofng online the heavy equipment and guns are all computer operated. They live by like they claim they can do in the states and kill one of those computers in the vehicles. Then they dont have to shoot nobody. Guest happy thanksgiving to you. I will tell you most of the systems you are talking about in terms of electronics in vehicles for Armored Vehicles or any type of vehicle are isolated. Expert in Technical Communications or information technology, but i do know that those are systems that are difficult to attack. You frankly cannot do that with electronic measures. Those really require almost a physical destruction to affect. Host very quickly, what concerns you the most being on the ground in afghanistan . What is your biggest fear . Guest frankly, i go back to one of the things i said earlier. That is a great christian. We will not that is a great question. We will not have the perseverance to see this through because of the cost. We are working very hard to drive down the costs so our efforts are more affordable to the country. We know that the army and police are frankly, and the afghan. Eople, depend on our support they know we will be there in terms of a long enduring partnership, a commitment to their success. They will have the confidence, the trust that we will help when needed, and they will basically happy morale and wherewithal to continue on. They are very concerned with our periodic commitment, ourselves, our allies, and our partners. Will concerns me most is not that we will not make progress, but that we might abandon too early before we become a sustainable effective force. Host how will you and your units celebrate thanksgiving on this thursday . Guest we already started. It is Late Afternoon here. We are about 9. 5 hours ahead of you, so we are getting into early evening. Some of us already had thanksgiving lunch o across afghanistan. We will have a thanksgiving dinner. I will be with other leaders serving for our troops. Host Major General gordon davis joining us from kabul, afghanistan. On the next wall street journal well look at free speech on college campuses, looking at student protests and marches. Washington journal on cspan and you can join us with your comments on facebook and twitter. Tonight the designing and history of the congressional gold medals, americas highest honor. We hear from a Graphic Designer and then with well show the ceremony for the world war ii monuments men. Thats at 8 00 eastern here on cspan. The Washington Center hosted four members of the White House Press corps to discuss their roles and responsibilities in coveringing the presidency. His is an hour and 15 minutes. Welcome, everybody. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Im going to have a couple of quick announcements. Then were going to have a short pause and for the cameras to pick up and then we will go to Kevin Nunnally who will introduce our moderator this morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome. Im allen gross, senior director of Academic Affairs at the Washington Center. We welcome you to the second conversation of the leaders series. This is an important part here at the Washington Center, its an opportunity for you to learn about issues of public concern. This afternoon youll have a chance to learn about different strategies for citizens to make a difference about the issues that they care about and at the conclusion of todays conversation, my colleague, dr. Jen odell will share with you some logistics and thoughts for making the transition to this afternoons conversations. You come from all around the world and all around the country and we have a panel of professionals today that we had pretty much only put together here in washington, d. C. Theyre journalists, they have covered the white house. Theyre leaders in their field and theyre the folks that get to write the first draft of history. Opportunity for you to think today about the issues you care about and the difference you want to make as you embark upon your future pathways of achievement. So to introduce us in just a moment is our Vice President of student affairs, mr. Kevin nunnally. [applause] good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to welcome today our moderator, miss christie parsons. She is a correspondent, a 26year veteran of the chicago continue bune where she covered campaigns, State Government and local politics before joining the Washington Bureau in 2006. A recent past president of the White House Correspondents association, she has an undergraduate degree in journalism and english and a masters from yale law school. Please welcome ms. Christi parsons. [applause] ms. Parsons thank you for that very nice introduction. When i heard we were talking to college students, i first of all didnt expect you to show up on a friday morning and i didnt expect you to be dressed all professionally. I thought it was going to be all sweats. Were going to have to up our game a little bit. Its not at 8 00, right. I have seen a pair of shoes i like walking across. So were looking at you and listening to you, too. We appreciate you giving us that honor. Its terrific to be here at the Washington Center which does such great work in educating. Its good to talk to this crowd directly on this friday morning. Im christi parsons, i work for the los angeles times. For 26 years i worked for the Chicago Tribune and tribune newspapers. Like most people in media, i dont write for one outlet anymore. I work for lots of readers and for a wire service as well. The media landscape is changing. Well talk about that a little bit. My audience is broad and wide, too. We are really lucky to have this panel of White House Correspondents to talk about the press and the presidency. He president could not be here today. [laughter] ms. Parsons he is running the country or something, but so this will be from the perspective of the press. This is a really special group of people. These folks are members of the whous press corps and go to the whous whose and cover the presidency, we have 40 years of experience covering the whose. We thought it would be helpful for you to hear from each person here, their personal story, their professional story so how they got to where they are today. I would like to start with that. I would like to start with Kathleen Hennessy from the Associated Press who for many years was my partner at the white house covering the president for the los angeles times. Why dont you start us off. Ms. Hennessy we were colleagues three years ago, it seems sort of strange to say i worked for the Associated Press which is a wire service, which means it serves almost all of the newspapers in the country in addition to the internet and internationally, an enormous audience. It is sort of almost alone in the way that it covers the president completely fully at he have possible moment more or less. Therefore, my job when i worked for a newspaper, it shifted a little bit to really being sort of a constant presence in the white house and we consider ourselves a constant set of eyes on the president as much as possible. I started my career in washington and with the l. A. Times and then left to go and cover statehouse in nevada and politics in las vegas and sort of get out into the country and covered politics on sort of a more local level and came back to washington and covered congress and National Campaigns for the president s reelection and now the