James S. Brady
Here’s your warning: this is my freak out post about how I went to the press briefing room and saw JAY CARNEY and made high school kids laugh at my lameness and wore a suit and glasses and heels the whole damn time. And it was excellent!
I’m sitting down to write this at 3:55. This is my no holds barred account. I also have to do a good blog for the Prime Movers website and I hope to write the two people we met today: Michael Scherer and Jamie Smith. But more on that at the end.
All week I was certain something would go wrong. This is the White House for crying out loud. Nothing’s routine. If I was lucky enough to get to go to the briefing room - the very far off, unattainable thing I started dreaming about when I got this internship - surely something would go wrong. It all worked out in the end, of course, but that’s not to say it was smooth sailing.
I got to Saudia’s office at 9:45. It was the longest “sleep in” I’ve had in ages. Yes, I woke up at noon last Saturday. That doesn’t count because I’m filled with self loathing when that happens. Today I got to wake up at 8:00 and just stay in bed until 9:00. No school work that had to be done (or that I had to feel immediately guilty about not doing). Just a mental hype up.
I tried to have everything set to go last night. After much deliberation (and slight tinglings of nostalgia for Sunday and Monday nights this past spring semester when I’d be picking out my Kohl outfits) I settled on the most traditional outfit I have: my beloved J. Crew black suit. That means black jacket, black pencil skirt (tailored, hallelujah), white button down, and nude heels. I know, black heels probably would’ve been better, but nude is such fun and slightly more comfortable. I ditched the jewelry and picked up the glasses. I’m starting to really fall in love with my glasses now. While my go to is prep, I’ve never really settled on a style. I like sundresses and cowboy boots. I like leather jackets and grey jeans. I like english riding boots and everything. I like my MAD MEN glasses. I like being able to pull them all off. Aaaand this is why this is my personal post.
The point is: boring. I was kind of upset with myself. I wanted to try a blouse or some crazy jewelry, but I figured that a visit to the White House is ten times better than a job interview, so why not go for the classic and conservative, even if it’s a bit boring. Besides, those glasses add something. I’m telling you. (Oh yeah, I rolled my cuffs. FANCY.)
After sufficiently straightening the —— out of my hair I headed out to SMPA. When I got to Saudia’s office she put her hand over her mouth and feigned crying. My heart dropped to my stomach because of course she must’ve just sent out an e-mail saying the trip was off and it was such a shame. Nah, she just thought I looked very professional. This is one of those surprisingly frequent times when I look at my generation and go, “seriously?” I mean, believe me, I get that I benefit from the low standards that my fellow students and interns have for themselves, their appearance, and their work, but sometimes it’s a bit depressing. What did they think I was going to do, show up in a t-shirt and jeans?
We said hi to Carol and our director, Ms. Gillian, and soon enough Lois and the two kids from Ballou arrived. I’d gone to Ballou once before - last year for the freshman day of service to do some paint work. They have an incredible marching band (both of these kids were in it) but it’s a notoriously rough school. They’re in the Prime Movers program but don’t have an intern or a journalist semester, so this is there way to be involved. Their teacher picked these two to go to the White House.
If I had to describe all of the kids I’ve worked with with one, very unfair, blanketed term, it would be relaxed. Or lackadaisical. Or lazy. Lazy’s harsh. But I rarely see high school kids get excited about things. I know I’m different from most in how hyped up I get about a few, select things. But I guess I had high expectations that the kids who would be coming would be enthusiastic. Maybe shy and nervous, but at least excited.
They were both polite and nice enough, but I couldn’t believe how unenthused they seemed. Were they really the kids who wanted it the most? Who cared about this stuff the most? That’s what was troubling. This wasn’t some random selection. There were no kids who were brimming with curiosity about politics who might have deserved this more? Obviously, there weren’t. It’s a big school, Ballou. That’s what was worrying.
But you know what? The point of this program is to get kids interested, not coddle kids who have been interested in the start. Saudia and I went to Au Bon Pain to get the kids some muffins, then we headed over to the White House at 11:00. The Czech Prime Minister’s motorcade meant we had to walk all the way around through Lafayette Park to get in, which wasn’t exactly fun in heels and rain.
