Press corps,

Thanks to everyone who helped get the congressional picnic open to full pool coverage last week. Several people were involved, and I’d like to take a moment of your workday to explain how they did what they did.

Alerted by Jon Garcia and Wes Barrett, board member Margaret Talev was the first to ask questions about the closed-press event on the schedule as she began her Duty Officer duties last weekend. (Under our new practice, a different WHCA board member is on duty each week to stay on top of the president’s schedule and to advocate for press access every day.) She was able to get the print pool included by the time the schedule went out to the fuller press corps.

She alerted the rest of the board on Tuesday that the photojournalists were not yet included, and board members Jeff Mason and Doug Mills immediately began pressing the case from their position in the traveling pool. Major Garrett wrote an eloquent letter to Josh Earnest. And several members raised the question individually with the press office, notably print pooler Steven Dennis.

In the end, the right thing happened — the full pool was admitted. And with the practice now affirmed both by the press corps and the press office, we have reason to believe it will be easier to make the case on similar events in the near future. The full board underscored that in its monthly meeting with Josh at the end of the week.

I can name several other successes over the past two months as the Duty Officer rotation has hit its stride. Carol Lee got the White House to admit the full pool to the Rose Garden one afternoon to watch the president at work. With that groove cut, we got a repeat performance a few weeks later. Several events have gone from closed-press to full pool. Diplomatically pushing back against the exclusion of the print pool from a photo spray on the road last week, Jeff Mason helped get an expanded pool into the very next photo spray.

As you all know, we are working on putting a fuller set of practices in writing, in the hopes of protecting and preserving them for this press corps and for the journalists who come after us. More than 40 members have contributed their ideas to this document, and our conversations are continuing. We hope that this exercise will help us better understand the standards we all think are important and to push for them as a group.

Still, no matter what kind of progress we make on that front, your vigilance is critical to our constant push for greater access and openness.

It’s one thing to complain around the press room. It’s much more effective to join our voices together in a thoughtful, persuasive call for what we believe is right and fair.

That’s what you did this week, and things went just a little bit better because you did.

Thanks to all.

Christi

Press Corps,

I want to let you know about a breakthrough I think we’ve had with the White House on the AF One travel bills. As many of you know, our bills for air travel spiked wildly starting with trips taken in February.

When those bills rolled in, we asked some questions, and things started happening. Josh Earnest launched a review, which turned up more information than I’d ever seen before about how the bills are put together. And then last week he presented a new formula to us, along with a plan to recalculate all of the bills for trips starting in mid-February.

The new formula says ‎press travel with the president or vice president will be calculated “at the lowest available fare that is unrestricted, fully refundable, and available for purchase by the general public.” Reimbursement will be based on fares available between 7 – 14 days in advance of travel.

As it turns out, the old standard simply said “full coach fare” and that allowed for a whole range of choices by the folks in the military office who were doing the bills.

As of now, the White House Travel Office is taking over the calculations from the military office. They propose to recalculate all bills issued since Feb. 14 and to issue new invoices for all travel since that date. Refunds will be issued for those who paid the old bills, beginning as early as today.

The travel office hopes to finish sending out new bills by the end of October.

Here’s one sign of how the formula will change things: the February trip to California will go from the roughly $17,000 previously billed to about $3,500.

Other recalculations will look like this:

Miami, March 20
Billed: $4540
New: $1049

Pittsburgh, April 16
Initial invoice: $2001
New: $1138

New York, May 15
Initial invoice: $2194
New: $728

Chicago, May 23
Initial invoice: $3587
New: $1162

Though the White House says it wasn’t their intent to lower costs for us, but rather to provide the transparency and predictability that we had asked for, it looks to us like the costs will improve not just when compared to the period of the cost spikes but also when compared to the pre-spike period.

Here’s how that looks to us:

Chicago, IL to JBA
5/30/2013 – $1461.00 per person
4/2/2014 – $1469.00 per person
5/23/2014 – $3587.00 per person
5/23/2014 (updated fare) – $1162.00 per person

Palm Springs, CA to JBA
6/9/2013 – $1811.00 per person
2/17/2014 – $7051.00 per person
2/17/2014 (updated fare) – $1323.00 per person

Miami, FL to JBA
6/12/2013 – $1228.00 per person
3/20/2014 – $4540.00 per person
3/20/2014 (updated fare) – $1049.00 per person

New York, NY to JBA
10/25/2013 – $865.00 per person
5/15/2014 – $2194.00 per person
5/15/2014 (updated fare) – $728.00 per person

Pittsburgh, PA to JBA
7/6/2012 – $982.00 per person
4/16/2014 – $2001.00 per person
4/16/2014 (updated fare) – $1138.00 per person

Any member of the WHCA board can go on at length about the process that got us to this point. If you want lots of detail about how it works, ask me or Todd Gillman, a longtime traveler who has been raising this issue for years and then joined in the talks after he was elected to the board this summer.