white house. And i think one of the things as i said that sort of most unique about the way that maybe that is different from the way we cover the president is really different than we cover any other politician in washington or anywhere really in any statehouse that i know of. Basically stuck with us almost all the time and any public statement, any public appearance, even if its a personal out with his wife, a golf game, we are nearby, a small cluster of the representative of the larger, we call it the pool, representative of the larger press corps is often a few sometimes in a van, its not terribly glamorous looking for any sign we can of him and making sure he is where he says he is going to be and trying to get some sense of what he is doing and the rhythm of his daily life. I want to come back to that in a minute, where you say where youre from and what your academic path was for what youre doing now . Certainly, im from st. Paul, minnesota. I didnt do any journalism when i was in school originally and sort of didnt know what i wanted to do. I studied history, i studied the classics. It wasnt a terribly useful major but i later got into journalism later in my life, i went to berkeley for graduate school, i have a graduate degree in journalism and did internships at the l. A. Times and the a. P. And now im back at a. P. Thank you, thank you very much. Lets do an introduction with april ryan who i just want to , but rted as a deejay now is on the public side. Im very excited about this new book by april, if you havent read it, you should, the presidency in black and white. April, will you do your twominute personal history for everybody. Im from baltimore, maryland, grew up in baltimore. Cut my eye teeth in news in baltimore. Baltimore is a newsy town just up the road, 50 miles door to door from my house to the white house, its a twohour commute each way. You know i love my job. I started out as a disk jockey in college, personality radio, i was a little board giving time, temp, and weather and station i. D. I wanted to delve into news. I started producing a knew news program. I left there and went to james brown, w. E. B. B. In baltimore. I did local stuff, went to chattanooga, tennessee, went back to baltimore and when i was in news, i kept stringing i am from very place i worked, every state, every city where i worked. What is that . Being a reporter who sends news from a local area to a network, it can be very knew si, they want to hear about. I was stringing to various networks to include American Urban Radio Networks and they loved what i did and they really started looking at me when the Naacp National headquarters which is located in baltimore, maryland at the time, their president was under fire and it wasnt about if he would leave, it was when and how he would leave. I broke that story and they said, we would like you to come to washington to be the d. C. Bureau chief. Little did i know, i was young and i would say dumb, little did i know that they wanted me to be the White House Correspondent. When im young, i can do that. If i would have known that, if i would have known then what i know now, oh, no. I have been a White House Correspondent for the last 18 years covering three president s and as kathleen said we were the first line of questioning of an american president and in the last 18 years, what has changed that i have seen, its more intense because we are in a social media realm. Everything is immediate on twitter. The president responds. People on the hill respond. You have to watch the twitter feed. Instead of getting the press releases and youre talking about being in the advance, you have to be in good physical condition to run after the president. The bear was on the loose the other day, i was running behind him. Im not a Spring Chicken so its been a very interesting ride. With april, when the presidency is she is having keeping up, he slows down. He did. Ok. I also would like to introduce jim from cnn. You have seen him on television. He is going to share his personal story with us here. You heard the expression people who think like theyre inside the beltway or inside the beltway. I was born about a mile outside the beltway. I was born in Fairfax County hospital, virginia, i grew up in northern virginia. Im a d. C. Kid, i grew up in the area. I went to james Mad University when i was the news director of my radio station, i started in hedo. After that, i came to washington. My very first job was in television answering the phones at channel 5 here in washington. April and im sure you guys remember sam donaldson. His wife worked at channel 5, so when i would answer the phone, january, january smith, can i speak to jim smith, please. Yes, mrs. Donaldson. I would get people their coffee and meals and i made 4. 25 an hour, had no health benefits. Jim, run out and cover this driveby shooting that happened. Marion berry would come up and give an impromptu press conference. That was my first taste of tv news and i was hooked. From there, i sort of worked my way into a job in knoxville, tennessee. Then i went to dallas, texas, and then chicago and then i was hired by cbs news and then later cnn. So its been sort of a long strange road. I finally got back to d. C. Doing what i love which is covering politics, covered the Mitt Romney Campaign in 2012 and typically whoever wins goes to the white house. Im not going to the white house, mitt romney lost, but cnn said, well, why dont you go over there. Youre pretty good at annoying these guys and giving them a hard time. Why dont you try the guy that actually won the election. So i have been there since early 2013, so not quite as long as april. I agree, its fascinating. As somebody was saying earlier, writing the first draft of history, doing the first leave shot of the first draft of history is quite challenging and its exciting. Its a little exhausting, but its a real treat and when i walk through the gates of the white house every day, i still feel, you know, like the luckiest guy in the world that i get to work in this place. And it is a real honor to work with all of you. I count myself lucky every day to work with great journalists like this. It keeps you on your toes. It keeps you honest and makes you want to do your best every day. You know, you really do write the first draft of history. I dont know if you watch the briefings, do you ever watch the White House Briefings or the press conferences at the white house, then you see jim turn around and tuck to the camera like 30 seconds after the press conference is ended telling you what just happened. The rest of the press corps is sitting there listening to the tv folks do their immediate take on what happened and its very influential over the whole process because thats the first read that most people get on air and youre not the only ones listening. The other people in the press corps are listening to that as well. Its an amazing talent. I usually need at least 15 minutes and a phone. Im still working on it. So were going to pull back the curtain a little bit about how we cover the white house and that was the first part of the curtain. Kathleen alluded to something in her opening story about the pool at the white house and this is a really Important Group of 21 people. Its 21 people at the white house every day are very close to the president for every open or press open event. They report back to other members of the press corps