to make sure we get it full discussion and i feel sure we will leave with a lot more to say but we have plans for together meeting. i appreciate everyone coming in on a surveillance transparency act especially when there is so many football games you can be watching. i will get us out for the tennessee game tonight. if you feel like you need to see the tennessee/alabama game. this event is just important to us as the wch dinner. this means a lot to you, too. you have shown up by turning out on your weekend day and we appreciate that. the waca is devoted to two big things that we talk about all of time. we talk about access, press access and pushing together as a group to increase the access we get at the whitehouse to people and information. and that is our primary goal. we also try to help each other be better individual, com pet -- c com compe compe competiors -- and we will talk about about covering the whitehouse and how to get good stories. helping us with that we have veterans of the whitehouse beat. i am sure you recognize all of them. they did it with excellence and continue to do so. i will introduce them. this is susan page, the washington bureau chief of usa today and covered the whitehouse during the reagan years. and next to her is terry hunt and he is the deputy chief thof associated press in washington and he goes all the way back to reag reagan. i don't want to rob you of credit of any of the administrations. andrea mitchell you know covered the white house and has her own show now. and brook craft is a photographer who was on the beat for ten years for time magazine but has shot photographs for all of your favorite magazines. we are excited to have all four of these folks. i had the chance to talk to all of the panelist in advance and talk about their favorite stories and thinks they wanted to discuss. everyone talked about covering the beat and how to break out of the back and not get boxed in by the day to day at the whitehouse. so i want to give them a chance talk about that. we will start with susan. we talked about what a challenge it was for you to do the story that not 50 others were doing but it was something you did on a regular bases. can you talk about that? >> thank you. i am honored to be here and i am not sure you how tell the panelist and audience because there are so many people in the audience with equal and better experience so thank you for being here. when christy asked me about the memorable scoreies and you go to soviet union with president reagan or saudi arabia with president bush before the first gulf war and those are things you will never forget. but they are not the most memorable stories because you are doing what everything within is. the most satisfying stories were difference from what everybody else was doing. i am mention one story. i was at the clinton whitehouse and the former president is the put not jimmy carter. the editor at usa today said why wasn't carter there and i said everybody knows carter and clinton didn't get along and he said i didn't know that and that mean possibly the readers were not aware and he said do a story about it. i started looking into the history of their prickly relationship and president carter agreed i could interview him about it and because president carter adegreed to be interviewed president clinton agreed on the phone. so i did a story about the western democrats who were fraught with contention and how president clinton didn't turn to carter for advice. so that is a story because it was different. i think of fantastic experiences but trying to get a story that was different from everybody else. >> the really interesting thing is you said you had a story idea talked to the president about it. >> two presidents! >> when did that stop happening? seriously? when was the last time you recall doing that? >> i interviewed president obama. i have interviewed the last eight presidents. but clinton was more likely to engage on an individual story than the presidents that followed him and i think that is especially true of president obama. president obama is the most difficult to get ahold of. i interviewed him before the inaugeration and the democratic convention in 2012. father's day was coming and it was an idea that every section should have a story related to fathers day. i was designed to do a story about bill clinton as a father during the impeachment and believe it or not he got on the phone with me about his attitudes of being a father with the understanding i would ask about nothing except his fatherhood. it was a very explicit i could not ask another question. so at the end of the interview i said i promise i will not ask about anything other than fatherhood except if there is anything else you want to talk about i am hear to listen. but there was nothing else he wanted to talk about. >> terry, you were with the wire at the time, did you have that access to the president? did you call the president? get the president on the phone and do regular interviews at your initiative? >> no, we didn't. i had a few experiences with vice president bush when he was with reagan that i would get him on the phone. but never with the regularity. it was pretty rare. and reagan was very inaccessible in that type of way. as far as i know, other people who were here during that time, but as far as i know, he didn't do it much. reagan was tough. or impossible. bush was better. and i haven't tried clinton or w. w has been pretty inaccessible except socially. i know he met reporters since he left. >> but you did have a chance for example in the reagan administration, you could, if you went to the helicopter or did a photo spray in the oval, he could not resist answering your questions. >> right. sam and donaldson would billow out keg questions and his staff would say don't answer questions or say anything and then bill or sam would say something show prov provoctive like gadhafi is a fool. and he would try to meet the insult with something of his own. that was a regular friday feature of the whitehouse. every friday he would go to camp david, leave around 1-2 in the afternoon, fly away and we would see him and try to provoke him into the answers. i don't have the statistics to back it up but i have the impression reagan was more available to the press in the oval office than his successors. there was always a photo opt and opportunity to ask a question. now whether or not he answered it remained to be scene. there was an opportunity and that was one of the important i things we miss. dignitaries and i remember reagan being anti-abortion and he had anti-abortion groups in a lot. and different groups came to the oval office and there would be a phot phot photo-op and you could ask a question but that is closing over the years. >> it seems there are fewer uncontrolled moments, right? >> yeah, i think that is it. the friday thing was a fixture. the photo-ops in the oval office were regular. and my impression is that there were certainly with reagan, not as many news conferences for different fish in those times. they were big prime time with 60 million people watching at 8:00 a night 3-4 times a year. now it is more frequently than that. george herbert walker bush had so many press conferences. he would drop into the briefing room and it was like he was just here two days ago. you have a question? but that has diminished, too. >> on the statistics we might go to matt. you probably have them off the top of your head? >> always. >> andrea, you mentioned you went to church with president carter; is that right? >> it wasn't a matter of fate. i was the junior correspondent and i had the weekend duty. so part of it was to go to church and as the pool reporter and take notes on his sunday school lessons because he delivered the lessons which also meant i spent thanksgiving and christmas in plains so judy and chris could have time off with their family. it was great for a young journal correspondent to have the experience. but my perspective has been refreshed just this week because john palmer had left a memoior called dream catcher which was just published and we had a gathering in new york this thursday. looking through it, to your first question, he writes coming from the senior correspondent for nbc news and covering major things like travelling the world and doing all of those things and when bill small came to nbc john asked to become a domestic correspondent and he called him saying come to washington tomorrow and be our new whitehou whitehouse correspondant. and he wrote i found if you w t wanted to, you could ask the president, if you didn't abuse the privilege and it was formal. i was working on an environmental piece and asked for time with the president. that gives you the idea early on. i think he was the first broadcaster to win the award was because at 10:00 that night he got a call from the desk there was a tip, prankster or something going on. john said i will check it out. threw on a suit, ran down to the whitehouse and at the north west gate saw that there were all of these limos in the west driveway and went in and started asking what was going on and went up to jot -- jodi's office -- and said there were people in the oval office but stacks of plates with dried food meaning it was there for hours. he asked around and one person said it was something in bogata and he knew that wasn't true. it was enough to alert the network. we were not cable. this was 1979 and meant interupting forming programming and the cut off was the johnny carson show. it was the middle of the iran hostage crisis. he bluffed his way with jodi and describes this, it is as a classic for any journalist, he said he knew it was international because of who was there and he was going to go on the air if they didn't tell him what was going on. and he promised a 15 minute jump on the wires if he would not go on the air. john palmer was going to be on the air saying there was a lot of cars at the whitehouse late at night. but powell called him in, handed him one sheet of paper and said you have two minutes to ask three questions and that is all you get. and handed them the statement that in the desert there had been a rescue mission that failed, helicopters collided and eight americans were dead. powell's eyes were tearing up. it was right before the election bid and he knew it was the end of the presidency. then he said i am calling the wires now and you can go with it. john said that wasn't the deal but we went out to the lawn and broke the story. that was the biggest scope of his career. that said we used to have everybody going