If you have specific questions, please direct them to us first to see if we can handle them. We’d like to keep the travel office free to get these bills out as quickly as they can.

In the meantime, I hope any of you who were thinking about dropping out of the traveling pool because of the wild spikes will reconsider that idea. Your part in the pool process is critical, and the loss of even one news org would be a huge detriment.

Best,
Christi

President 2016-2017
Jeff Mason, Reuters

At-Large Seat
Jeff Mason, Reuters

Newspaper Seat
Todd Gillman, Dallas Morning News 

Photographer Seat
Doug Mills, New York Times

Visit our 2014 DINNER page for complete coverage of the #WHCD. Links available on that hub page connect to this year’s slideshow, the awards and scholarships pages, and the C-SPAN video of the arrivals, awards and scholarship presentations, followed by President Obama’s remarks, and the after-dinner entertainment segment presented by Joel McHale. The WHCA Centennial film, produced in collaboration with A+E, is available on our HISTORY page.

The White House Correspondents Association Dinner held at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, May 3, 2014. ( Photo / J.M. Eddins Jr. )

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (DOWNLOAD PDF)

HISTORY GOES TO WASHINGTON

Network Partners With White House Correspondents’ Association To Produce Video Celebrating Its 100th Anniversary; Participants include President Obama and President Clinton

New York, April 28, 2014 – HISTORY will unite with the White House Correspondents’ Association to produce a special video commemorating the centennial celebration of the organization that represents the White House Press Corps. A screening of the video, created and produced by HISTORY, will be among the highlights of the evening during the WHCA’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, to be held on Saturday, May 3, 7:30 pm.

{ You can watch the video on our HISTORY page }

The video chronicles the origin of the WHCA in 1914 and its evolution during the last 100 years. It will examine how today’s journalists on this historic assignment share the spirit of the WHCA’s earliest members, still tirelessly pushing for access to the President and members of the administration amid the challenges of a modern media landscape. The annual dinner, which dates back to 1921 and now itself merits extensive news coverage, is traditionally attended by the President and First Lady, as well as many other senior government officials and members of the press corps. Joel McHale, star of the NBC series Community, will be the entertainer headlining this year’s event.

“I’m thrilled that A+E Networks and the History Channel have partnered with the WHCA to generously create and produce a very special video to mark our centennial celebration,” WHCA President Steven Thomma said. “Our annual dinner always includes a lot of laughs and often features entertaining videos. But as we looked ahead to our 100th year, I wanted something different and couldn’t think of a better partner than the History Channel to bring this vision to life. With our experience at the White House and their deep experience and creativity working with historical content, we’ve worked together to tell the story of the Association, including its regrettable chapters and its proud principles. The video will be a very special part of the dinner.”

Interviews with President Obama, President Clinton, key historians, press secretaries such as Marlin Fitzwater, Mike McCurry, Dana Perino and the dinner’s past and current celebrity hosts will demonstrate how the Association has expanded its activities since its inception. At the core of the WHCA, meanwhile, is the same commitment to maintaining independent news coverage of the President and to nurturing the next generation of journalistic excellence through its scholarship program.

“It’s an honor for HISTORY to be able to work with the White House Correspondents’ Association on this most significant project,” said Nancy Dubuc, President and CEO, A+E Networks. “We often point out that history is in our DNA. But being entrusted to tell the official story of this celebrated organization, which itself has documented the country’s great political stories of the past century, reaffirms that we’ve been doing our job well and that others have taken notice. We couldn’t be more excited about forming this special partnership.”

About White House Correspondents’ Association?

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the administration on coverage-related issues. A nine-member board of directors, elected by correspondents, addresses access to the chief executive; coverage arrangements; work space arrangements; logistics and costs for press travel to accompany a president on the road. The association also holds an annual dinner to raise money for WHCA Scholarships and honor the professional recipients of the WHCA’s Journalism Awards. For more information, please visit http://www.whca.net

About A+E Networks

A+E Networks(R) is an award-winning, global media content company offering consumers a diverse communications environment ranging from television networks to websites, to home videos/DVDs to gaming and educational software. A+E Networks is comprised of the A&E(R), Lifetime(R), HISTORY(R), LMN(R), Bio(R), H2™, HISTORY en Español™, Crime & Investigation Network(R), Military HISTORY(R), A&E IndieFilms(R), A+E Networks International(R), A+E Networks Digital(R) and A+E Networks Consumer Products™. A+E Networks channels and branded programming reach more than 350 million households in over 160 countries. A+E Networks is a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst Corporation.