about what has been said or done in a small room where you really cant fit the whole press corps, but when we travel, that number is 13. Those people are on air force one with the president , everywhere he goes. Those members of the pool are with him sending feeds back to their peers to report what is going on. Kathleen as a member of the a. P. , is a member of the permanent pool. A. P. Is always in the pool, always with the president. Thats why its kind of rare actually that we have her right here right now. Watching the president right now. Someone has got him. One of her peers is watching the president. Can you talk about that a little bit. Why is it so important to keep that constant watch and the ap. Obviously spends a lot of money, a lot of resources, staff time, travel costs to make sure the president is watched at all times by your organization. Why do you do that . I think its a mix of, i mean, some of it just dark lesson of history really in that the president mean, has people want to do harm to the president of the United States and if anything were to ever happen, my organization and several other organizations have decided we have to be there. We have to be in the motorcade. We have to be near him should anything ever happen. And so that is i think a real, sort of the core, we dont talk about it that much, but thats part of it. Another part of it is that he is arguably the most important person in washington and how he spends his time is without a doubt almost always of public interest. There is very little that the is dent does or says that like completely inconsequential. We really do want to hear what he is saying. And what he is saying and what he is doing and who he is golfing with and who he is dining with. It seems crazy and it makes truth of, but it is the him being as important as he is, and as public of the figure as he is. My organizations and a lot have come up with this very elaborate system to make sure that everything he says and does is someunder some oversight, eyes are on him. They can become located. Many people ask why do you keep that up . One of those is the president , who occasionally says why do you always have to be here . There times when you spend a lot of time at the white house. When you are watching the president , keeping up with his daily schedule, are there things that you learn, just from being there . Oh, my gosh, yes. You are not going to learn it from the public schedule. You have to be there. You have to be seen, you have to know who the players are. I remember recently i was walking into the white house and i saw people coming out of the white house. I looked closely and there were some congressional leaders and their families. They knew who i was what are you doing here . We met with the president. What kind of committee are you on . Mhm so you have to be you have to the ocd in this job. For instance, i keep my phone off, but we all normally have our phones because we need to find our sources, someone inside the white house can be telling us something. We are 24 7. It is all about anything president ial, and being there, you get a chance to talk to the newspapers. When they see you, it is about trusted relationships. If they trust you and feel they can talk to you, they will give you information and breaking news. You might even get a chance to talk to the president. It is important to be in that building. It is not a kind of place. Claustrophobics need not apply. My room looks like a phone booth. Two put together. They dont know what a phone booth is. [laughter] i had to go to london remember those red london phone booths . That is true. [laughter] you would literally call in and dictate your story from a phone booth. You have to pick a hand set up and dial, it didnt have electricity. Your point was about getting a sense of what is happening. The people talking to the president what are they talking about when they come out . A lot of times when they come out they are told not to say anything, but if you are a reporter worth your salt, you can pick up the phone and they will talk to you on their cell phone. Not their government cell phone, but on their personal cell phone, about what was said. It is important to be there and to be seen, to be a part of the next. Of the mix. You are only as good as your last story, and if you are not moving a story forward, what good are you . That is how it is viewed in this business. The best of the best and if you are not doing what you are out of their. The press corps at the white house lays a different role. You see their analysis all over television and in newspapers and magazines, online, and that is really important and valuable. A lot of times what people are working with is their own original reporting. Stories like that we break out of the white house. Wow, theen is president looked down today. Why was he upset . Bodyt remembered the language being important during the first afghan review that led to the search. The surge. There were people trying to get a sense of the metabolism at the white house. The White House Press secretary was very close to the president , and when he personally seemed agitated or frustrated, i thought that was a reflection of something. I think i will make an extra phone call to see what is happening. That first draft of history, sometimes it comes just from your impressions. Who issta is someone really good at breaking through the white house spin. This white house is very adept at getting its own message, the president is good at telling a story, his communication staff is also very good at that. Jim, the job is not just a newspaper talk about how you do that job. I was thinking about this as we were getting ready for this. Are a couple different episodes that bring to mind the spin machine that goes on inside the white house. One of the more recent examples is when the president was going to American University to deliver that speech on the Iran Nuclear Deal. In to run up to that speech, they allowed us to draw the comparison with jfk in the early 1960s. This will beg, like jfk going after American University to talk about how the United States will bear the burden, a la jfk. What the president and that doing was deliver a very partisan speech. He went after the republicans and said they were in common cause. I remember the next day, thinking to myself, my goodness, we just fell for the spin they whenputting out there, really the president was going to go out and deliver this partisan speech because he had to rally the democrats. There was opposition within his own party. Weust remember thinking, really need to call them out on this. Eveninghat story that we pointed out that this president has been saying we need a better kind of politics in this country, and here he goes up to American University, leading us to think he will deliver a jfk speech and he went after the republicans. Sometimes, and i use that example to show that sometimes we can fall prey to thie spin. In the quick example, White House Briefing room i think that is the best place to cut through the spin. Those of us who sit in the front n ignore those sitting a few rows behind us because if you take too long, and april knows this all too well jim and kathleen said in the first row. [laughter] but sometimes, that first question you ask, you will get the talking point. The first answer is the talking point. I have no problem with cutting in and directing that line