into the reagan's office. then they slimmed it down. there were three networks and each one had an assigned person. but there were times when we would all go in and ask questions of reagan. and initially the news conferences were in the afternoon. before they were prime time they were late afternoon. then mike beaver and jim baker discovered if the president made mistakes, which happened regularly, there was no time to fix them by the 6:30 newscast. so they moved it to prime time even though the audience was larger the idea was they could spin it and work it out on the morning shows and the next evening newscast they had the fix. i had one experience where i asked a question and it was classic reagan. i started to get up to ask a question. i wasn't the lead correspondent by any means. chris wallace was. he started to call on me. and steve robert from the new york time stood up standing in front of me and this is so classic ronald reagan. as she said thank you he said wait a second, i promised andrea. he remembered he had called on me and steve had taken the question. it is what anyone would do because he was pointing in that question. but i asked the question about the second country and israel helping with the tow missiles. this is as it was unrolling. i asked a question that we were briefed on early in the day in the roosevelt room by the chief of staff. but the president didn't have the answer right. so he denied it. and chris went into the lawn and it became a big to do. everyone was going crazy with the president denying a second country was involved. around ten minutes to nine the lower press store opened and issued a statement the president made an error and didn't mean to say however they put it. i remember grabbing that piece of paper and tearing it up to get it to crisp because we would go the full half hour. we would fill the primetime with debriefing chris and getting in the correspondents from the hill and everywhere else. we got it on before we went off the air at nine that the president issued a correction. i was so proud of myself we got out there and got it in time. the phone range and it was john who used language i had never heard before and he was going to get me fired and how dare i ask a question of the president of the united states. i remember the feeling in the pit of the stomach when you are terrified but this was the chief of staff who was very intimidating and i all remember was thinking my career was over. luckily for me, reagan had him fired. [applause] >> one think that is emerging as you are telling the stories is the access you have to the president himself and also to the staff members. you didn't say this but andrea told me she would go stand at the west gate and watch the limos coming in to see who was going to see the president and they would roll down their windows and hand a card out and she would ask questions. >> the president, or jam baker and the legislative group was having people in, and mark and bill will remember this, and the deal is who is coming in and which democrat is he trying to lobby. my assignment was to stand there with a walkie-talkie and let john and judy know who was coming in for the evening sessions in the yellow oval room up stairs with the president and he would have note cards and take the assignments from the legislature strategy and the lobbying was intense to get the a-wax sale for the saudi arab arabians. you would mobility and you could move around. >> on that point, i want to go to brooks and ask about the visual element of this. were there -- did you have meaningful access to the presidents whom you covered and can you think of examples of how that happened? >> how would you define meaningful access? >> bush at his ranch possibly. i remember that series of photos got a lot of play. >> our opportunities fall into three buckets. the big, general press conferences, pool events and exclusive behind the scenes. and access is mattering in all three. it is just defined differently, right? for us, access is everything because if we don't have close physical location to the president or to somebody senior that we are doing a story on, we cannot do our jobs literally. i have tried to come up with ways to fake it. shooting monitors, plants in the middle of the room and waiting for the empty mike but that doesn't help well. access is every. it is increasing hard for still photographers to get exclusive access and that is taking on a new meaning in this administration that we can get to later with current technology all allowing the obama administration to develop their own content distribution network and access which they send out to everybody. but with getting back to the question with bush i remember actually i think it was probably mark molar stat i heard about three or four mongs to the push administration that he had gone to the ranch and spent a hundred days out of 200 he had set foot on the ranch. at that point no one had seen what he did on the ranch or looked like or what his life was like. so i pitched to the press secretary behind the scenes look at the ranch. i said if we see him spending that much time there we need to see what he is doing. this was before they had done any foreign heads of state visits and that sort of thing. it look about 4-5 months of back and forth and then you know one thursday afternoon i got this phone call thing of what are you doing and it was boom, boom, boom and 36 hours later i was out there on the ranch. in that situation,making those things work is very difficult. you need to trust and they need to know and it is a delicate dance, too. they need to know that or that they are not going to get totally burned and put a picture of him picking his nose or something like that. or anything harmful for that matter. but i am not just going to do a puff piece. so it is this delicate back and forth. i ended up spending the better part of a day out there photographing him clearing brush, little secure trailer with video conferencing back in washington with the first lady, and that kind of opportunity is increasingly hard to do, i think. most still photographers would say that. >> what do you think is lost by that? i am not assuming the answer is everything. i just wonder -- when we talk about having personal access to the president and interaction with the staff does that produce better reporting? do you think the reporting in the administrations that you covered were superior to the reporting we do now? do you think it is different in a way that has to do with access? >> that is a big question. i think that having independent access to the president in interviews and independent access and that is important and clearly happens more and that is the most independent and frequent independent access the press gets to the president. but i think it is important to see what kind of person, what kind of leader the president is in a way and the difference between the still photographer and the tv is i come in with two cameras and i can stand in the corner of the room and things can unfold hopefully the way they would if i wasn't there. that is trickier with television because of the production and sound. ... you realize there might be something to this story because of the president's body language when they. >> right. it was 1986. it was election day. he was getting onto a plane to fly back to washington. and some reporter as reagan was going up the stairs shut it out to him that said, there is a lebanese magazine that says that bud mcfarland , this national security advisor, went to iran, which is impossible to imagine, with a cake in the shape of a key and a bible to foster better relations. so the whole thing was just ridiculously improbable, and reagan paused and said, no comment. and then he continued up the stairs. well, reagan is pretty skilled at this. there are a bunch of things he could have done, ignored the question, said that is ridiculous or anything, but he said no comment. i remember the people who were there almost fell down and were like, why didn't he say something? why did he do that? >> something about 85 you know, he was declared dead, but by then he had been told of what that happened. >> although he clearly had known it happened. so we got on the plane and we had to fly back to washington that day. and nobody came back on the plane to explain why he had made that remark. and that opened up this chapter that andrea had alluded to, this chapter of selling arms to iran in hopes of getting hostages out of lebanon and money to send to the contras in nicaragua. and it was this unbelievably complicated story that played out in, and it was hard to recover because of reagan's own version and interpretation of what happened changed. he never accepted the fact that he was trading arms for hostages. so he still claimed, even up to end until his death that he was not doing that although everybody found that he was. there was all this stuff. so he was a very difficult story to tell. it was seeing him that day, the fact that he faltered and did not give the movie star kind of quality, confident response and instead this and no comment. >> i would just say, access to the president is so important and is such a privilege. i know that we all feel that way. but the thing that causes more concern for me with the current trend is the lack of access to senior aides and two cabinet secretaries and the control of the press officer over every contact you have with the officials in the administration. it makes it incredibly difficult to do meaningful reporting because most meaningful reporting you will do is not intervening with the president, although that is a big thrill, but the interviews you do with the people around him and aren't rising him. i look canal and say, how can we tell americans we are giving them a 360-degree look of what is going on in the white house when the only access we have is through people in the press office. there good people but not the policy makers. the reagan and clinton white house is were incredibly messy. bush, too. that's right. you could reach staffers. with the reagan team in particular, they were all at war with each other. there were ways to find out what was really going on behind the scenes and not just what they wanted to feed you. that was also true of clinton. and i would say to people who are now running for the white house, who ended up being able to do more, the neat, controlled the white house or the messy, chaotic one? i would argue the chaos of the reagan and clinton and bush people and ability of reporters to talk to people not in the