When ever the President of the United States travels…ANYWHERE….The White House Press Corps (Media) travels in advance and with him (or soon to be her?)
Back in the day the press had more acess to the President with warmer and sometimes more personal relationships and where President’s could go ‘off record’ and it WAS off record’
BUT…
No More….
Due various attempts to harm the nations chief executive and violent time we live in ….President’s travel in hermetically sealed security ‘bubbles’….
The goal of the media is to shed light on what goes on in places….As reporters have grown more aggressive and become star’s in their own right…
They have looked for than the mundane…
They look for ‘gotcha’ questions….
And they have challenged President’s who work to get their message out and very seldom have staff challenging their efforts…
These things have made Press and Presidential interactions ver structured occasions…With freewheeling back and forth very rare….
In this day and age we have President’s traveling with the media on their own plane, Air Force One, in the back , but also now has a ‘Press’ plane shadowing the President where ever he goes on the planet…But the number of reports is declining….
And that won’t bother the President and his staff…One bit…
…..Obama would be hard pressed to come up with a reporter close enough to exchange anger and curses. If there were a candidate it would be Clarence Page of The Chicago Tribune, who has been dealing with Obama since his State Senate days in Springfield, Illinois. Obama has overcome his distaste for white-tie-and-tails when Page was president of the Gridiron in Washington. At the media club’s annual dinner, Obama advised Page that as president he should always keep handy his birth certificate. But seven years on, Page has yet to have that soul-baring beer.
“He’s a recluse,” Page said. “Besides his family, I don’t know who he is close to. Maybe his basketball buddies.”
Interviews in CJR inside and outside the White House show a dwindling core of less intrusive reporters, whose numbers continue to shrink along with American newspaper and news magazine circulation. For the most part, they are neglected by Obama. Daily exchanges between the president and reporters—once a staple of the beat—have almost been eliminated, according to research paid for by a fund established in the memory of White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Instead of the James Brady Press Room where sharp questions would be posed to the White House, Obama chose to announce his historic trip to Cuba behind closed doors. For one of the biggest stories of his administration, Obama decided to put the Havana trip announcement in a statement on his very own White House blog. Some veteran journalists view the White House press corps as sliding into irrelevance.
…
The withering relationship between the president and the press can be seen through the declining ranks of reporters on important trips at home and abroad. Almost gone are White House press planes, chartered by the government but paid for by news organizations. Once a feature of any presidential travel, there is simply not enough cash available for press planes. Gone, too, is the access to senior staff on such trips who can talk outside the White House bubble. For Obama’s African journey last year, reporters were forced to travel to Frankfurt on their own and then charter a plane to keep up with the president for five days.
To The New York Times’ Peter Baker, who has covered the White House on and off since 1996, the death knell for the press plane came after an Obama Asia trip in 2014. The 40 journalists who followed Obama wound up with a Delta Boeing 777 with 365 seats. Each got stuck for almost $90,000 just for the plane. With hotel bills, transportation and meals, news companies were choking on $100,000 for each reporter.
As a result, only a small rotating group of reporters representing wire services, newspapers, network broadcasters, and big news magazines travel aboard Air Force One. They are charged a First Class fare plus extra fees to sit isolated in a tail-end compartment of the massive Boeing 747. Obama rarely visits….
Note….
Daily Press Briefing
The White House Press Secretary or a deputy, generally holds a weekday news briefing, which takes place in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. The room currently seats 49 reporters. Each seat is assigned to one news gathering organization, with the most prominent organizations occupying the first two rows. Reporters who don’t have an assigned seat may stand. Often a smaller group of reporters known as the White House press pool is assembled to report back to their colleagues on events where the venue would make open coverage logistically difficult…..
Whiet House Press Poll
This is a small group of TV and Newspaper reporter’s that are assigned to report on the President close-in for other media outlets…On occasion’s when the there is limited facalities for large media contingents, the Press Poll will be the only media moved with the President….