of questioning somewhere else if im not getting the answer i need. Christi, you and i talked about this the day they did not have someone in charge of the Ebola Response i was going back and forth, who was in charge, who is the boss . The next day or two, it felt like laser beams coming out of their eyes. They were not happy. We are not friends would like to be friendly with these people, but we will not go bowling with them. We are not buddies. We are not going to be there by these. We are there to hold their feet to the fire. I want to take you to something you said on ebola and who was in charge of it. You failed to state that we ask questions, and that question perpetuated the fact that there leader,bola czar or but at the same time, we help shape policy. We ask questions. It is kind of cyclical. We will find out what the community is saying, people outside the white house, and we will find out if something is going inside the white house, find out a little bit more research. Sometimes it does shape policy. Because they realize that there was nobody in charge. They were talking about shutting down something we had never seen before ebola coming from west africa into this nation. One person was infected and the nurse was infected. Andas a major situation, the nation was afraid. I dont want to put this out there too much, but the cameras are rolling and i might as well christi and kathleen, is that i like what you are saying, they will get an email or phone call. There may be some language in that email or phone call that i cant use here on cspan. But it can be tough, and you have to have thick skin. Thin skin need not apply. You have to be able to break news, and have alligator skin. They will come after you. That is a good piece of wisdom for anyone who aspires to work in washington in any field. Helpful. Skin is i want to pause for just a minute and ask you to start inking about some questions you might like to ask the panel, because in just a moment we will open up the microphones and you can come and let us know what is on your mind. We really want to answer the questions that are of interest to you. But i want to take a moment we have been talking about how to do your job and i think we should turn to talk about what that means for readers, viewers, and listeners who consume our reporting. And not just for americans, but for people around the world trying to understand the presidency. Actually a pretty good representation of the White House Press corps. We have three women, an africanamerican, the i am from aan, conservative part of the country, another from minnesota. Do you think that kind of diversity is supported in the press corps . Did you think that the makeup of the press corps asking questions makes a difference in what people learn here, read about the american presidency . Oh, absolutely. I mean, april was describing every day there is a briefing where we all sit down and fire questions at the white house. A lot of those questions are predictable, the news of the day, but a lot of them are a reflection of what the reporters in the room know a little bit about, care little bit about, the way they are framed sometimes has something to do with your personal experience. You do bring that to the job, and it comes through in a very public way in terms of what the white house has to answer for and respond to. That matters, it shapes stories, it shapes policy to some degree. For the state of the and make sureok that they are representative of the people reading the stories. I think, especially in the campaign setting, to have people from all over the country who understand a little bit about the midwest and ohio or florida or wherever is the place we are pretending to be experts on, to actually ha spent a lot of timve in nevada to have spent a lot of time in nevada with the rise of a growing city. That couldnt be further from some of the experiences of the people in ohio, where we spend a lot of time campaigning. Knowledge,reath of you have to bring that to your reporting. April, you have written and thought very deeply about this. How has the press corps done covering the first africanamerican president . I think the press corps we cover him, period. Any president , you will cover. Being the first africanamerican president , it has added pressure on this president. Itelieve and i will say i am not being partisan, i am not saying this because he is africanamerican, but as a journalist to has been there, how we come together as a group, and cover as a group. Sometimes he is not placed in the best light. Sometimes he is placed in the best light, but i believe there is a major hypersensitivity because he has africanamerican, particularly when it comes to issues in the immunity. Race and politics will always follow him, always. We saw the first term this white house was very cautious of the fact that he cousin the unique nature of him as president , that they had to navigate the water strategically to get to that second term. The media caps harping, the white house kept harping, especially when he made that freudian slip when he came out anding about race issue, instead of doing the talking point typically what he would do and the media jumped him. But we didnt see as much of that until the Trayvon Martin issue. Now we are seeing a totally different president. s second term barack obama is different. At the media, they are pouncing on it more, so while they are pouncing on it, it is also for the greater good, because we are now seeing what the Africanamerican Community has been talking about for a very long time. That the black community and Law Enforcement have. Its not saying that you dont support Law Enforcement, youre supposed to support Law Enforcement, but there is some bad policing, and now it is being caught on tape. In one sense, it is a good thing, because it is helping to hold people to the fire. There is accountability. At the same time, it is unfortunate that he has to be held to a different level in standard because he is africanamerican. He is president of allamerica, so i think it is a doubleedged sword. Do you think this change your describing in criminal justice reform, alluding to the discussions he promoted concerning how police relate to their communities, are these changes that he feels do you think these are changes that are results of the fact that he is at the end of the second term and he doesnt have a political price to pay . Or do you think it has more to do with the fact that americans and people around the world know who he is now, besides just the first africanamerican president . We know a great deal about him based on his record . Its because he is an africanamerican and before he became president he was a black man in america. The first lady expressed it and he expressed it. There are a lot of variables in the wind that you will never know. When there is something that hits, and a lot of these issues hit so large a scale that they made it to the desk and the president , he had to speak. Whenre watching the news Trayvon Martin happened, the crowds came out. When we saw what happened in baltimore, freddie gray, just up the whiteguson house response to what america is saying. I think he had to respond as president , but there is a next her burden because he is a black man. Second term, he doesnt have anything to worry about. Second term, we are seeing a totally different barack obama. s second term, fourthquarter. You