[Infowarrior] - The Prez, The Press, The Pressure

[Richard Forno]

The Prez, The Press, The Pressure
Networks Grouse About Obama in Prime Time
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 3, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/02/AR2009080202045_pf.html
In the days before President Obama's last news conference, as the  
networks weighed whether to give up a chunk of their precious prime  
time, Rahm Emanuel went straight to the top.

Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob  
Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting  
NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General  
Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS,  
the company spun off from Viacom.

Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm- 
twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network  
time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been  
privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford  
to keep airing these sessions in the current economic downturn.

The networks "absolutely" feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS's  
senior vice president: "It's an enormous financial cost when the  
president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions  
also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used."

While it is interesting to see how a president handles questions,  
Friedman says, "there was nothing" at the July 22 session, which was  
dominated by health-care questions. "There hardly ever is these days,  
because there's so much coverage all the time."

Had Obama not answered the last question that evening -- declaring  
that the Cambridge police had acted "stupidly" in arresting Henry  
Louis Gates at his home -- the news conference would have been almost  
totally devoid of news. And that raises questions about whether the  
sessions have become mainly a vehicle for Obama to repeat familiar  
messages.

Mark Whitaker, NBC's Washington bureau chief, says Obama "is at risk  
of overexposure" and suggests the sessions are losing their novelty.

"Every time a president holds a press conference there is potential  
for news to be made, as he did, probably to his regret, with his  
comments on the Gates case," Whitaker says. Still, he says, "we would  
feel better" if White House officials "were approaching us with the  
sense that they had something new to say, rather than that they just  
wanted to continue a dialogue with the American people. There are  
other ways of continuing that dialogue than taking up an hour of prime  
time."

Sarah Feinberg, Emanuel's spokeswoman, says that after press secretary  
Robert Gibbs heard that network officials had concerns about  
programming conflicts, "Rahm made a round of calls to network  
executives to discuss ways the White House could accommodate  
concerns." The upshot was that the news conference was moved up an  
hour, to 8 p.m. -- a boon to NBC, which had a 9 p.m. special featuring  
overnight British singing star Susan Boyle.

Emanuel tried to create a sense of momentum -- calling Disney's Iger  
last, for instance, and saying he had secured agreement from the other  
two networks.

Some calls had little impact. Emanuel reached GE's Immelt, a member of  
Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, after learning that NBC  
chief executive Jeff Zucker was traveling. But Immelt told him that it  
was Zucker's decision, and a subsequent call to Zucker yielded an  
agreement that NBC would provide live coverage.

Tensions have been building behind the scenes. Some television  
executives say the Bush administration informally floated possible  
news conference dates in advance, while Obama officials basically  
notify the networks of their plans. Such an approach prompted calls  
between White House officials and the top executives at each network,  
and a meeting between Gibbs and the Washington bureau chiefs.

But little changed. White House officials essentially dictated the  
timing when they decided to hold an evening session on the 100th day  
of Obama's term and again on July 22. In that instance, network  
executives say, the White House announced the event on its Twitter  
feed less than an hour after informing them.

Since the Reagan era, when cable news was in its infancy, prime-time  
presidential pressers have been a relative rarity. George H.W. Bush  
held one in 1992, but the broadcast networks dismissed it as an  
election-year event and refused to carry it. The following year, when  
Bill Clinton held his first evening news conference, CBS and ABC  
stiffed him; NBC carried the first half-hour; only CNN and PBS aired  
the whole thing. George W. Bush held four such events in eight years.

But the networks have deemed Obama a box-office draw, featuring him on  
everything from "60 Minutes" to "The Tonight Show" to a 90-minute ABC  
town meeting on health care.

Ari Fleischer, a former Bush press secretary, says the 43rd president  
didn't like evening news conferences -- "he thought they became more  
about the reporters than about him" -- but that scheduling was  
crucial. Once, he says, "we scheduled something on a Thursday and NBC  
went crazy," because several of its hits were on that night.

"Frankly, it's commercial," Fleischer says. If it's not a big night  
for the networks, he says, "they put civic duty and pride first. But  
you don't go up against 'American Idol' -- not even Barack Obama."

Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's first White House press secretary, says ABC  
and CBS rejected her first prime-time request in 1993 on grounds that  
the press conference was "not news."

"With Obama," she says, "everyone wants to have a relationship with  
the president because he's been good for ratings. I've been impressed  
by how easily they seem to be able to roadblock an hour. No other  
president in TV history would have been able to do it."

The financial stakes are considerable. ABC, CBS and NBC have given up  
as much as $40 million in advertising revenue to carry this year's  
East Room events. "We lose more than $3 million a show," Moonves told  
Mediaweek. The Fox broadcast network has declined to carry the last  
two Obama sessions.

Every president exercises considerable control over his encounters  
with reporters, picking on selected journalists and deflecting  
questions he doesn't like. But Obama's discursive style has also  
tended to depress the news value of the sessions.

He began the last one with an eight-minute opening statement. His  
answer to the first question, including a follow-up, lasted more than  
seven minutes. All told, the lengthy responses allowed time for only  
10 reporters to be recognized. And Obama's professorial style of  
explaining policy at length, rather than offering punchy sound bites,  
may serve him well, but rarely yields dramatic headlines.

One result: The audience is gradually dwindling. The last presser drew  
24 million viewers, a significant number but a 50 percent decline from  
Obama's first such event in February.

The lingering question is how much of an obligation the networks have  
to carry these news conferences, given that they're widely available  
on the cable news channels.

One of the broadcast networks could demonstrate its independence,  
Friedman says, by breaking with the pack and refusing to air Obama's  
next prime-time extravaganza. But, he says, "that would take an  
extraordinary amount of courage."