Dealing with the Washington media -- survivors speak out

[Declan McCullagh]

[I first moved to Washington in 1991, and I've been living here off
and on ever since. (Yes, this is sad.) Here's one view of what it's
like to deal with the Washington media, with perspectives from those
who have had run-ins with us before. It's from a very nice "Survivor's
Guide for Presidential Nominees" just out from the Brookings
Institution. --Declan]



http://www.appointee.brookings.org/sg/c6.htm

   A Survivor's Guide for
   Presidential  Nominees 
   
    Dealing with the Media
   
    "The first rule of survival in Washington is never do or say anything
     that you dont want to read about on the front page of The Washington
                                                                   Post."
                                                                         
   If youve always hankered for closer attention from the news media,
   youve come to the right town. Washington is crawling with reporters
   nearly 5,000 are accredited by the House and Senate press and
   broadcast galleries and hardly a nook or cranny of the government goes
   unexplored by some branch of the media, from the national newspapers
   and networks to pricey newsletters and trade publications that are the
   bibles of their industries. Washington is a fish bowl, and if you want
   to make a name for yourself, this is the place to do it.
   
   But it may not be quite the name you had in mind. The Washington media
   are known more for the reputations they tear down than the ones they
   build up.
   
   Many prospective nominees have dealt with reporters before in state
   houses, the business world, the military or on Capitol Hill itself,
   where legions of assistants make a living trying to figure out how to
   get or keep their bosses in the spotlight. But now youre in a
   different situation. Be forewarned: No matter how much or how little
   you dealt with the media before coming to Washington, its usually a
   surprise when you stand in the batters box here for the first time to
   discover how fast they throw and how much those sliders break.
   
   For that reason, keep in mind three basic pieces of advice. First, be
   very careful what you say to reporters while yours is just one of
   several names the White House is considering. Second, dont say
   anything at all to the press, on the record or off, while the Senate
   is considering your nomination. And third, never lie to the media it
   will come back to haunt you.
   
   In this chapter, well look at the role that journalists play in the
   nations capital and its political process. Then well get practical
   advice from those who have gone through the nomination and
   confirmation process, as well as from those in the media who have
   watched and covered hundreds of important nominations.
   The Capital of the News World 
   
   
   The capital of the country is also the capital of the news world. New
   York can still lay claim to being the headquarters of the three
   original television networks, two news magazines, the major news
   service and two of the nations finest newspapers (The New York Times
   and The Wall Street Journal), but the news organizations Washington
   bureaus are the crown jewels of their news operations.
   
   Two nationally recognized papers, The Washington Post and USA Today,
   are produced inside the Beltway. CNNs home may be in Atlanta, but much
   of its hard news originates from its bureau next to Washingtons Union
   Station. National Public Radio has its studios and nerve center here,
   and the Public Broadcasting System is across the river in Alexandria,
   Va.
   
   Reporters who ply their craft in Washington may be no more talented
   than their colleagues in state capitals and other major cities, but
   they have a singular advantage: More news happens here than in any
   other single city on the planet and the local scribes get to cover it.
   They get to see the world with the president from Air Force One and
   trudge through the snows of New Hampshire with the candidates. When
   they hold a banquet to salute (or laugh at) themselves, the guest of
   honor is not the mayor or the governor, but the president of the
   United States. Love them or loathe them, they are the publics eyes and
   ears. Your deeds and reputation in office will pass through the medias
   filters before they become known to the public at large.
   
   As frustrating as the media can be, Washington insiders keep close
   tabs on the news. Many officials read several major newspapers
   religiously, making sure to check the Federal Page in The Washington
   Post and the Inside the Beltway column in The Washington Times, among
   other regular features. If you want to prepare for a rigorous
   questioning, watch journalists pepper a White House official on one of
   the weekend talk shows.
   
   The latest scandals
   In recent years, the line between the tabloids and the mainstream
   press has blurred as news organizations rush to mine the latest
   political sex scandals, from John F. Kennedys Hollywood conquests to
   Gary Harts escapades on a yacht to Bill Clintons trysts with an eager
   intern. What once was fodder only for the Drudge Report is front-page
   news in the broadsheets especially since Matt Drudges most sensational
   morsels proved largely on target. The airwaves and Internet are
   saturated with news, but readership and viewership are flagging.
   Reporters can live without respect they almost relish being regarded
   as a royal pain but losing credibility and audience pains them deeply.
   