are seeing a totally different person. He is able to do things now he wasnt able to do before. I do think there is a different standard and they understand it. Could he have done more with the Political Climate . That is something you have to also put into the equation as well. It is what it is at this point. Jim, i want to ask you a related question. Your dad is an immigrant from cuba. To come at this job as a broad Life Experience does this matter toi do think there is a t standard and they understand yo . Do you think this matters to what your viewers and readers learn . For example, in the last few months, you have broadcasted and talked about and written about the opening of relations with cuba. That is something you have a Life Experience to. Decide affect your coverage . Does that affect your coverage . By dan integrated in 1962, before the cuban missile crisis. Miami,already here in reading a newspaper and saying it doesnt look good. My mother got on the flight and came over. I sometimes are for to my dad is one of the original dreamers. There werenthen a lot of latino immigrants. I was telling april right before we get started here his name, he changed it to aj acosta. There were no jobs down in miami, so they moved to northern virginia. So yeah, it is you do have that human history, that personal history that you bring to the table. We have a president ial candidate right now who recently said that the mexicans coming into this country are rapists and killers, and he said i assume some of them are nice people. Imagine if a president of the United States were to say that from the briefing room. These are questions that people have to think about. Talking about firstquarter obama and first half obama, one of the promises he made was immigration reform. Here we are and it hasnt happened. He didnt do it when he had the super majority. You think about all those things, but on policy with cuba, i never thought Something Like this would ever take place in my lifetime. It just goes to show you, speaking of secondhalf obama, this is one of those things that we thought lets wait till the second term. Lets wait until after the midterms, fourthquarter. [laughter] there might be some more surprises. The politics of it are very interesting, and he may go to cuba. The white house has said we dont roll this out, we may go to havana. April and i will be fighting to get on that plane. Amen. That will be a hell of a story. [laughter] i will take that picture and tweet it. This president has definitely shown a willingness to do executive orders, immigration being a perfect example. Your point is well taken, that we have 17 months left to go and he still has a lot of latitude. He is still checking things off the list. When he runs out of things he can do with congress, there are things he can do strictly on his own authority. They took my phone when i came in here, so i dont know what time it is. Is somebody watching the time for me . If somebody from the Washington Center could get in my field a view and give us a sense mr. Acosta when our twominute warning is. Ms. Parson weve got time for questions. Im going to invite you to come to the microphone, one or two do people just to get us started on each side. This is exciting. Mr. Acosta here we go. We get a taste of our own medicine now. Ms. Ryan please dont hurt us. Ms. Parsons why dont we start with you . Good morning. Ms. Parsons good morning. Line up. I just want to thank you guys for coming out this morning and talking. Im interning. A lot of the Republican Debate a few days ago was based around the Mainstream Media being an extension of the Democratic Party. I just wondered if you support or debunk that theory. Ms. Parsons great question. Ive been thinking about a lot since that debate. Ms. Ryan a lot of people always want to come up swinging at the media. There are some people who put opinion with fact, but for many of us in the white house, we definitely get all the sources, not one or two do. We push the fact definitely. It may be something you dont like, but we put the fact out there. They can talk about the media all they want, but they are the first ones looking to the media to find out what is going on in this country. It is a doubleedged sword, but trust me, we are good people and good journalists. You can assume what you want about me democrats think im a republican and republicans think im a democrat, so im doing my job. [laughter] [applause] mr. Acosta i just want to echo that. I remember covering the romney campaign. In this age of twitter, you can look at your mentions and people coming after you on twitter, and i had so much hate coming at me from republicans who just hated the stuff that i did on mitt romney. Now i get it from liberals on twitter who dont like what im talking about when it comes to talking about president obama. Walter cronkite used to say that. I used to work at cbs, and Walter Cronkite used to say if you are getting hit by the right and left, you must be doing something right. I think theres some truth to that. One thing i will say, and i find it interesting about this audience, is that im pretty sure just about everybody here grew up except for us on the stage and those running the event grew up in this age of partisan media. April we did not grow up with fox news, msnbc. There were newspapers that took points of view and endorsed candidates, but it is not what it is now. For those of us who grew up in a different era, its not unheard of to be objective, to be the ref, who can call it fair and square on both sides. But i do understand that mentality. You guys just have opinions and you are letting your opinions affect your stories. We would not be where we are if that was the case. We had too many editors who would go, get out of there. You are not doing your job right. It is checks and balances within our own bureaus. Ms. Hennessey i would add that we are not perfect, either. There was a lot of criticism on that debate and how it was managed and handled, and thats all fair and good, and we should be scrutinized, and people should debate how we do our jobs, and i think viewers also have to be mindful that you were talking about the Mainstream Media being an arm of the Democratic Party that is a longstanding political complaint of the republican party, and it works for them, right . Theres a political reason for those folks to come out and complain about the media. The president of the United States loves to complain about the media. Our current president of the United States is a media critic. I feel it might be his second job. When he gets out of office, hes going to write media criticism because he has a lot of talk on it. I do think we go from both sides, and we should because we play an important role, and people should be watching what we do closely. Mr. Acosta Cokie Roberts used to have an expression that our only bias is for a good story. For the professionals in this business, that is true. The bias is you want a good story, to break news. That is much more valuable, i think, to all of us up here than trying to skew things one way or the other. Its too transparent, too obvious if that is what you are doing. Ms. Parsons yes . Im working at American Legislative Exchange council. I would like to ask you that, as you already mentioned, about the Iran Nuclear Deal. Some of the people did not like it. Actually, a lot of people did not like it, and there were several