press office ended up serving the president well. >> why is that, just to put a finer point on it? why does messy perhaps result in something better? >> because policy is messy. if you wait until you have policy shaped and your six. fact sheet ready to go, you have missed the creation part, which is important to read you have missed the alternative points of view the president is hearing, and when you can have access to policymakers, senior aides, often they're playing a game of trying to destroy a policy by telling you about it. maybe it is something that should be debated before the president gets out there. >> and to trickle back, knowing the president, being out there, having correspondence, out their day and night really has a value. on the hostage crisis, having watched him in the rose garden in several fess and then where he was talking about the hostages, at first in beirut before we even dealt with larger hostage crisis, but the original hostage crisis in beirut. you knew how upset he was about this. you could see it. so that led you to call and find out some stuff. he opened his intel briefings every day with, what do you know about the hostage crisis. he was asking them to do something about it, and they then were taking that as marching orders. i mean, we understood this better later on, but it also helped us to know how important that issue was for him. he you did as a personal mission to get those people out, and it was the first thing and the most important thing to him. similarly, not having the access to staff, the control that i see being asserted by the communications people in the press office over what cabinet secretaries can say that only on camera and going out on sunday shows where they used to have discretion, but who can be serious for the president. this white house most importantly is not served well by not having more senior people that they can send out, whether it is on health care or gaza or no on ebola. i mean, again going to do all of the shows on sunday because the only one that they feel can deliver the message. one more thing, with all due respect to our still photographer friends, i was outraged as a news correspondent that win neonate came in yesterday, it was only the skills. there used to be a time when if there were no editorial written presence we would not use the picture. she just simply would not -- >> i'm glad you raised that point because it takes us to the second thing we want to discuss. i apologize to those of you who have heard as armey talk about this for hours on an already, but our access project is directly related to what andrea just said. a little bit of history, last december the photographers led the press corps and washington media more broadly in pushing for greater access at the white house, particularly to photographs. let's give credit where it is due. the white house has responded to that to some degree, and they have allowed -- that is why you are seeing more still only opportunity and the are open to more of them than we have currently gun. but as soon as that happened , the white house correspondent association board realized, that is a very small thing for us to be asking for in the wake of -- we got their attention, we got the white house attention last december. we wanted to follow up with something bigger and something that touches all of us. and i just think it is so important. so for months we have been working on this, almost everyone in this room has been a part of it. we talked about the gains we have already made, the practices in place that we value, and we have written them down because we want to make sure they are preserved and handed down as well. but we have also -- people have started brainstorming things that we can add to that list that will make things better more broadly for all of us, like some of the ideas that have been suggested are, the president takes questions from the press corps at least once a week, if not more often. the press corps sees the president at work in the oval office, in the roosevelt room, wherever he is doing business. photos praise are an opportunity for reporters to ask spontaneous questions in an unscripted setting. those are the things we have been pulling together to put in this document. so well we have these veterans at the table and you are here together, i want you to ask teeseven want to ask you to think about it. i would like to hear from you. which practices do you think are most important, which of those we have fought for and got in, those that have existed in the past that we have lost, what matters the most in getting and independent, vigorous press access at the white house? >> some of the things we have talked about here the folks have mentioned about how much staging areas, so much is staged and to the exclusion of any independent reporting more photography or so -- you know, video journalism. it is things that are being excluded. they have taken over the kind of production and delivery of a lot of contents, people's impressions of the white house are developed based upon what they see from the white house point of view, and that is not what, you know, that is not -- that puts us to the side, plus i think the white house has sent an important signal with all of their league investigations. you know, this administration has been very aggressive in their leaked investigations, and i think that has resulted in a chilling of sources for investigative reporters and others. and it is an attitude that the administration has conveyed, projected to to its own officials, people in the white house, pentagon, state department, and beyond and it has a bad impact on what we're trying to do. so it -- you know, i don't know how you say -- tried to send a signal that this administration is more receptive to belief in the first amendment and thinks this is a good thing to do independent reporting and allow the press to have more access and insight in the way that policies are developed, as you were talking about, susan, and let people have -- peeled back the cover a little bit and see what is going on. >> thank you. brooks kraft, you have some thoughts when we were discussing this yesterday. >> i think it always helps to think about things from their perspective. my guess is that when we start talking about sort of saying, show us more, you know, we want to see the mess, that instantly they are thinking, okay, well, this is 2014. one little photograph for comment, you know, like some of the things we are talking about in the past will just get instantly blown up. it goes out on twitter, all over the place, the 24 hour news cycle. i think that is the big fear and so you have to keep that in mind when we are crafting also, you cannot underestimate the fact that they basically believe that they can go directly to the public. they do not need the media to communicate to the public anymore, whether we are talking about still images, video -- i am not saying i agree with this, but i no there are lot of people at the white house to believe they can go directly to the public. you know, why should we have to filter it through the media when we can put it out, whether it is if it -- photograph, press release, comment, and it goes instantly all over the internet where ever we needed. >> but how is that working for them? >> what. >> the approval rating. >> i am not arguing that point. >> i understand. but i am saying to them, is this working for you? is this enabling you to succeed as an administration i would argue that it is not and the thing that they talk about, their fear that there will be a little got you moment that would explode, my big fear is that this administration has been more restrictive and challenging to the press, more dangerous to the press really than any administration in american history in terms of legal investigations and so on. i think access has gotten worse and worse. i am worried that whatever happens with this administration, that is the new floor for the next administration, and we never regain the ability to do our jobs unless we constantly fight the battle. that is why i praise christi parsons and the board of said it white house correspondents' association for tackling this because i am more read. we have a role in our democracy, and we cannot do it if the president and his administration did not recognize. >> i think that is effective and where we were able to really take some ground in december, which we're talking about, was when we said, you know, president obama, at the beginning of your administration he said this would be the most transparent administration. this is not transparent. it is not transparent for you guys to provide the content. and, you know, i heard from multiple different people that that argument really got under his skin, and i think that led to some changes. if we can build on that i think we might be able to -- what you are saying, democracy, that is an effective argument. >> and let me just say that being confined to the briefing room is a real issue. and know this is not going to change, but there was a time where we would wander. if you needed to see someone at the council of economic advisers or some other office you would just across west exec and go up the steps. and you were wandering around. >> the story is, walking through the old executive office building and saw reporter and said, what are you doing there. the reporter said to my going to interview somebody. where is your escort? i don't have one. i have a pass. within two days that practice ended. >> there was a time when they were putting theater seats in because it used to be all big couches and arm chairs. >> in the briefing room. >> but, you know, and the briefing room brown leather couches. then they put their theater seats in. september 19 at 81 we were moved over as a temporary press room. i remember that we were worried they would never let as back into the main building and see people coming in and out, which did not happen. everyone back-and-forth. do our stand ups. back over and up to the fourth floor. i remember, again, paul mark, the day that sadat was killed. september, 1981. i was there because judy had just had her baby, jeffrey always filling in. and sadat was killed. and i remember john just always thinking of the visual and wanting to run around and get a picture because we did not rely so extensively. it was a competitive thing to get a picture no one else had. and he looked up on the phone and said, get a group, quick, get the shot of them lowering the flag over the white house. i grabbed the crew and we went down four flights and