   Reporters take themselves seriously too seriously for some of their
   subjects taste. The quicker a newspaper or news broadcast is to expose
   a public servants failings and foibles, the thinner its own hide.
   Newspapers have gotten better in recent years about publishing
   corrections, but they are still quicker to confess error about dates
   or the spelling of names or identities in a picture than to own up to
   getting the whole thing wrong or lopsided. Reporters and editors also
   pride themselves on breaking news, even if their scoop remains
   exclusive only for hours or even minutes. A newspaper may devote 10
   inches of space to an appointment if it is given the details
   exclusively, or pries them loose, one day in advance. Announce the
   appointment at the same time for all the media to see, and it may not
   rate so much as a paragraph.
   
   Many public officials today would subscribe to the sentiments that a
   character in a Tom Stoppard play expressed: "Im with you on the free
   press. Its the newspapers I cant stand." Reporters respond with their
   highest authority on these matters: Thomas Jefferson. The author of
   the Declaration of Independence observed in a 1787 letter:
   
     The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the
     very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to
     me to decide whether we should have a government without
     newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not
     hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that
     every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading
     them.
     
   The papers of Jeffersons day boiled with shamelessly partisan
   rhetoric, barb and propaganda and were hardly deserving "of such high
   praise as agencies of public enlightenment," as Jefferson biographer
   Dumas Malone put it. But Jeffersons point stands: The press has an
   important role to play in a democracy. And when news erupts, those
   obstreperous reporters camped outside your office and sometimes on
   your lawn wont let you forget it.
   
   Although the press plays a critical role in our democracy, even some
   reporters admit misgivings about their techniques. Janet Malcolm, the
   author and contributor to The New Yorker, offered this ominous warning
   to the unwary in her 1990 book, The Journalist and the Murderer:
   "Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice
   what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He
   is a kind of confidence man, preying on peoples vanity, ignorance or
   loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse."
   That may be a gross exaggeration, but it has a kernel of truth.
   Journalists do want to gain your confidence and its not because they
   want to be your friends.
   
   "Reporters are professionals whose loyalty is to their media outlets
   or their profession, not to you," says Wayne Pines, former spokesman
   for the Food and Drug Administration and now a public relations
   counselor with APCO Associates. "Knowing them personally means you may
   get the benefit of the doubt in a difficult situation, and you may
   also get to go on background and influence a story anonymously but
   only after you have established a trusting relationship. In
   Washington, never lie to the media, dont mislead them, dont get angry
   with them and dont underestimate their influence. They will influence
   what most of the world, including your own employees, think of you."
   
   Get it first and right
   From the journalists perspective, there is one cardinal rule: Get it
   first, but first get it right. Early in the Clinton administration,
   Tim Russert of NBCs "Meet the Press" jumped on the air in advance of a
   presidential news conference to announce the name of the presidents
   new puppy. Unfortunately, his sources had led him astray and he got it
   wrong.
   
   Why risk being wrong on the name of a dog, much less the name of a
   nominee? Journalists generally wont take that risk unless they are
   certain of the story. They always want to show up the competition.
   Keep in mind that, even if the new administration is trying to keep
   the names of potential nominees under wraps, reporters by nature are
   extremely competitive and very clever. When Thurgood Marshall retired
   from the Supreme Court, reporters quickly found out who was on George
   Bushs short list. The White House managed to spirit Clarence Thomas up
   to Walkers Point, the presidents summer compound in Kennebunkport,
   Maine, for the July 1, 1991, announcement without anyones spotting the
   future justice or breaking the news of his selection. But Associated
   Press reporter Rita Beamish found out ahead of time who it wasnt. She
   called the other candidates at home where they were sitting by the
   phone awaiting a call from the White House and correctly deduced that
   "those who were still home with no flight plans were not the chosen
   ones." Barbara Bush, in her memoir, tipped her hat to Beamish for this
   "great ingenuity."
   
   Reporters have a knack for unearthing conflict, even within
   organizations that are paragons of harmony. The many things on which
   you and a Cabinet secretary or the president see eye-to-eye may be of
   little or no interest, but where you disagree is news. Reporters will
   mine the new administration for evidence of disputes between a
   president and the Cabinet, between the Cabinet and the Office of
   Management and Budget and, naturally, between the administration and
   Congress. Sources in Congress generally the most accessible and
   open-mouthed branch of the government often are eager to help
   reporters root around. Interest groups with ties deep into the
   bureaucracy will throw logs onto the fire as well.
   