protests about it. I would like to ask you how you respond to these sorts of situations and what course of action do you take when a decision or situation of that kind happens and because you work closely with the white house. Ms. Parsons are you asking how we remain impartial when we analyze even though we are at the white house and hearing their point of view so much . Is that what you mean . Yes, exactly. Do you have to act neutral about it . Ms. Parsons well, yes. We dont have to just act neutral about it. We need to be neutral. Neutral is the only stance from which to do appropriate reporting. Theres an awful lot of opinion media in the world today, and you can hear, like, opinions without end on the internet and on tv, but really, what reporters at the white house are trying to do is find as many facts as we can and get them to you. You just cannot do that if you are not neutral. You cannot get people to be straight with you. You cannot get people to be forthright with you. Ms. Hennessey it does, also, speak to one of the dangers of covering the white house. You are there to know what the white house is thinking, so you really do talk to a lot of people who think or agree. That is your job, to know what the white house is saying and what they are thinking. So i think there is sort of a bubble effect sometimes where you spend a lot of time talking to white house officials, and it can seep in, so you do have to fight against that. One of the ways to make sure is i think journalism as a team effort. You have to talk to your colleagues who are talking to folks at the state department and the pentagon and all over washington. Folks on the hill. Make sure you get out of the white house, have sources outside the white house, and just draw from a bigger pool to combat what youre talking about, i think, which is only hearing one side of the story all day long. Ms. Ryan shes right, and also, you have to bring the history into it. I think history plays an important part when it comes to conversations like this. You have to remember conversations you had in the past with president , private conversations, and with people on the National Security council and then go out there. One of the most Dangerous Things in the white house its a friendly atmosphere and relationship, but i think its more dangerous for the white house to know that we do not rely solely on them. We go outside. You cannot just listen to what they say. You have to have outside sources to talk to people, to flush the story out because they will spin it one way, and the other side will spin it the other way. We try to use the information as it comes from all sides and give you the history so you know what may be the right or wrong thing. In that issue, you really need intelligence to talk about the fact you know, you did not know what was going on in iran before, and i think that is the key piece. We leave it to you to decide does this actually let you know what is going on with iran as far as their Nuclear Capability . Its a lot of pieces to the puzzle versus saying, i feel this way. Its a lot of pieces to adequately inform you to make your decision. Mr. Acosta i will say very quickly on the Iran Nuclear Deal, i think maybe the thrust of what she was asking is well, its an unpopular thing, why didnt the media report it as such or hit it harder . I will remind you that Prime Minister netanyahu of israel came to the United States, spoke before congress, and that received extensive coverage. I think both sides were aired pretty adequately during that debate, but the outcome did not agree with people on the republican side of the aisle, and they may have the last i dont want to say the last laugh on this, but certainly the last say on this if it ends up being not what it was cracked up to be. I intern at the American Foundation for suicide prevention. My question to you is being White House Correspondents, what is it like to cover Mass Shootings, since we had an increase in those the last few years . Ms. Parsons great question. Ms. Hennessey i think, unfortunately, it is sort of repetitive or kind of protectable these days. I mean, we dont we are there our role, usually, is to find out when the president was made aware. What does he know about the incident on the ground . These days, it is typically covering president ial remarks where he comes out and renews his call to gun control, and that is a pattern that is really kind of set. On that level, its a little depressing, really, but nothing like the people who have to go and cover these on the ground. So you get used to sort of the the cycle, i guess. Ms. Parsons there are certain kinds of stories that infuse the white house when they are happening, and that is one of them. That is one of them. Those Mass Shootings are now so regular, and they hit the president and hit policy staff very hard when they happen because they feel this great sense of frustration because they have not been able to stop it, and this phenomenon has really proliferated during the obama white house. When that happens and i mean, it happens every day, by the way. Theres a mass shooting in this country on average once a day. More than one person being shot and the shooter being having a gunshot as well. By that definition, theres a mass shooting in this country almost every day, so theres a real sense of sadness that goes with it. I did a story in the past week about how this was once the president s approach to gun control, and i think that one thing we try i try very hard to do at the white house is exactly what kathleen said, which is to step away from that whatever the white house fixation is or the White House Point of view and to try to inform the conversation more fully with information, evidence, data from the outside. Ms. Ryan just a quick note yesterday because the president just was in chicago talking to the Police Chiefs the International Association of Police Chiefs and gun control was one of the issues. At the briefing i did ask how you move it forward. I asked something along the questions of is it now time to bring the nra to the table, and josh earnest said Something Like in 2013 and i said, what about 2015 . When the president comes to the podium having to address america about another mass shooting and no change in backgrounds, gun show loopholes all that stuff. Mr. Acosta i just want to say for the young people who are here, you guys have to solve this problem. For you guys to have grown up with this mass shooting epidemic in this country its horrendous. I think if theres anything that we need fresh thinking on, its this problem. The gun problem, the Mental Illness problem. How we put these things together and solve it in a way that does not bring out all the partisan disagreement. I would love to see the people in this room get to work on that one. I am interning at the aatce. This administration has been known for exploring other types of media other than the traditional media mr. Acosta we love this topic the personal twitter account, to which we all know that he does not like peas in his guacamole. In your opinion, how has that impacted the relationship between the press corps and white house . Ms. Parsons that really hits us where we live. Great question. How much time do you have . Mr. Acosta do you have another hour . Ms. Parsons estimate who has covered barack obama since 1995 when he was in the Illinois Senate and i was therefore the beginning of his