got the shot of the flag being lowered in honor of -- memory of sadat. and you had this sense that you could cover the beat by running over and getting a shot of people running in are driving in two west exact. i know that that is not going to change given the current atmosphere, but a white house pass was your credentials. once you were on the grounds you could go to many more places. >> the first time i went to the white house briefing room was the end of the carter administration, and they had those big couches, like countless people had thrown away from other places, not nice. it was the first time i had been there, so i went and sat. a man came up to me and said, get out of my chair, and that is how i met mark muller. [laughter] [applause] >> as if not enough to tap in. [laughter] >> i want to make one final point before we conclude this panel, which i wish i had made a 2-hour panel because i enjoy your storytelling and advice. the white house is in days with us in conversations about these changes we want to make in the standards we are drafting. they understand in the wake of last december's public conversation we came in with a few very small aspects from the separate parts of the media and understand we were not on the same page with but we asked for. you've got a little flavor of it earlier. each of our media formats has a conflict with another media format about how we want things practiced. we have to work that out, and then we have to go to the white house as a group in san behind our document as a group. that will sometimes mean advocating for things that either don't make a difference to you personally in your daily practice of journalism but they do matter to the whole group in irene. [silence] example, the difference between a photojournalist and tv cameras. it is just the tip of the iceberg. and that is why i really want everyone, if you are willing to come on a saturday and you are willing to put in more time. join one of the small groups that the board members will be convening over the next 6-8 weeks and sit down with people who are not in your media group that representatives of different media and go over these ideas and look at this document. and let's put together something that we as a group can really stand behind. so with that, let's think the contribution of this panel. [applause] [applause] >> thank-you. >> hey, let's start the second panel. when ap sits down, everyone sits down. >> there we go. >> thank you. they do, everybody. we will start the second panel. [inaudible conversations] which is a group of my favorite white house correspondents. that is what you get to do when you moderate a panel. we have margaret who covered the white house for bloomberg, covered the obama campaign, worked in florida, did a stint in congress. and abc news, the chief white house correspondent since december 2012 and has covered congress, foreign-policy, state department, and politics. peter baker of the new york times who has covered three white houses, the obama white house, bush white house, clinton white house and was moscow bureau chief and recently wrote a book about bush and cheney, which everyone can review -- everyone should read. stephen colocynth is a white house correspondent emeritus who recently left us for cnn but covered the white house for a half before a number of years and also did a number of stents overseas in asia and europe. and so i am delighted to have all of you here. you're definitely among my favorite white house correspondents. selfishly i decided to start the panel of by one of the things that i am most interested in as a white house correspondent, particularly given all of the access limitations at our previous panel talked about. i would like to know how these guys get their story and, like, where do you get that information from and how does it all come together. i have asked them to each talk about some of the one they stand out story that they have done on the beach and give us a little window and to how they can about it. i will start with margaret, if that is okay. [laughter] >> the story that i want to talk about is probably not the biggest story in this sense of shedding major light on a foreign policy scandal or something like that, but it is an access story, which is why i thought of it. in the spring of 2012, a story about how the white house had stopped releasing lists of the wine they were pouring and state dinners because the winds had gotten expensive and had become scandalous in the middle of a deficit, but instead of just admitting, they were not admitting. they were denying while doing it. and so honestly the world would have turned without anyone knowing what they were going to power for the u.k. state dinner, but i was so mad it would not tell me that i made my mission and spend three weeks. >> did you just badger them into it? >> all of the above. all of the above. i went to the press office, mrs. obama office. the robo. the blow you off for four days and refer you to the press office. and thus it went. so i started trying to a check clips, calling the indices are places that had been part of the state dinner, going on line blocks, looking for wine trade publications that might have written about someone who had a wind powered, calling major vendors and specialty vendors. and because i was at bloomberg and had to write ten stories at the same time that's fine. like, i was so mad. i just went nuts on it. and a great story, one of my favorite stories. they continue the practice of not listing the wines up until the last state dinner where very quietly they began. [laughter] and i think, if i remember right to my wind at a certain point during his conversation. he was like a fantastic resources. it i was pretty new to bloomberg, and they had hired an editor, a guy whose name i had known from the "wall street journal" because he and his wife had written a wine column for many years. so i called him. i'm trying to do this story. they will not release the names. he's like, let's get dot the on the phone. anyway, i ended up talking with his wife, and he became like a mentor to me. it ended up being the other way around. i have all these new friends to our winemakers in california. [laughter] >> ron. >> i cannot beat that, but i do remember $400 a bottle at auction, which is probably about that time they stopped. that is phenomenal. i do not know, you know, if this is the kind of beat. it is rare to blow up in one big story, but incremental developments on big stories that you push for. he immediately won the that i think of is when the boston bombing happened and president obama came down and had bad, you know, come to talk to us in the briefing room at nine or 10:00 after they got some not. and if we were not getting any information at all from the white house. you know, one of the television correspondent, i have to stand off, and everyone wonders why those guys are always standing. before he comes out i have to give a little steel and lead into the president. and i have nothing to say because i have no idea what he is going to say. the first thing you have to do in a situation like that is go all around the white house because it will be completely useless. the white house press office is shut down. by and large you realize that you will get nothing there. in that case, just a little bit of -- gave my viewers of little bit of information, which was they had initiated the high-value interrogation team. this was set up to be enhanced interrogation, a combination of fbi, department of defense, intelligence community go up and do the interrogation to figure out if anyone else was a part of this plot. an additional piece of information that there was no way in hell i would have gotten out of the white house. the same way as one of the big stories this year, of course, has been isis. he announced a prime-time address, although that is not always an indication that he will do anything, you know. [laughter] but, again, no information coming out of the white house about what is going on. but, you know, i was able to get some information that in addition to air strikes he would be announcing groups of devices that would go over, you know, which would be essentially they would have boots and be working on the ground but not the boots on the ground. [laughter] but the way i always have learned on this speed is, you have got to go around. having covered the pentagon, having covered congress, that state department, the intelligence community, each one of those places is a lot easier to get information and the white house. it helped to go back to those places when you want to get something on the white house. >> what about you? >> grace stories and both make great points. i am going to flip your question a little bit and talk about a story i remember screwing up. how about that? i remember in 2005 going down to texas to cover president bush on vacation as some many of the state in crawford. he decided to go off to arizona to give a birthday cake to john mccain on the tarmac, san diego for some anniversary. of course this is when hurricane katrina happened. he packs up and it goes back earlier. as we all remember, of course, he flies low over nor less to get a look at the devastation. for those of us on the plane it was incredibly moving. a half-hour worth of seeing the devastation on the ground. they flew very low. a very good sense from that altitude of how awful it was , and i got off the plane and restoring on bush taking charge and everything, completely missing the story to which i had been a part of, right? and a lesson there is, we should fight for access and have to get close of, but let's not get in the same bubble he is in and remember that sometimes the story is not the way it looks to him but to the rest of the world and we should try to find a way to keep their perspective. and what john and margaret just talked about is also true. the best sources are not in the white house. i had a great good fortune of working very briefly to someone people in this room must know. and she just had that place wired, new every janitor and secretary, new things before the white house officials knew them. they would call her to find out. asked her once, how do you do it? what is your trick? and she said, there are three levels of sources. the agencies, congress, and k streets. none of them work in 1500 pennsylvania avenue. that is exactly what he was talking about. >> you have had some good -- >> i agree. insider reporting, sometimes you have to be -- to come at it as an outsider and do that story about how the rest of the world see