   Puncturing a new enterprise
   When reporters are covering a new enterprise, including the start of
   an administration, they are like small children playing with balloons
   at a birthday party. Its great fun to fill them up with air, but even
   greater fun to puncture them. If you are new to Washington and public
   life, expect such treatment. Reporters will write introductory
   accounts that extol your talents and recite your exploits in ways so
   flattering that no one save your mother could possibly believe them.
   And later, if something goes wrong on your watch, you quickly may find
   yourself the almost unrecognizable villain of a piece written by the
   same hand that produced your hagiography. Lani Guinier, President
   Clintons unsuccessful nominee for civil rights enforcer in 1993,
   lamented afterward to National Public Radio, "Even my own mother
   couldnt recognize me in the press coverage that I received."
   
   The media are avid for news. Whether by friendly takeover (as when
   George Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan in 1989) or a hostile one (as when
   Bill Clinton ousted Bush in 1993), a change of administrations affords
   an ample supply of headlines for news-hungry reporters and editors.
   Newspapers will run stories by the score on who will get what post,
   devoting yards of space to programs and positions that wont rate a
   mention in the years that follow. The political masterminds of the
   victorious campaign, flush with success, will keep the press corps
   spinning with announcements and trial balloons, even as the new
   presidents team works frantically behind closed doors to get at least
   some of its act together by noon on Jan. 20. They will trade in names
   perhaps your name among them because journalists are hungry for
   scoops, and these are "secrets" that cost little to give away.
   Sometimes that is all you will actually get: your name mentioned on
   the insiders short list, a consolation prize if you are denied the
   actual nomination. The erstwhile campaigners may also run your name up
   the pole to see who salutes or shoots.
   
   Unless an administration comes in on the run as Ronald Reagan and his
   team did in 1981 the press soon will turn its attention to the
   disarray and vacancies throughout the government, as was conspicuously
   the case in 1993 for Bill Clinton and the gang from the war room in
   Little Rock. As political scientist James Pfiffner of George Mason
   University recounted in a 1996 update to his book, The Strategic
   Presidency, it took Clinton 8.5 months on average to get his executive
   branch appointees confirmed after the inauguration. That was six
   months longer than Kennedy, and probably "the slowest in history,"
   Pfiffner found. It was easy pickings for a press corps always eager to
   unearth early signs of confusion.
   When in Doubt, Dont Talk
   
   You wont be surprised to hear that savvy confirmation hands such as
   lobbyist and former Nixon White House official Tom Korologos, former
   presidential appointees and those who work on Capitol Hill all agree:
   be very circumspect in talking with reporters before your nomination
   and even more so before your confirmation. But it might surprise you
   to hear prominent reporters echo the same advice.
   
   Broadcast journalist Brit Hume, who has watched administrations come
   and go for three decades, minces no words: "If they havent been named,
   and they havent been picked, and they havent been talked to, they
   really have no reason to talk to the press. When in doubt, dont talk
   to the press."
   
   Still, "you want to be pleasant to reporters, polite to them," says
   Hume, managing editor and chief Washington correspondent for Fox News
   and a former ABC White House correspondent. He adds:
   
     Treat them as if you know theyve got a job to do, that you
     understand and you sympathize, and if you cant comment, just say,
     "Look, I know youve got work to do, and Im sorry. I cant comment
     about this stuff at this time. I apologize. I just cant." And then
     dont.
     
   The right to remain silent
   Freedom of the press is a cherished right under the First Amendment.
   While there is no concomitant freedom from the press in the
   Constitution, you do have a right to remain silent or, better yet, to
   refrain politely from answering reporters questions. But many people
   fail to exercise that right. They often let their egos override their
   common sense. It is, as Samuel Johnson said of second marriages, the
   triumph of hope over experience. People beguile themselves into
   believing that for once a news report is going to spotlight their
   innocence, brilliance or cleverness instead of reminding us how adroit
   a questioner the reporter is.
   
   Dont make the mistake of thinking that you can enhance your chances of
   being appointed by talking openly and frankly with the press. As Hume
   observes, "the chances of your saying just the right thing and having
   it come out sounding just the right way are sufficiently remote that
   its not worth risking."
   
   Another White House press corps veteran, Gene Gibbons, says, "My two
   rules of life for people who find themselves in the media spotlight
   are: never lie, and dont be afraid to tell the media to take a hike."
   Gibbons, former White House correspondent for Reuters and now the
   managing editor of Stateline.org, the Web site for state house
   reporters, says, "The first rule of survival in Washington is never do
   or say anything that you dont want to read about on the front page of
   The Washington Post." He believes that a candidate who has been asked
   by the White House not to discuss an overture has only two choices in
   handling questions from the media: "Either say no comment or screen
   your calls."
   
