On White House Credentials

When we started a week ago with the idea of reporting from the White House, half of the story was supposed to be about the process through which one gains access. Confusion seemed rampant even among those who regularly report from the North Lawn. Part of our experiment was to test how Jim "Jeff Gannon" Guckert gained access, and we spoke with him to ensure we followed the same general procedure. However, what's hard to say about the experiment is how it was altered by his saga last month. Was the White House more wary of online journalists post-Gannon? Or have they never really cared? The truth appears to lie somewhere in the middle. Getting in obviously isn't as easy as simply calling the White House and asking, but once contact is established the procedure seems rather simple. So who can cover the White House now? Who's a journalist in this day and age? Who's legitimate? All still open questions. Full report post-jump. The Process (in theory) We talked credentialing at length with both reporters and with Scott McClellan yesterday, and the Press Secretary says that he almost never gets directly involved in the credentialing process--preferring to leave it to the assistants in the lower press office (more on what that means this afternoon). The assistants, in turn, base their decisions on procedures that date back to Marlin Fitzwater's term as press secretary for Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. In the 1980s, Fitzwater first instituted the now vaguely infamous day passes, the temporary passes for news organization and reporters who don't have reason to cover the White House regularly. This type of pass doesn't require credentials from Capitol Hill and does not come with the full background investigation that are requirements for the permanent "hard pass" that most regular reporters have. We used a daily pass yesterday, and Gannon used one for two years, reapplying each day, to gain access. McClellan gave us a copy of the press clearance procedures that the Bush Jr. White House inherited from the Clinton administration, and which, he says, are still the main guiding principles that the assistants use today. The big test appears to be that the news agency and/or crew has to be based in Washington, D.C. Freelancers from outside the region and crews from outside the region are not allowed in; same with shows like Entertainment Tonight or Hard Copy that don't have talent in Washington. The document explains, "These restrictions must be in place due to the lack of space available on the North Lawn and in the Briefing Room while preserving the existing stand-up locations for the networks, television outlets, print and radio reporters with reserved space." Given the residency requirement and lacking the ability to get a Capitol Hill hard pass, which includes the requirement that more than half of a reporter's income must come from their news organization, most bloggers will probably be admitted using daily passes for the foreseeable future. Thoughts on the Process What goes unwritten in the document McClellan gave us yesterday: What's the test of a news organization's "legitimacy"? As best anyone can really state, it involves a combination of (1) regularly published, (2) independent and non-partisan, and (3) advertiser or subscriber financial support. Perhaps though it's a better answer to refer to Justice Potter Stewart's famous response on pornography: "I know it when I see it." Who's a journalist today? You know one when you see one. Are most of the 8 million (or so) bloggers journalists? Not by any stretch. Most probably would laugh at the suggestion. Are a few thousand? Without a doubt. Does the Apple blogger deserve journalism's protections? Absolutely. Along these lines, exactly how the White House will treat online journalists and bloggers on an ongoing basis is still an open question. Ron Hutcheson and the White House Correspondents Association deserve credit for their willingness and openness to push for access on behalf of bloggers. While the technical power for clearance lies ultimately with the Press Office (as opposed to on Capitol Hill where the Standing Committee of Correspondents grants other journalists access), the process at the White House is a joint undertaking. Neither the WHCA nor the Press Secretary seem comfortable determining who is or is not a journalist, so they make the tough decisions (like us) after joint discussion. As McClellan told us yesterday, "The briefing room should be an inclusive place." He admits that broad access "leads to colorful characters from the nontraditional media," but he doesn't see that as a problem. If there are new lines to be drawn in response to the changing media landscape, he said, those lines should be drawn by the correspondents' association. Many of the long-timers we spoke with yesterday said that the White House Press Corps has always struggled to adjust to new media. The true long-timers recounted stories of the difficultly the White House had with the arrival of television crews in the briefing room and the long tension between televising or not televising briefings. As one example, we talked yesterday with Connie Lawn, who works for Audio Video News, and she explained that she fought the Johnson White House in 1968 to gain access as a full-time freelance reporter. Lawn's been around the briefing room so long that she's second only to doyenne Helen Thomas, who arrived in 1964. The White House Press Office resisted Lawn's efforts and the case eventually involved threats of legal access before the Press Office relented and granted her access. Now such access, under certain circumstance, is commonplace. "Everytime I see someone in here with a freelance pass, I smile because I 'did that,'" she told us. Perhaps in the not too distant future, there'll be a regular cadre of bloggers reporting from the West Wing.

Fishbowl

On White House Credentials

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