Oh I forgot to mention, it was raining. All that straightening for naught, right? Well, not really. For once I actually had an umbrella (thanks mom) so I managed to stay decent looking.
Point being, we went through the park and we past a police officer on a horse. But not just any horse. You guys, she was riding a clydesdale. An honest to god CLYDESDALE. Do you know how big those things are? Amazing crowd control. I was totally in awe. And it was a woman cop! I know they’re gentle giants but usually you need to be bigger and taller to get up on their backs. Just another reminder that my life is totally screwed up and I actually need to join the police force and ride horses in cool places all day.
Across the street from the White House the kids were interviewed by Carol and shot by Saudia. Not an easy thing to do in the rain. They didn’t seem to understand that Prime Movers wants to use this, so screwing up their face and screwing up names wasn’t great. Eventually, Saudia got what she needed.
We headed back around (the long way) to Caribou Coffee where we met our connexion - Michael Scherer. I’d first seen (but not met) Michael last Friday at the reverse press conference where the Prime Movers kids asked the three WH correspondents about their work. He was a very sharp, intelligent guy, and he works for TIME for crying out loud. He’s their WH correspondent. He also as a wedding ring. And a 7 month old child. Bummer. More on that later.
I had my “American President” moment as I went through the front gate. Ooooh yeah, that’s right bitches, I went through the FRONT GATE. Okay, the NORTH GATE. Not the crappy East Wing entrance you get when you’re the common folk on a White House tour. None of that nonsense. We got to say our names at the gate and be buzzed in and surrender our IDs to the real live secret service. The guards were not familiar with the Capra-esque quality of my day, but it was fine. I got my fancy blue A (appointment) badge (the kind that Donna let the elderly people keep as a souvenir after they maliciously spilled Weeteena on her keyboard) and then I got to walk up the White House drive way.
(I know that to most people this is like when Buddy is telling his story in ELF where he went through the candy cane forest, the swirly twirly gum drops, and then through the lincoln tunnel, except that all of my story is the lincoln tunnel. I do not care.)
I felt a little crushed on the inside that he had to tell these kids that that was the West Wing we were walking towards - where all the real work gets done and where the Oval Office is (partly because, come on, how do you not know it’s the West Wing, and partly because I’d forgotten that these kids live in DC and they’d never been to the White House before). He gave the run down on the mansion, the east wing, and the OEOB (EEOB), then explained that the place in front of the West Wing with all the cameras was permanent. Journalists go there to do their talking heads outside the WH and WH officials do talking heads for news shows there as well. He also said that there has been construction going on for about six months right outside the West Wing. The guys say it’s air conditioning, but he says he’s looked down and it’s this incredibly deep connection of hallways, undoubtedly a missile proof bunker. He started joking about how journalists don’t get any special treatment if there’s an attack. The front of the motorcade gets sped away. The back of the motorcade (non senior advisors and the press) gets left for dead.
So these are all fun insights and stories, but they were so much better because we were walking into the west wing. Finally, finally, I was going to the West Wing. All the years and dreams are coming true. Not a lot of people get to do this sort of thing. (Yes, the press room is a part of the west wing, I checked, it counts.)
That said, every time I get to do something incredible, I feel a little disappointed. My low self-esteem tells me that, hey, if I got to do it, anyone can. The point is, sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you work, you just need to know the right people. Press can bring visitors in. You just have to know a correspondent. But then I counter with, yeah, well, I wouldn’t be here with Mr. Scherer if I wasn’t in Prime Movers, and I wouldn’t be in Prime Movers without my experience and my journalism drive and my interest. So maybe I’m just a little special.
We went in through the press offices. My god are they cramped. I vowed not to mention the tv West Wing in front of Mr. Scherer because, come on, lame. This guy lives it and you’re talking about a show from the 90s? Boo. But Danny from the West Wing got it good. The AP gets the best offices. Want to know what those are? It’s the closest broom cupboard to the press room. They get a door and everything. Other people have some tables and chairs in the incredibly small hallway. Mr. Scherer told us that the smaller print organizations are lucky to get a chair in the back.