president ial campaign, and immediately what set him apart was his ability to go around the established media because there were these blossoming avenues, opportunities for him to take his message directly to his target audience, to give a particular message to a particular audience, and his opportunity to do that has only grown while he has been president. I dont know if you ever go to the white house website and look at what they have there, but they have their own tv show, and its pretty good. I mean, its, like, well produced and has a lot of information. We watch it because they have information we only learn there. They have a lock on that information. The white house photographer is my former colleague at the Chicago Tribune, a wonderful photographer with almost unlimited access to the president. Those pictures come out on his ms. Ryan twitter account. Instagram account. Flickr account. Ms. Parsons they do not have periscope yet, but thats probably right around the corner. Mr. Acosta not only is barack obama the first africanamerican president , he is the first social media president. The do that interview with the lady who is famous for doing the thing where she sat in a bathtub of froot loops. It got millions of viewers. This is like gangbusters. Lets bring her in here. She called Michelle Obama the first wife instead of the first lady i know. That was a lot of fun. It is one of the obstacles we have to overcome because they can just go around us now and find these new alternative places to get their message across. Were like, wait a minute what about cnn . We have twitter. We have things like that, too. They would so much rather play in those sandboxes and play with us. Ms. Ryan because we ask the tough questions. Ms. Parsons i was going to get to that point because sometimes, the president does choose to go around the traditional media with people he knows will ask tough questions or questions he is not completely prepped for. Its not entirely to avoid tough questions, but thats usually our complaint. When you talk to xyz blogger, the followup questions are not what we would ask, so they do not seem to us like the toughest questions. Lets be honest they are just not. Ms. Hennessey theres two phenomena happening. I feel like theres the president going around us and getting people where they live, going to people magazine, whatever. People who do not read the ap would find it. That has happened for a really long time and, frankly, might just be smart and we just have to accept it. The other thing this white house does it is also new and remarkable is the way they generate more of their own content and feed it out in ways that is not always identifiable as not journalism. That they are able to create their own television shows, their own tweets, their own photographs. It looks like journalism, kind of feels like journalism, but its produced by the white house. Mr. Acosta it is often to get a policy position a cross. They did a lot of that social media to talk about obamacare in a way that they got all the airtime they wanted to talk about what they wanted to talk about without having to go through us. When they do it on their own time with their own outlets that they have handpicked, they do not have to answer those questions quite as much. Ms. Parsons that was a great question. Yes. Im from university of new hampshire. You mentioned a couple of times that you guys are the ones writing the first draft of history every day, so with that, do you think the Obama Administrations foreignpolicy legacy will be remembered positively or negatively . Mr. Acosta thats a good one. I think that when your biography is written and you are the president who called the order to take out Osama Bin Laden, it is very difficult if you do not like barack obama to expect that his biography will be this terrible disaster. It is going to be remembered that he made that call, like it or not. At the same time, hes also the president who said, im going to wind down the wars in iraq and afghanistan. As we know with what is happening with isis and the decision that was made recently was not pulling all our stakes up in afghanistan by the end of the term, that those wars will go on with the next president , and these are people who are more hawkish than barack obama. The Iran Nuclear Deal was brought up earlier, and its another x factor that may also have an impact on his legacy. But i think the killing of Osama Bin Laden is a big one from a historical standpoint in my view. Ms. Ryan as donald trump say, its huge. Its huge. [laughter] ms. Ryan i hate to say this you guys laugh, but we talk amongst ourselves. Donald trump with all jokes aside, there are some people who are running for president that could be president. You are laughing. Im not trying to be funny. I mean, you are laughing, but he is still high in the polls. Hes not falling off or walking away. You are laughing, but this is really serious. [laughter] ms. Parsons ok, back to the original question, some of the facts are not known yet. We do not know how the Iran Nuclear Deal has worked out. We do not know if the opening relationship with cuba is going to achieve the things that the Obama Administration wants it to achieve, but to a large degree, the answer to your question depends on who you are talking to. Are you a person who thinks the u. S. Should be moving to a more multilateral approach to the rest of the world, or do you think it is weak for the president to keep trying to build coalitions everywhere he goes . Do you think it is a bad idea that the president has not fully drawn down troops, but he has dramatically reduced the american involvement in ground war and absolutely refuses to enter into another one do you think that is a good idea, or do you think the u. S. Now has a weaker position as a leader and as a military force around the world . To analyze your question, i need to know you know, theres a lot of data to be analyzed on both sides. Now its your turn. Yes . Good morning. My question is regarding coverage of policing in the media. As we know, there are millions of interactions between police and the Community Every single day. It seems to me personally that theres a lot more coverage and a lot more indepth stories about the negative interactions of the police in the community, and they seem to be getting more Media Attention in the positive interactions with the police and the community, especially lately, which is a good income of it at the same time, do you think that makes an impact on the communitys perception of all police, specifically speaking the good cop that do not have these negative interactions with the community . Ms. Parsons thats a really good question. [applause] ms. Hennessey i actually think again because we were so narrowly focused on the white house, i do sense the white house is trying to walk this line a little bit. April mentioned the president talked to Police Chiefs this week. It was an interesting speech and that he was really struggling to try to acknowledge what he said about police brutality, his support for the black lives matter movement, his own experiences, and also not antagonize Law Enforcement, who actually he needs their support on gun control and some other issues that he cares a lot about. He is walking that line personally. I noticed i dont know if you guys did yesterday or this week there was a viral video of the Police Officer dancing the whip, and its