Press Contact:
Vicky Kahn, A+E Networks, 212-210-9743 vicky.kahn@aenetworks.com

It is outrageous that the Saudi government has refused to allow a White House reporter entry to the country to cover this week’s visit of President Barack Obama.

Michael Wilner, who covers the White House for the Jerusalem Post, had signed up to cover the visit and sought a visa along with the rest of the White House Press corps.

On Monday, he was the only one denied a visa. He had planned to travel straight to Saudi Arabia to cover that part of the president’s trip.

The denial is an affront not only to this journalist, but to the entire White House press corps and to the principle of freedom of the press that we hold so dear.

The White House also protested the denial.

“We are deeply disappointed that this credible journalist was denied a visa,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokesperson for the National Security Council. “We will continue to register our serious concerns about this unfortunate decision.”
The Post reported that the Saudi government refused entry to Wilner, “despite firmly-worded requests from US National Security Advisor Susan Rice and assistant to the president Tony Blinken to Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir….

“Rice and Blinken separately expressed extreme displeasure at the delay and the prospect of a denial, the Jerusalem Post has learned. Members of the National Security Council were made aware of the matter after US officials coordinating the trip failed to reach their Saudi counterparts.”

Wilner is an associate member of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents the White House press corps.

— Steve Thomma and the board of the WHCA

[ READ MORE }

This year, the White House Correspondents’ Association marks the 100th anniversary of its 1914 founding to advocate for reporters on that historic assignment. The group has grown and expanded its activities, in 1920 launching a spring dinner that now merits news coverage along with a yearly appearance by the sitting president.

The journalists of today’s WHCA share the spirit of those early forerunners, pushing for access to the president and members of the administration amid the challenges of a modern media landscape.

As the association marks its anniversary this year, veteran White House reporters, political journalists and scholars will chart the story of that evolving group of professionals in a series of blog posts on this website. The year-long series is being produced in cooperation with the White House Historical Association.

As we begin to celebrate this milestone, we are looking for anecdotes, pictures or memorabilia from past dinners and past Association events. If you have something you’d like to share, please let us know.

Read about the 100 YEAR HISTORY OF THE WHCA 

The White House Correspondents’ Association today joins dozens of news associations and media outlets in protesting White House policies that ban photojournalists from covering the president at certain events while releasing government photos and videos of the same events.

“Journalists are routinely being denied the right to photograph or videotape the President while he is performing his official duties,” the WHCA and other news organizations said in a letter Thursday to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

“As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the Executive Branch of government.”

The letter, also signed by such groups as the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press Media Editors and the White House News Photographers Association as well as individual media outlets, notes that the White House has argued that certain events with the president are private and should not be opened to the news media.
However, in instance after instance, the White House has proved that claim false by allowing its own photographers and videographers into the same events and then releasing those photos or videos to a nationwide audience.

“You are, in effect, replacing independent photojournalism with visual press releases,” the groups said in the letter.
The practice is a troubling break from tradition, and belies the president’s vow to be more transparent.”The right of journalists to gather the news is most critical when covering government officials acting in their official capacities,” the letter said.

“Previous administrations have recognized this, and have granted press access to visually cover precisely these types of events, thus creating government transparency. It is clear that the restrictions imposed by your office on photographers undercuts the President’s stated desire to continue and broaden that tradition.  To exclude the press from these functions is a major break from how previous administrations have worked with the press.”

The groups asked for a meeting to make the case face to face for a change in policy.

The White House Correspondents’ Association represents the White House press corps. It will mark its 100th year next year.

–The board of the WHCA

For more information, contact WHCA President Steven Thomma at 202-383-6042 or sthomma@mcclatchydc.com

An overflow crowd of hundreds packed the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church in Washington on Tuesday (Nov. 19) to remember and celebrate the life of Sara Fritz, a former WHCA president (1985) who died on Oct. 16, 2013.

The turnout was an astonishing manifestation of the depth and breathe of the admiration, respect and affection Sara commanded well beyond the clubby world of Washington journalism.