Then, good lord, we were there. We were in the briefing room. The James S. Brady Briefing Room. Everyone said it’s smaller than it looks, and they’re right, but I’ve spent enough time in this city that my glorified expectations have already been cut down to size, so I was nothing but impressed. We stood in the back with Mr. Scherer. The kids were pretty quiet, and it was an odd place for me to be in because I was over the moon excited but didn’t want to monopolize the conversation. They were the reason I got to be here, after all.
But we had a great back and forth. I asked about how long people say. He said that some people had been around for decades (we were introduced to an NBC camera man who had worked there since Kennedy and certain didn’t look it), but for most it was 3-4 years. Everyone moves on so quickly in this city.
He covers the White House, the campaign, and the Occupy movement for TIME. I asked him if he preferred the campaign to the White House and he said it depended. The campaign is a more rigorous schedule, but it’s looser and freer. At the White House, they’re not actually told anything.
I asked about seating and he explained that it’s all voted on by the WHCA. The first two rows are all TV, and these journalists are “paid based on how much time they can steal from the rest of” them (the print journalists).
At the two minute warning before our 12:30 briefing, he took his seat (2 seats in from the left, fifth row) and we lined up against the wall. The kids were keen to stay in the back, but I knew this was my one big chance, so I told them and Lois that I’d be moving as far up as I could, and they were welcome to join me.
I’d assumed the room would be about half full. These are daily briefings after all, and nothing big had happened. But Mr. Scherer had warned us that the President (and Carney) had been out of DC since Monday, so this was their first official briefing that week (Air Force One gaggles don’t count).
Carney appeared and walked up to the podium, and I kept wondering why no one was going nuts. This is the White House Press Secretary right in front of us! Then I remembered that I’m the odd one out, not him. This is where he works. This is his place of business. And these journalists see him all the damn time.
I’d like to say that this man can wear a suit and can definitely wear some glasses. Back to remembering that miraculously, in this city of single people, everyone I like is married.
There was no big message or issue to introduce today, so he opened right up for questions.
He started in the front and gave two guys a series of follow ups. Then he went to the back, then back to the front, then he did what I’m calling stacking (“first Julie, then Alex, then Chris”) which is helpful in moving on from follow ups.
Mr. Scherer was one of the first from the back to get a question in. It was cool to think in my head, “yeah, I know that guy that just asked that guy who talks to the president every day a question.”
As a political communication major and a fan of the President, I liked seeing the way Carney worked. I was on his side, I suppose you could say. So when he got in a nice shot (correcting a reporter, a placeholder reporter, about his facts - 2010 instead of 2008, the percentage of democrats who voted on something, etc.) it felt like a goal scored. I would like to think that at one point, when he was talking to a reporter right in front of me, we made incredibly brief eye contact as I was in my fully impressed mode. But let’s be honest, this guy is way to good to drop the ball like that.
There was this none of this shouting nonsense CJ had to deal with. I know Carney’s job is far from easy, but it was okay if he didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t beneficial, Mr. Scherer told us, for the press to try and trap him or catch him, because they have a job to do. Why ask a question when you know you can’t get an answer? There was a little of that, I felt, when people were trying to get Carney to go down a path you knew he wouldn’t, but there wasn’t much.
The briefing was an hour. My feet and heels were telling me that it’d been a cool 60 minutes, but my head was certain it’d only been 15 by the time it was done. Since there wasn’t a dominant issue, we had a nice range of topics. From Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, to Occupy Wall Street to campaigning in office to the jobs bill.
The language he’s pressing is that Democrats, Independents, and Republicans are all for the jobs bill. All Republicans save for the one in congress, anyway. I like it.
The kids had quit half way through and gone back to sit by the vending machines. Disappointing, but this was when of those times were I was so enthralled I couldn’t bring myself to care about what they were missing out on.
Mr. Scherer sat up in the front as we reorganized, and as I gloried in how close I was to the podium we asked him about it. The reason he asked a question was to “get him on the record,” about the violence in the occupy protests. He made the point that a lot of these protests are happening in urban areas with Democratic mayors. If the mayors turn against their own populist uprising with tear gas and police force, it could be a serious problem for the party.