really fun. With a young woman i dont know where they are. Somewhere in d. C. There was some sort of mild confrontation. She was trying to get the young girl to leave the corner or do something, and they basically got into a dance off, and its fabulous video. Mr. Acosta didnt obama tweet about that . Ms. Hennessey the white house tweeted it out. Ms. Ryan i dont know how to do it. My kids would try. Ms. Hennessey the power of the whip and nae nae. They also were trying to when they have a moment seize it. Ms. Ryan one thing in how i report things and how i go about it and how my network treats things news is about something that is extraordinary or uncommon. We have Law Enforcement in this nation that for the most part is great. Fact we have some issues in this nation that have been videotaped. How do you marry them . That has gone to the leader of the free world, to his desk. And then you have these organizations that are upset because media is covering it and some people internalize it and take it the wrong way. Instead of trying to make positive change and you also have people out here who make it opinion, but there is a fact that we have great policing out here. Im from baltimore. I grew up with officer finley coming into my school room and talking to us and community policing. But then you see that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. It does not mean that everyone is bad. I dont know who was reporting it. I know there are people who have opinions and say things, but it does not make it right, and you have to find a way to marry the support and fixing the problem. I think any good journalist would really put that out versus saying the Police Departments are all being chastised. Its called weeding out issues. And they are not just problems with the black or latino community. There are problems with white people as well. It could be Excessive Force and control. Theres a problem that needs to be fixed. Thats it. Thats the simple answer. Ms. Parsons i think we probably have time for two more questions. Lets go to this question are over here. My question is working in the white house, what do you think is the major issue that needs attention or policy change that you have experienced or needs more attention to it . Mr. Acosta you guys go. I said guns earlier. That has got to be solved in this country. Its one of those the nra has so frightened politicians in this town to touch anything related to guns that its just not going to i dont think that is going to get solved unless there is some sort of and we thought that the sandy hook tragedy was going to be that catalyst, and even that was not enough to get is done get things done. Even when universal background checks is supported by the vast majority of americans i think almost nine out of 10 americans and it could not get done because of the power of the nra. Its one of those stories that we cover fairly extensively when one of these Mass Shootings pop up, but then it sort of goes by the wayside. Ms. Parsons i dont think education gets nearly the coverage that it should, and thats in the media writ large. It has to do with how widespread the whole enterprise is, but thats a big problem in this country. Everything else we talk about that here relates to it, and its almost its probably the least if you were to list the top 20 things people talked about or broadcasted about in the last week, i bet that would be at the bottom. Ms. Hennessey i would actually have to agree with you on that. When arne duncan recently announced he was resigning, it was a moment in the White House Press corps where we all had to remember when was the last time we wrote about education. Its just not a daily topic, but actually, federal policy does really people have strong opinions about it, too. Its actually coming up in the president ial race here and there, particularly jed bush particularly jeb bush. Its a matter of news outlets not having the resources to hire someone who is an expert in that topic. Does it bother you or offend you as professional journalists when the president goes on weekday shows like the view and hang out with whoopi goldberg, who i personally love, or hang out with Zach Galifianakis on latenight tv to talk about policy instead of talking to professional journalists and professional media superstars such as yourselves . Mr. Acosta wow. Ms. Ryan i embrace that. Mr. Acosta you know, it does not bother me. Actually, president s have been going on latenight tv shows i think nixon was on laugh in this was way before your time. Clinton on arsenio hall playing saxophone. That was a good one. Ms. Ryan it was. Mr. Acosta that i dont mind is much, but what concerns me, and its something i think you guys should be concerned about, and i feeling this is a case in covering campaigns as well, and maybe im getting old and too gray and grumpy, but i think this barrier that exists between the people we cover and the press is getting bigger and bigger, and its getting easier and easier to corral us and move us off to the side. I dont know if you saw this just over the summer, Hillary Clintons campaign used a rope to pull that the press, to make sure that they kept moving, as if we are cattle. No, we are human beings. Come up with a different way other than using an actual rope to move us around. Hillary Clintons Campaign also has its own pool. There was a story in the new york times, where someone who is in that pool, which is a small group of reporters who cover a president Hillary Clintons campaign in its infancy had a pool, and there was a story about one of the reporters had to be accompanied to the bathroom by somebody with the campaign. If there is something to end with, and i dont want to end on a gloomy note because you sort of asked a lighthearted question about president s going to latenight talk shows is you guys have to fight this effort to put an everincreasing barrier between us and the politicians we cover. I think that is one of the greatest dangers to our democracy. People talk about, you guys are all liberals. You are too conservative. You are too corporate. We still need us. What separates us from most countries on earth is the strong, robust press corps. Ms. Parsons i think i can put an even more positive spin on that is a great ending point, which is many of you will go on to work in policy and in media. What we have explored today is the importance of an authentic dialogue, an authentic relationship between newsmakers and the people and the press. With the people here and talk about smart things the white house has done because they understood we were expressing the interests of our readers and listeners, it makes the white house smarter. It makes you smarter. It makes all of us smarter when we are engaging in conversation and having real interactions. If you were to ask each person what drives us, its not because we are superstars. The only person who i know who called me up to tell me great job on cspan, its my mom. Hi, mom. The people who cover the white house, the people on this panel get up and go do this every day. They could make more money doing Something Else but choose to do this because they really believe in the cause. Asking questions, getting answers, getting people more informed. I thank you for having this great panel. I hope you will join me in thanking them. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015]
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