Below is a sampling of obituaries about Sara. As well, her family published, and distributed at her memorial service, a 20-day compendium of tributes written by friends, family and colleagues. Electronic copies are available by request.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/journalist-sara-fritz-dies-at-68/2013/10/17/5535463e-3743-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html

http://www.post-gazette.com/obituaries/2013/10/19/Obituary-Sara-Fritz-Pioneering-female-journalist-worked-for-Pittsburgh-Press/stories/201310190211

http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-sara-fritz-20131018,0,5137041.story#axzz2l8CNeJdk

http://youthtoday.org/view_article.cfm?article_id=6295

http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-committee-remembers-sara-fritz

— Ed Chen, President, WHCA, 2009-2010

WASHINGTON–Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker is this year’s winner of the White House Correspondents Association award for journalistic excellence in covering the presidency.

Julie Pace of the Associated Press and Terry Moran of ABC have won the association’s awards for White House news coverage under deadline pressure, and the Center for Public Integrity is recognized for its coverage of issues of national importance.

The annual WHCA prizes honor outstanding performance by White House correspondents and other national journalists each year. The prizes and their cash awards will be given out at the association’s annual dinner on Saturday, April 27.

Selected by a panel of judges organized by the Medill School of Journalism, the winning candidates this year demonstrated excellence under deadline pressure and in the kind of in-depth reporting at risk in an era of media cost-cutting.

“One of our central missions continues to be holding government officials accountable,” WHCA President Ed Henry said. “I’m thrilled that all of these terrific journalists will be honored at our dinner this month.”

In awarding the Aldo Beckman Award to Lizza, the panel of judges noted his “remarkable efforts to provide an independent perspective” on President Obama’s presidency and re-election.

“Deep reporting, both through documents and personal interviews, moves these stories beyond the cacophony of a campaign year,” the judges said. Besides being an excellent reporter, they said, Lizza is “a thoughtful, cogent writer. He has a keen ability to take his readers inside decisions and weave a compelling narrative, something he has done for more than a decade covering the White House.”

The Beckman award is named for the award-winning Chicago Tribune correspondent and former WHCA president. Funded by the Tribune, the award has a cash prize of $1,000.

The Merriman Smith Award for a print journalist goes to Pace, who was recently named to lead the AP White House team. The judges noted her next-day story reporting Obama’s reelection, saying that it “provided a detailed, nuanced explanation of how the Obama campaign had mobilized a sophisticated get-out-the- vote offensive to create a winning strategy that surprised many analysts in its scope.”

“Writing from the press bus and buttonholing Obama campaign operatives who were already celebrating, she produced a nicely paced, engaging narrative that provided the first-blush analysis of campaign 2012,” they wrote.

Moran is the broadcast winner of the Smith award for his coverage of the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act.

Moran “calmly guided viewers through the complexity, contradictions and nuance of the ruling while explaining what it means for the president and his political fortunes,” the awards panel wrote of his work.

The Merriman Smith fund was set up in 1970 to honor United Press International’s correspondent at the White House for more than 30 years. The winners will each receive a cash prize of $2,500.

The winner of the Edgar A. Poe Award is the depth reporting series “Hard Labor,” by CPI reporters Jim Morris, Chris Hamby and Ronnie Greene.

As the judges put it, the series “compellingly shows how the government has failed to keep its promise to protect workers from injury and death on the job.” For some workers their only means to enforce saftey through the workplace is after they have been injured and used work injury attorneys to sue for negligence. Though it should not have to come to this in the first place, as fatal accidents at work are all too common as well. It is a particularly difficult situationion when the incident that caused injury involved many individuals, such as building collapse accidents, and even more difficult when the individuals had no control over the circumstances that led to the accident. The documentary is a compelling argument that the safety of workers should be placed as a high priority for the government to step up and sort out. An attorney is good for compensation, but they may only change one workplace at a time and as the documentary shows, the problem is widespread.

“Drawing on years of data and on-the-ground reporting in eight states and Canada, the authors demonstrate how corporate corner-cutting, government inability or unwillingness to impose meaningful penalties, and bureaucratic pressure to make caseload quotas have stymied real regulation,” the judges wrote. “They tell the workers’ stories in a manner that evokes Studs Terkel, excellently weaving human interest with deep-data scrutiny and using numbers sparingly but with powerful effect. For many of the worker stories we have heard, we can only hope that they seek a personal injury lawyer Turlock to help them get compensation. Though the Canadian government needs to step up and realize it has been sleeping on the job for too long.”

The Poe award was set up to honor coverage of national or regional significance. The prize of $2,500 is funded by the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Newhouse Newspapers in honor of their distinguished correspondent, who also served as a WHCA president.

The selections process was supervised by Ellen Shearer, William F. Thomas Professor of Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill school.