what the president is doing. one occasion i remember is the first trip to china in 2009. the president, it was a bit of a disaster. the president did a bit of a town hall meeting in shanghai, which half of china could not see because it was blocked off and the chinese would not let half the people come and. he did not go and see any dissidents. when reagan went to moscow he went and saw dissidents. and then he had this press conference, which was not really a press conference at all. it was him and the others standing there looking around at the ceiling. he went into this massive bit about mutual cooperation which the chinese often talk about in public. the president was staring around, catching people's eye in the front row, very board. the press coverage was absolutely brutal. and i kind of did not do that story because i figured that, you know, we are all flying around in the same plane. everyone is going to write that it was a disaster. i have to come up with something different, especially as a foreign journalist working for mainly foreign clients. so i thought -- i had done a little bit of reporting about what the chinese thought about the president. if you think about the biggest nightmare in china, that there would be some kind of charismatic leader probably from the agricultural heartland who builds a grass-roots movement whose sort of electrifies students and then goes and overtakes the east coast establishment, the political establishment. if you think about it, that is exactly what the president did in the united states. one of the reasons i think the chinese treated him as they did is because they were actually -- they saw him as a threat and were frightened about -- friend is too strong. concerned that if the people of china saw what the people of the united states were seeing basically this is when hope and change was still a viable concept. [laughter] and they would be inspired. so i wrote the story that way and was carried by rush limbaugh and the other right when blocks for carrying water for the obama administration, but i think -- and there was one other issue. mark landers has written about this. the president is not in the kind of line of posts nixon american presidency see china all in the same way and dealt with china in the same way. the presidency's china, i think, from the kind of experience of east asia. a big country but a small pantry. he put what i was talking about before and that together. you can see how the chinese might have seen the president. i think that story stands the test of time because it has told you the story of what has happened between the united states and china in this administration, which is -- relations are not particularly good. there is still a lot of mistrust, miscommunication, and china seas most of this. it is not seen that way in asia. i was talking to an asian diplomat yesterday he think it's kind of a threat. the chinese think -- the president can say 100 times that this is not something that is aimed at china, but the chinese don't see it that way. and i think that was evident from that first trip to china. >> and that was something you were able to pick up on because of your experience overseas? >> i guess. you have to kind of -- >> i mean, peter rig mentioned taste treats, agencies, but the foreign diplomat circle must be -- you have the committees on the hill, but often the foreign diplomatic community, you can, you know, work out when a story is going to rise and come to the four were you can actually report on it and go to our house official and say this is what everyone is saying. is that true. and another good way, all these think tanks around town. they meet with administration officials all the time and often will not give you exactly what the conversations were about. you talk to enough of his people and you can get a pretty good impression. a story recently. and you can get a good kind of idea of what the white house is doing just by hearing the chatter around town. that is the way you have to do it. you can't get -- people just do not phony back. >> news agency. >> i guess. [laughter] >> that actually is true across the board. i am certain that some people get called back faster, but the frustrations felt are pretty much across the board. i was fascinated when political magazine did a poll of white house correspondents. and i will confess device suggested one of the comments. how many of you have spoken to a non communication person at the white house in the last week, someone who is not paid to talk to you but a policy person. 53 percent said, are you kidding. it is just, i think, telling that we all feel so excluded from the people who actually do the job we are interested in talking about. >> there are different levels, though. margaret, you experienced that. you went to a bloomberg, which has a permanent seat on air force one, second row in the briefing room, and the makes of any secret back room briefings that you used to get into. the stories that you have done verses the access that you have had. >> one of my favorite stories about that happened in 2006 when barack obama had his book that had just come out. one of the editors wanted me to do a book review, a q&a. there were like, he is running for president and i was like, no. [laughter] >> like peter. >> exactly. so i mike, can i get an interview with senator obama. he is like, i would ever. there will get back to you. one night i went to the senate, the elevator. it was his night to give some speech that no one was going to listen to and then turn the lights off and leave, so he was the last guy in the senate. so i'm stalking him outside. he comes out and i say, hey, i've been trying to reach you. can happen the elevator? i guess so. i have been calling your office for six or seven days in a row. i'm trying to get an interview with you. looking at me like, what is your name. i work for mccarthy newspapers and we happen to have some really influential newspapers in north carolina and south carolina, basically a handful of states that were big money states or pivotal states and the primary or swing states. so if you want to call me back -- and he literally called me the next day and had my interview with him. that is one of two interviews i have ever had with president obama it is different. and it sometimes feels personal, but i think it is usually not personal. it is completely transactional they needed as. they loved us if there was something happening in florida, north carolina, south carolina, a couple of other places. you know, at bloomberg they are obviously much more interested in doing business with us on stories that affect wall street, consumers, the financial industry, and i think it is how they look at all of the outlets. after a while you figure out what you can do with access, where they will help you with, and what you just need to write off from the get go . >> it is true -- it is probably the first two rows. we get invited to briefings that others do not. i don't know. >> they are not as frequent, though. >> and they are usually pretty useless. we are not allowed to actually "anybody. i mean, i think we are all still -- we go and learn something, but it is not that useful. of the major beach in this town, there are only two left that you can actually walk. and this gets to how you got to senator obama. it is congress and the pentagon. >> but what was that like when you came from congress to the white house? >> it was brutal because that is highlighted by reporting on the hill. about the only place i was not allowed to go -- imagine that. the only place i was not allowed to go without permission was these centers -only elevator because i almost got back to they cannot avoid you. you know when the votes are, how they have to go to get to the vote, what doors, subways, hallways, stairways, it to full offices, someone to help you out and triangulate, but you can get these people. they cannot avoid you. at the white house now -- now, i went to the white house for a month before i had the chance to ask the president a question. that is astounding. [laughter] think about that. it. >> it is averages. >> anyway -- >> you coverage -- steven did, too. you covered clinton and bush one would think that if you -- starting monday number one of the obama administration, they are trying to figure out where their lockers are. you know where they are and the code. you seem to know more. other advantages or disadvantages to that experience? >> i think it is important because you see things threepeat. you know, history repeats itself here we are, in the sixth year of his administration, about to head to a midterm with things are not going to go will presumably. you can write the story with more authority, context, perspective. and also, by the way, you know things that they don't. the other day we had is interesting back and forth with mark smith and the press secretary tried to suggest this was the first time in the administration had ever done this or that and we said, wait a second. that is not the case. they don't have the historical memory, most of them. it helps to have people like mark and bill and marked and the other markets and so forth in the room to help us keep them honest. every administration thinks history started the day that they took office. everyone goes through this painful realization that it did not. >> at what point does that sink in? >> right around year number eight. [laughter] >> what about you? what difference is? >> the bush administration and the clinton administration, much more astute in dealing with foreign leaders especially. they have this same attitude in the obama white house about foreign media as the domestic media. they get straight over your head. the president will do an op-ed instead of talking to any journalists. when bush would go abroad he would have three prominent journalists from each country into the roosevelt room. i mean, he was good at it. he was charming, and he would allow the wires to go at the same time. you get to take down all of the quotes. and then once it hit the newspaper or the tv station in the country he was going to you could report. so they had two bites at the chariot, the newspaper article and then every other media outlets in that country to wire copy. so it was a much bigger sort of penetration of the media market. i think also that this whole business with the nsa, the president could have easily come down if he had gone and done an interview on german tv. still very popular in europe. they did not engage. >> something bush would have done? >> you might have been, but bush