Lois asked the question of whether there was any news. He said that there was TV they could use, but no news. So maybe the kids had a point in skipping out. I started to get annoyed with them when they were so hungry that they wanted to skip out on going back. Mr. Scherer had set up a few minutes of Q&A with a deputy White House press secretary, Jamie Smith. These kids were going to keep from getting just a little bit closer to the oval office and talking to someone with a job I’d kill for? Yes. Yes they would.
They didn’t have any questions ready even though Mr. Scherer had warned them, and though I nearly resorted to begging, Mr. Scherer rightly didn’t want to be embarrassed by two uninterested high schoolers. He got out his blackberry and cancelled.
Here’s a good time to mention technology. I think I saw two people using solely paper and pen. Everyone else had an iPhone resting on the seat in front of them or a blackberry in their hand. Some had laptops, some had iPads, and everyone was doing something else besides listening.
We were headed back through the hallway when Jamie caught us. Mr. Scherer started to say that he’d just sent her an e-mail…but she wasn’t hearing it. She brought us back to her office. Sometimes, things work out!
Back through the offices, back through the press room, and into the restricted section! Most people were working in the small, cramped outside with desks, not even cubicles. Jamie is a deputy, so she has a door (albeit a sliding one) and a window. She’s incredibly young and was so friendly. The kids were silent, so Lois and I went for a back and forth. Luckily Danae, the girl, eventually piped up and asked what her family thought of her. She smiled a little sadly and said that the birth announcements taped on her wall were her nieces and nephews. Her family is very proud, but she doesn’t have time for a family of her own, at least not right now. She works 7:00 to 7:30. There isn’t time. There’s a very real cost to this kind of work. I used to be all too ready to pay it. And now I understand that I was too ready.
Before we left, she gave us her card. The kids didn’t care, but this is a White House business card. It has her name and her phone number and her e-mail. Her e-mail. So she’s definitely going to be hearing from me. And in the good, not obnoxious way. I don’t want anything from her. I’m not looking for a job or connections right now. I just want to thank her for her time and maybe ask a question or two once I’ve thought of good ones.
Oh and she also gave us something else that the kids were way more excited about, but not for the right reasons: White House M&Ms. They were glad for the food. These are White House M&Ms! You can’t buy these! These are fabled! Fabled I say! But it’s all about what we care about. To me, those M&Ms are the greatest. But if you don’t know the context and you don’t care, it’s just a box of M&Ms that I won’t eat because they have peanuts in them.
I was worried the whole time that Mr. Scherer was hating this because of the kids lack of energy. I tried my absolute best to show how incredibly grateful and excited I was, hoping to make up for it. His job isn’t easy and he doesn’t have time to muck around. I definitely want to thank him for the hours he gave us.
As we left I peppered Mr. Scherer with as many questions as I could get in. He worked at plenty of places before TIME, even starting a newspaper, but really likes magazine work. He gets to regularly write longer (4-6 page) stories, though he doesn’t get extra time for them. He writes blogs and tweets and while it’s hard, he loves it. He has 20 million readers. And if he does is job well, he has more. But remember how I said he has a 7 month year old baby? There’s a sense of duty in this work, because there’s also an extreme cost.
He shook all of our hands before we parted ways. We got some lunch and then went back to SMPA. The kids were interviewed as I chatted with another intern, and then I was interviewed (and gave far too lengthly answers). Then I thanked everyone, got my things, and came back to the room to change into socks. This post has taken two hours, but I dare say it’s worth it.
A few extra takeaways:
No Chucky T. An NBC placeholder. I was terribly disappointed because I’m a huge fan. I mean I wouldn’t have said anything, but it would’ve been great to see him up close. That said, saw Jay Carney work for an hour so I’m not complaining.
The White House live streams the briefings, and I was positioned on the wall so I was in it! It’ll be posted in a day or so and you better believe all 60 minutes of it will be on the blog. I’ve never been big into getting pictures with (famous) people or at places. Isn’t the experience, the memory, and the story enough? Well, for those who don’t think it is, we’ll have a nice video asap. Not bad folks.