   Diana Huffman, who observed the nominations process from the very
   different perspectives of managing editor of the National Journal and
   staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says, "Youre ahead
   in the game if the first publicity comes when the White House actually
   announces its intention to nominate you."
   
   Others agree. Pines, the former Food and Drug Administration spokesman
   who specializes in crisis communication, says, "The only people who
   speak with the media in advance of being nominated are those who feel
   their nominations are on the ropes and they have nothing to lose, or
   who are not going to take the job and want the visibility that goes
   with having been considered. If I asked someone I was considering for
   a job not to speak with the media, and he or she did, I would cross
   that person off my list."
   
   Cheryl Arvidson, a longtime Washington political reporter, counsels,
   "It is extremely important for a potential nominee not to play
   favorites and not to engage in cat-and-mouse with reporters." If a
   reporter asks to talk with you off the record or on background,
   "caution should be the watchword," says Arvidson, now senior writer
   for the Freedom Forum, the free press and free speech foundation that
   operates the Newseum in Arlington, Va. If a reporter calls looking for
   background information, it may be possible for the prospect (or a
   surrogate) to point out things in the public record, but usually that
   isnt necessary, Arvidson says. "The good reporters will find those
   things on their own, and they will also find people who know the
   would-be nominee."
   
   The LBJ rule
   Stephen Potts, the director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in
   the Bush and Clinton administrations, subscribes to the view that
   prospective nominees those not yet officially announced by the White
   House should talk to few people outside a tight circle of family and
   colleagues about an impending and still uncertain career switch.
   
   "In the Lyndon Johnson years, LBJ had a general rule that if it leaked
   to the press that you were going to be nominated by him, you therefore
   were not going to be nominated," he says. "It was that
   straightforward. So people in those years had a very powerful
   incentive to keep their mouths shut." That may sound imperious, but if
   the White House cant trust someone to keep a confidence before taking
   the job, how can it expect that person to be a team player once
   confirmed?
   
   The rules may not be so ironclad anymore. But presidential transitions
   inspire a lot of self-promotion, and much of that backfires. The
   hordes of reporters camped out in Little Rock with President-elect
   Clinton and his team during the 1992 transition were hungry for word
   of who was in the running for Cabinet posts. But they guffawed when
   one Democratic lawmaker and his staff let it be known that he was a
   candidate for everything from secretary of Defense to CIA director.
   "It didnt take reporters long to get Clinton insiders laughing about
   his audacity over drinks in various Little Rock watering spots," a
   scribe recalls. "And before he knew it, the congressman was a laughing
   stock."
   
   The congressman never got any of the jobs that he and his press agents
   talked about.
   Telling the Truth
   
   Agreement is universal on another rule of behavior for dealing with
   reporters: never lie.
   
   "Dont ever be in a situation of denying it if you actually know
   anything. You cant compromise your own integrity," says a Bush
   administration official, who adds with a laugh, "Of course, its
   possible that the press has heard about it before you have."
   
   Donald C. Alexander recalled that when word leaked out of the Nixon
   White House about his appointment as IRS commissioner, he followed the
   advice of George P. Shultz, then secretary of the Treasury, and "did
   the neither confirm nor deny bit." Alexander added: "George told me,
   You dont want to lose your credibility even before you get here wait
   to lose it when you get here."
   
   Alexander helped insulate the IRS from Nixon White House excesses
   during the aftermath of Watergate. He twice had to testify before
   grand juries, but the ordeal he remembered most is going before
   congressional oversight committees, where Democrats gave him a tough
   going-over:
   
     You could always tell if the hearing was going to be a total
     disaster if there were four or more stand-up cameras in the room.
     That meant the committee had told the press they were really going
     to go for the jugular. If there were no cameras, the press didnt
     care for the hearing, and that meant the hearing was likely to be
     constructiveYou could just tell as you were walking down the halls
     in Rayburn [House Office Building]. If the light coming out of the
     hearing room was very bright, it was "Oh, God, here we go again!"

     * When in doubt, dont talk with reporters. It could cost you an
       administration post. Regardless of the situation, youre under no
       obligation to answer reporters questions.
     * When you do talk with reporters, dont lie or mislead them.
     * Dont expect them to report everything you say. Print and broadcast
       reporters alike will cull what they consider your most interesting
       or salient comments.
     * Dont be rude or peremptory. Reporters have an important job to do.
     * Stay abreast of the news.
       
###

----- End forwarded message -----