was very unpopular in europe. it would not help him. the people that work for bush, ben bartlett, other people were so much more acute. i think that they were in this media mindset that they know best. i still do not think there is a better way for a president to talk to the american people then through the ap. well, but he does these interviews with local anchors to come to the white house and get their picture taken. it is all very nice, but they did one station in, you know, i don't know, toledo or denver. and national al lead, you might get tougher questions, but every single -- every newspaper, all the tv stations in america, and i don't understand it. >> isn't part of the reason they do that because when they do that we write about it. as news organizations, journal poll is that at the white house where they have a local anchor set up in the rose garden. we divide them up and do the interviews. >> these quotes. [inaudible conversations] >> not that well equipped to know what is going not the white house. came in. given nice little set down. came out and reported. you know how they work? the journalists give them questions before hand. he gives the answers. >> it did not work that way. >> would you like to say something? >> sort of a sensitive topic, but on the question of how access varies by ellis coming to me one of the best parts about being regularly in that travel pool and travelling on air force one is president obama does have, as you know, a tradition of coming back and doing some of the record time, usually for flights, sometimes domestic trips if there is a reason. although we cannot write about what he says, you can see, it is often reflected, we came back for 15 minutes. for me, that is the most agreeable time because when you are covering somebody come made is really nice to have some face time with them and to try to read body language, what is on their mind, whether they can laugh off a question or whether their prickly about it. something that maybe we did not think to ask but he brings out. and whenever i have had the privilege to be in one of these i often wonder why he does not do it more often than not just on the plan. >> and may be on the record. >> on the record would be great, but, you know, even when it is off the record, i think it buys him a tremendous amount of goodwill and some empathy if not sympathy in understanding how difficult it is to run the country and how complex your decision making is. he is obviously rhetorically more skilled. he can figure out how to deal with this. i have never understood why he is not more comfortable or they are not more comfortable with him doing more of these. i no there have been times when he spoke off the cuff. usually, by the way, on a podium with a microphone and we end up having a beer summit or something. >> got mike. >> yes, the hot mike. it is true that there is less risk, but there is also less reward. and i think that, to my mind , often after one of the long trips were he will come back and do this there will actually be interesting stories that are still in the stories in the days after. i was there. you know where it came from. and it actually, it can be journalistically sound. and i do not know why he does not do more of it. >> do you want to say something, peter? so that kind of is a nice segue into talking about some of these practices and principles that christi parsons was talking about. i am curious about some of the different things being batted around, for instance how important do you think it is we see the president every day? john prius as you were on the hill, is that something that would be useful to you in your day-to-day coverage? >> absolutely. andrea and i together on trips to places like saudi arabia and china that have a slightly less reputation of press freedom than the united states, but the practice in virtually every trip you and i have gone on together has been that often in these less press open societies they will try to say, we will let the cameras in, but the producers, reporters, editorial presence. it is usually the american public affairs official who is going to bat saying, no, we're not going to allow this. now suddenly we have this new practice at the white house where cameras go win, including video cameras for this wonderful new trend was no editorial presence. and i know that the bureau chiefs have agreed to do this in limited circumstances, but i think it is a terrible idea, a terrible precedent because it allows them to kind of further and further push away the actual, you know, people that are there for editorial reasons. >> and one thing that i wondered about that is -- and this goes to the idea of seeing the president every day or just seeing the president is that, is for the editorial, the writers on the panel, to you feel something is lost when editorial is taken out of a situation like that in this sense that it does not acknowledge what you do as a writer, which is also pick up your own color and different pieces of the scene in that that is part of the editorial role as well? >> the person we cover the most is the person we know the least. we have all covered centers and mayors and governors. those people you see so much. you have a sense of who they are. they are guarded, like any other politician. you have a sense of who these people are in the way you have not a clue what this president is liked. i guess the question all the time. >> you feel like you knew what clinton and bush were like? >> i feel like a i have known each successively less i would not say that they were nasty. they tell you how much bush 41 was more engaged, dropping by the briefing room from time to time or seeing them in a casual kind of setting. and carter would do all of these things. and that was not the case with clinton, but the very first airforce one trip i took with clinton, he came to the back and was telling these southern eight stories in a funny voice, imitating royal folks. and you can't imagine that today. obama does come back, but even then it is very, -- some lecturing. so i think that what we miss, though, to give him credit, he does more interviews than his predecessors, has less to predecessors. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> i am not getting these interviews. i am saying, give him credit for at least doing this. what he is not doing in the bread and butter of what the correspondence do is where you take a day in and the. [roll call] are two questions, how about this, that is where you hear the president day and day out about the main issues. we go weeks without hearing his voice and being able to ask any question. an entire issues come and go, especially these days, without ever having gotten his perspective on what he thinks about this or that, what he thinks should happen, anything. it is so different from the last two. >> stephen, how does that impact how you cover the white house? >> i agree. also the question, even more so -- i think it is more important than the big news conference. >> i feel like of the four of us up here you wouldn't more likely. we have a much smaller rotation. i just think that collectively we have lost. >> and the reason i stopped doing it is because the president kept setting deadlines for the end of settlements. they don't want him to make that news. you know, that is a real problem. there is also a difference in atmosphere between those, just stand erect -- standing around and fire off a quick question. often that is more useful. if you have a formal news conference and see him once every two months, everyone stands up and asks these 7- part questions which allows him to pick a pc wants to answer in and just kind of ramble on. we have to be a little bit more, perhaps, disciplined. if it was this week, right, it would be, what do you think about a bowl of? by the way, the islamic state campaign is a disaster next week you have a mid term. basically -- i can't imagine that. >> everything kind of boils down to a question of, things are terrible. your presidency is going down the tubes. so he will just talk for 20 minutes. you are better off saying, okay, is the operation of failure? then he has to answer it, you know? but the thing i think is the most important. my worry would be if we said, we need to see the president every day they would give us an endless line of pointless -- [inaudible conversations] >> the questions at least. [inaudible conversations] >> get -- the other thing i would say is the president spends a lot of time focusing on whether we get a chance to talk to him, the secrecy, the background, the supersecret background, these guys have been inundated. >> explain that. >> it has increased. >> explain that. it is bizarre. >> a briefing with 40 reporters. we are talking deep, dirty secrets. this is a bunch of guys giving spin that you cannot." tell me why this makes sense. >> we are allowed to use the information but not directly." [laughter] >> and then morning tv would say exactly that type of thing. >> exactly. yes. >> so step of these briefings on the record or put them in a traditional background kind of setting? >> i'm sorry, but i would say that that should be on the record unless there's a reason not to be. i got an e-mail to days ago, ebola, the president has been briefed. we have nothing else for you why? that is secret. we should make sure we do not have a name attached to that. the mentality honestly is we collectively have gotten this idea that the background is the default, not the other way around. by the way, we are guilty of this, too. we as a profession ought to be pushing these people more and more. we, by the way, i am stunned okay. can we talk? why would you ask that? why wouldn't you assume we would be on the record. you should assume we are on the record unless there is a reason otherwise. >> it suggests that the official is not convinced the information is true. our remember coming to the hill. it was getting worse and worse and worse. you know, his spokesperson at the time, there would be different -- if he felt good about the information, you can call me by name. a little bit less, i could tell. and then when it got really bad he would say, just say ally. [laughter] and then finally allies to get the impression he had more than one. [laughter] >> so what do you guys think about another thing on our list, the embargo information in the way the administration uses it? and of the new york times as a follow on war going on with the white house in terms of this embargo information, but the bush administration used to put something out in the evening that is under an embargo that is really lame -- >> it is not news. >> it is not news. it is just trying to manipulate a new cycle. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> i mean, would that be something that would be on your list of things that you would -- >> i think so because if it ever turns out to be something real and substantive we are handcuffing ourselves in terms of reporting on something that might actually be out there. they tell people around town, we ought to be aggressively reporting it, if it is something real. most of the time it is nonsense. i think embargo's at least in the old days used to be for a budget, something genuinely meaningful. the 9:00 deadline, all of that makes sense. this idea that i am going to put out there is a report about how our job-training program evaluation might be finished two months from now, i don't need that. so we had a couple of occasions where they put something out and we found out from other sources what they were going to say. i'm sorry, we're not going to stop reporting. they get mad at us and take us off the list the next time. fine. but this invites that kind of conflict where they are mad because they think we busted embargo. it should only be for cases that make sense. >> steven, you have recently been out of white house coverage. is there anything that, since you have left but have noticed or that is different about going from being a wire rack sitting in the press -- [laughter] >> right. so maybe how little you miss it. [laughter] >> you are in the honeymoon phase. >> a really good joke. i mean, there are lots of things you miss breed you are watching history unfold and everything else, but you certainly do not ms. e-mailing people at midnight hoping to get an e-mail back. right. right. like the kind of -- and it is kind of nice to go outside the white house and people actually return your calls when you phone them up. you know, i am talking to king -- campaign people now. these are the people that at the beginning when they still had their careers before them, hope they have latched onto a guy that would be present and it is some massive -- [inaudible conversations] >> no comment. [laughter] .. it was an off the record sessi session. what is your take on those and you said off the record basis is a good thing but i just wanted to hear your position on these times when he brings and journalists off the record and the whole thing stays off reco record. >> i regularly came to talk on the day he was going to announce that his campaign he invited a couple of days working in various administrations i would call all the people who had been in meetings to get a sense of what he was saying and try to get a sense about what's on his mind. the off the record restrictions do not apply to me so i wasn't there. i can't be held to a ground rule that i didn't agree to our profit from and you know it's our job to find out what he's thinking and members of congress have gone in and talk to him about this i would have called them and hopefully they would have told me what he said as well. i mean i agree with margaret that records are some ways useful. you can't have 15 or 17 and at a time and expect that that's going to be an off the record thing. that's not -- background briefings of 40 people off the record with 15 to 17 but these are public events in effect and you know that's not the same thing as i'm going to bring in two or three for 15 minutes. i also think it uses a substitute on the record which they shouldn't be. >> i want to clarify. i'm not saying on the record that we shouldn't be a list types are present on the record. that's always my preference but all i'm saying is that we have such little access to him as the people who cover him day-to-day anyhow that when we do have the opportunity to talk one r. on one -- one-on-one or in a small group of him which tends to be off the record i think it's a valuable experience not just for their porters but kind of for him. he gets a vibe about what reporters are interested in talking about and we get a vibe about what he's feeling because we have proximity to him and they are the signals that are conveyed through per se. they can be conveyed through a person but if i gave the impression that i favor that over the record that's not all what i'm saying. all i'm saying is i don't think is risky for him to talk to us as the team has convinced himself that it is. >> he's not saying off the record he doesn't want to be part of the conversation. he just wants to be on his terms so if you have a columnist and he's hoping to influence the columnist. he wants them to understand how he's he's thinking in the right stories and columns that reflect that. so be it. it's not off the record like i'm going to talk about my daughters and i don't want anyone to know about this. this is his attempt to influence and shape the discussion in washington. that's something we should report on. >> can you use the mic mic and that way we can hear you? [inaudible] >> i think there are different interpretations and i think if you are involved in those you should clarify in the beginning how that's intended because we have had that happen where i think one of my colleagues saw people going in for an off the record report and eight got reamed out by the white house and so forth. it's a great idea that was off the record. i'm against off the record in general. i just think it's a president of the united states. what he does is not off the record especially talking about war and peace. he's talking about things of great interest in great importance to the public. it's our job to figure out what he's doing, what he's saying and who he's doing it with and you know. >> does anyone else have a question? can we go to alexis and then we will come to you. [inaudible] [inaudible] [laughter] >> first of all it is intimidating when you walk into that meeting and you report something and then they come down on you and oh my god. i have had senior officials go to my bureau chief as if that was going to make a difference. but you know it's tough and i think the advice is first of all you can't be intimidated. you've got to charge forward but you also need to be a responsible reporter and you need to also be trusted by tho those, by your sources. you need to deal with your sources in a responsible way and you need to be able to be trusted by them to deal with the information in a responsible way and understand the difference between what's on the record and off the record a basic stuff like that but also to be fair. when you are going to write a tough story, and i have not always lived up to this but one of the basic basic things this dull surprise people. if you are going to nail somebody with a story, you know give them a chance to respond before you have gone out with it and don't surprise them with it. let them know it's coming. that's a big part of it. sometimes there won't be any response but let them know they are about to get hit with something. so i think if you deal with those officials and may you know, a reasonable way and a trustworthy way it's a lot easier to ignore it. it's going to pass, you know, it's going to pass. you think oh my god they are never going to talk to me again. they will talk to you again because they are interested in talking to you. >> i have nothing but respect. [inaudible] [laughter] >> you know i think my main and josh has brought it up more you could get a mix of people asking questions. we have gotten into this habit of you know going down the line and people will ask multiple questions on multiple topics. i mean i have been at other white house briefings where there was a different style. the first subject is ebola and everyone will go around and scream out their bolo question and then we will get to then send them you get people following up on other's questions. i think it's the most important thing in a follow-up. not only you following up but peter asks something in me being able to jump in and follow up. so i would like to see white house briefings done more like this panel, you know? >> sometimes we hurt ourselves with budget cuts and not doing it ourselves and cutting back. going back to that whole argument about being able to interact with audiences and people. i can recall i remember clearly being with sam downs in a snowstorm watching cars -- and there was no question that was a producer or anyone else but we had to be there. sit at nbc said we have a 7-year-old president and this -- we will be outside. that's the premise that you had to be there ready to go at any moment. i think we ourselves have gotten budget cuts but it's easy to say when we are facing these. we really need to be at every speech m. if something changes. >> he has talked a lot about bosnia and let us know what he's thinking about bosnia and obama is a little bit more disciplined than that but i agree with you. >> networks don't go onto domestic trips regularly. a producer will go or what i mean it's wrong. >> i do think that a lot of this conversation today is going to be holding the white house's feet to the fire in terms of how much access they are voluntarily giving out but we can all do a lot of inward looking about our rebranding of the white house better and does not completely undercut our premise for them not doing that? are we completely undercutting our premise for why we can't be there? we have to hold ourselves to the high standard. >> i just have one question for the panel and i'm going to go very granular. peter and john were getting at an important thing that we need to resolve as a group. i want to ask you a simple question. if you knew that you would see the president in the briefing room once a week taking questions would you agree that the photo journalist could go in without editorial presence? barring whatever you want to add in there but let's just say this is really a thing. the white house has offered us more visuals on the president which means a lot to tv cameras in the photographers. but those of us in print pushed back because we want the editorial presence every time and we want to increase the number of times. we can to ask spontaneous unscripted questions in a real reporting situation. so setting aside, agreeing and simulating that we agree that the editorial should be in there and the full posted whenever everything if you knew you would see the president once a week taking questions in the briefing room would you have a different view or would you relax the idea that uis need the editorial presence? >> the news you want to get the president's comment on might be on a