Bush has media walking a fine line
By Peter Johnson
As the potential for war against Iraq grows stronger, the White House
press corps faces a delicate challenge: how to balance its obligation to
hold President Bush accountable while respecting the challenges he faces
at a critical time in history.
Nowhere was that more apparent than last week, when Bush called a rare
prime-time news conference, which networks and cable outlets covered.
There, Bush made two unprecedented moves that could signal the way he and
his administration plan to handle -- some say intimidate -- the media
during wartime.
First, rather than filing in as usual, reporters were summoned into the
East Room in pairs, ''as if we were in grammar school and were being
called on the line for something,'' CBS' Bill Plante says. Then, after
opening remarks, Bush called on reporters from a predetermined list
assembled by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
Veterans say they hadn't seen such a stifling atmosphere since the 1980s,
when President Reagan called on reporters using a seating chart.
All in all, Plante says, Thursday's event was designed to control the
media and make Bush look strong -- ''not someone who is rushing to war
like some wild yahoo.'' (Incidentally, Plante ignored the summons to the
East Room. He wandered in later with no problem.)
Fleischer has a different take. He says the news conference -- only
Bush's second in prime time -- came at an extraordinary moment.
''There can be no more solemn responsibility of a president than, if he
makes the decision to go to war, to take questions about why, to let the
public hear what he hears, to see how he thinks, to explain what
conclusions he would have reached as commander-in-chief before he puts
our men and women in a position where they could lose their lives,'' he
says.
Some notables -- including Time, Newsweek, USA TODAY,
The Washington Post and Hearst columnist Helen Thomas -- were
never called on, leading to all sorts of buzz in the press corps.
Follow-up questions, a White House tradition, were non-existent.
USA TODAY White House reporter Larry McQuillan, seated in the front row,
stopped raising his hand after he realized that Bush -- who himself used
the word ''scripted'' during the news conference to describe what was
going on -- was calling on names from a list and not deviating from it.
McQuillan said it was ''demeaning'' to the media and Bush. ''He's a smart
man who knows how to answer questions. It created an image in the press
corps that some were favored and some were not.'' McQuillan wasn't called
upon. ''Does that mean I'm being punished or that others are being
rewarded?''
Fleischer wouldn't explain why certain reporters were on the list and
others weren't. About not recognizing Thomas -- one of the
administration's more outspoken critics, whom past presidents have
generally recognized -- Fleischer said no columnists were chosen.
Overall, Fleischer says, ''The president just thinks it is actually a
more orderly news conference, rather than to have the usual cacophony of
everybody screaming, where the person who gets called on is the person
who has the loudest voice. . . . Reporters were called from all
over.''
The session didn't bother Mike Duffy, Time's Washington bureau
chief. ''Every time a president has a press conference, it's a relatively
controlled setting. The president can call upon whomever he pleases. I
don't think it's worth getting worked up about.''
But others say it was a bold attempt to keep a tight lid on White House
regulars. ''This was a speech disguised as a presidential press
conference. What you saw was political media control at a high level,''
says Tom Rosensteil of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
''I don't know if they (reporters) were cowed,'' says ABC anchor Sam
Donaldson, a longtime White House regular. ''But I heard more than one
'good evening, Mr. President,' as if this were some social occasion,
which it is not. It's about asking questions of the president that you
want answered. This is not an occasion when friends get together and
gently question each other.''
That said, Donaldson understands that it's difficult for the media --
especially at a time of war -- ''to press very hard when they know that a
large segment of the population doesn't want to see a president, whom
they have anointed, having to squirm.''
Donaldson notes that Bush stayed on message and refused to answer certain
questions -- the possible cost of war, for example -- and there wasn't
much the media could do about it.
Still, Rosensteil says there was plenty of talk in Washington about how
the press corps ''looked like lapdogs.''
Now that this question is very much on the media's radar, it remains to
be seen whether reporters will keep playing by the rules set by the Bush
communications team or whether the tactic will backfire in coming weeks
as questions about war heat up.
This much is true: ''There are inherent limits on how aggressive you can
be to the president of the United States on the brink of war in prime
time when good questions are asked but not answered,'' Rosensteil
says.
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