tuesday. it would be great to have it there on a friday but unless he agrees to come and we want him to come. but i don't see that happening. >> remember that the pool is going to be a spray. we can yell and scream loudly but sometimes that means we get a question, we get a setting where there's a question but a lot of times it doesn't mean that and we still don't get the weekly chance to grill the president in the briefing room. >> the last time the president gave a weekly press conference was like eisenhower kennedy so if you were actually to come and do a real news briefing, not just one question or two but waited until the summer when he didn't have a strategy. [laughter] that would be a trade-off for thinking about. that would be an extraordinary commitment. i'm not convinced they would make it that i think we could ask the questions once a week would be pretty -. >> i think this principle of an editorial is very important and i mean i feel strongly about that but if you did have were you could ask multiple questions every week it makes a little easier to consider something like that. maybe off the record but if you have access, i've always thought a bedrock principle is if that you have on the record access for off the record stuff is fine and very helpful. this is a variation of that but i agree. i can't imagine they would agree to a weekly press conference. i think they might make that promise and we will see if it actually happens. >> you never know. >> we will wait for re-election. >> president for life. [laughter] >> margaret did you have anything? >> i think like the panel said i think if i think about i think if i were to actually happen it would alleviate a lot of the pressure for someone to be there with a pencil and notebook staring out the window and it's useful for photographers. it can be an absolute promise like we will never ask for access during the week because something like yesterday with the nurse, the ebola nurse is ridiculous and of course there should have been full poll. it's just silly and it doesn't make any sense. if that's off the table because we cut some deal about friday availability i think we have traded something really precious away. not that we have it now but. >> we don't have it now. we don't have a right to complain about it. >> what has been happening is it's not good for democracy and life as we know it, it's not. [applause] >> this was fantastic. thank you so much. let me say a couple awards. first of all i want to say thank you to this fabulous pool. [applause] that was tremendously helpful and thank you for giving up all your trade secrets. i want to take a moment to thank than national association of broadcasters which is the host of this event today or has given us the space which is beautiful and when you go and see what their bar looks like you are going to like it even more. abc and cbs were supportive as was our member who felt really strongly about the symposium and wanted to give her personal support so she made a financial contribution. [applause] and so now after talking about the practice of journalism we are going to go celebrate great journalism. please join us in the bar and that's where we will have our choubey it were wonderful esteemed inspiring colleagues. [applause] >> thanks guys. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] and kansas senator pat roberts is running against independent greg gorman. we spoke to reporters about that race. >> campaign 2014, eight days until the election. we take a look at the kansas senate race. we are joined by steve kraske who is the political correspondent for the "kansas city star." steve kraske thanks for joining us this morning looking at the race between incumbent pat roberts and the independent greg gorman. where do things stand now? >> is so obviously a very close race off your bill. the latest polls that we are looking at here suggest the ormond might have a lead of a point or two but obviously that is within the margin of error in these polls out here. but a very tight race here. there is no question about it. >> last week the pat roberts campaign bringing in the big guns, bringing and. who else has come into the campaign for the senator? >> at this point have the u.s. senate has been out here to campaign for pat roberts. he said john mccain here, rand paul, ted cruz. just one senator after another. tom cooper from oklahoma has been here for him. today as you just mentioned that romney will be in town. he will be here in the kansas city area suburb on the kids is late. i think it will draw a pretty good crowd. is still obviously a big name in american politics and that's why senator roberts is bringing him out here. it will be fun to see what happens. >> what has been a get out the vote effort been like for the roberts campaign and the orman campaign. he's an independent so who does he rely on if they party is not there for him necessarily in the get out the vote campaign? >> that is one of the questions that surround this campaign as we head towards election day. pudas greg orman count on to get the vote out? he doesn't have very much get out the vote effort at least in the traditional sense that we judge these things now in american politics. as you point out he's an independent. the democrats are wanting to help him on that but they don't want to be caught helping greg orman and thai orman to the democratic party. the roberts sides has orman is a liberal democrat hiding behind the cloak of being an independent candidate so they really want to avoid that kind of association. so orman from what we can tell is pretty much on his phone when it comes to getting the vote out and you wonder how that will affect him. roberts will have the advantage of having a long-established republican machine behind him, very well-known for his get out the vote apparatus that helped sam brownback so much 40 years ago, and should help him again this time around. so roberts will have that kind of support. orman doesn't have the kind of machine behind him and it will affect the final vote on election day. >> not only to have an election eight days away but you have a world series going on there in kansas city. is there any interference? is not a distraction in terms of things like getting airtime or tv spots in political ads and things like that? >> if you watch the world series out here anyway you are seeing lots of ads for orman and lots of ads for robert. i don't think there has been any impact there at all. we have noticed though some research that has been done and that suggests that if you have a successful home team in any sport that tends to favor incumbents going forward to election day. how big of a factor that is eyed del but there's research out there that suggest there is a kind of tied going into election day. >> we will find out this week on one of those pieces anyway. steve kraske political correspondent with the "kansas city star" and on twitter three. you can follow all the action there on the senate race in kansas. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me, bill. next on c-span2, public health officials discussed the governments response to the ebola virus including whether to quarantine u.s. health workers treated ebola patients overseas. after that, former agriculture secretary dan glickman talks about food security. next the conversation of the u.s. response to the ebola virus outbreak. we will hear from former obama and bush administration officials to talk about a number of health policy questions surrounding the virus. the heritage foundation hosted this one hour and 20 minute event. [applause] >> i would like to add my welcome to everyone. this is a big issue, the topic of ebola. it is a major international and domestic public health quandary. there are lots of opinions flying around, lots of gut feelings and i believe lots of fear. there is very visceral reactions to this problem. people recognize it as a horrendous disease with a high mortality rate, really scary symptoms and probably the scariest thing about this time right now is a week away from an election. i'm not saying that totally tongue-in-cheek. that does affect people's opinions on things. what i'm hoping this morning will to will inject some reason, some facts, some calm. [laughter] she works for me. i was not a set up. we wanted to bring together a panel that could really hopefully give some logic and reason to this whole thing. i've i mentioned to the panel before we came in this panel has more degrees than any panel i have moderated in my three years at heritage and it hopefully will meet the needs of the group here. before you introduce them i will say this. we are going to give each panelist 10 minutes to speak on various aspects of the issue said here and then we are going to try to give as much time as possible for q&a. i really and i say this every time i moderate but we don't have time for floor speeches so when it gets to the q&a please ask a question, identify yourself and answer the questions is singly so we can get the answers from a panel that everybody in the audience wants to hear. if you really want to give a speech sometime see me afterwards. we will talk about it and get it arranged but not this morning. introducing the panel. we have first dr. bob kadlec the managing director of -- he had senior positions in the white house, the senate, the department of defense and was a special assistant to the president's senior director from biodefense policy on homeland security council. he has degrees from the air force academy. he has a doctorate in medicine and a masters in tropical medicine and hygiene in the uniformed services university of the health sciences and a master's degree in national security studies from georgetown. next ms charlotte florence. charlotte is the policy expert at heritage for africa and the middle east. dealing with economic freedom, democratic institutions development and security cooperation. she was also an expert on international security and foreign-policy issues for the senate homeland security and government affairs committee and for then senator scott brown. she has lived and worked in africa before and she holds a bachelor's degree from the university of southern california and a masters in the war studies department at kings college in london. next to her is dr. tevi troy the present of the american health policy institute. he was the deputy secretary of the united states department of health and human services. he and his actions there included implementing issues combating

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