The White House Correspondents’ Association and the University of Maryland are pleased to announce the creation of a unique new window into the world of the president and the press — a permanent and ongoing digital, searchable archive of presidential pool reports produced by White House correspondents.
The White House Correspondents’ Association Pool Reports Collection will be kept at the university and available online. It will consist of the reports written every day by members of the White House press corps on the activities of the president.
“This collection will be of invaluable help to scholars far and wide. A grand slam idea,” said Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and CNN presidential historian.
The presidential pool reports are produced by journalists who are part of a small group that covers the president — in the White House, at events, in the motorcade and on Air Force One — when it is not possible for the entire press corps to be present. Their written pool reports are disseminated to the rest of the press corps, once on paper, now digitally.
“The WHCA release of pool reports provides a valuable window into presidential history,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian and biographer. “These are the kind of contemporary materials that are treasured by historians.”
“This collection of pool reports will be an essential tool to historians of modern American politics,” said Julian E. Zelizer, the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Zelizer is also a CNN political analyst and co-host of “Politics and Polls.”
“It will also provide an important, archivally based window into relationship between the presidents and the press, a subject that is gaining more attention in recent years,” he said.
The collection will be produced through a partnership including the WHCA, the University of Maryland — including the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, the University Libraries and the College of Information Studies — and the Newseum Institute.
“WHCA is proud to launch this historically significant project with our host, the University of Maryland,” said Margaret Talev, the president of the association and Senior White House Correspondent for Bloomberg. “We thank the many journalists, historians and academics at institutions throughout the country for their input in furnishing the raw work and the vision for how this resource can serve the public. It’s a massive undertaking and we welcome support from organizations and individuals that would like to get involved.”
The WHCA sought to create the collection as part of its mission to ensure a strong free press and robust coverage of the presidency. At the same time, the partnership will develop educational and scholarly programs and publications based on the collection and presidential access and coverage.
“The University of Maryland is honored to have the opportunity to steward this valuable archive and research tool, a unique record of the U.S. presidency,” said Lucy A. Dalglish, dean of the Merrill College. “We’re proud to make it available to the public and to scholars around the world.”
The collection will complement materials at the University of Maryland Libraries that document the history of radio and television broadcasting, including the Library of American Broadcasting and the National Public Broadcasting Archives.
“Archiving information and making it publicly available is not only essential to accessibility and transparency in current times, but also to the accuracy of how events are remembered in the future,” said Keith Marzullo, dean of the College of Information Studies.
Dalglish said a kickoff event is scheduled for Oct. 9 at the Newseum, where guests — including current and former White House correspondents — will be invited to celebrate the collection and share old pool reports in their possession, “whether they’re stored digitally or in boxes in basements.”
Work will begin this year and the archive is expected to be stood up over the next two years.
Gene Policinski, president and chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute, said the Newseum is honored to partner in preserving the reports.
“Journalism is known as a ‘first draft of history,’” Policinski said. “This WHCA material is literally the first drafts of such first drafts.”
About the WHCA:
The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the White House. Its mission is to ensure a strong free press and robust coverage of the presidency by advocating for access to the president, White House events and administration officials. We also work to encourage new generations of White House correspondents through our college scholarship program.
About the University of Maryland:
The University of Maryland, College Park is the state’s flagship university and one of the nation’s preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 40,000 students, 10,000 faculty and staff, and 280 academic programs. Its faculty includes two Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, 60 members of the national academies and scores of Fulbright scholars. The institution has a $1.9 billion operating budget and secures $514 million annually in external research funding. For more information about the University of Maryland, College Park, visit http://www.umd.edu/.
About the Newseum Institute:
The Newseum Institute, headquartered in Washington, is the education and outreach partner of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum. The Institute includes the First Amendment Center, the Religious Freedom Center and NewseumED, an online learning platform for teachers and students. The Institute regularly hosts compelling programs that engage in the central debates of our time, including the role of a free press in a democracy, ongoing threats to journalists, and the significance of religious freedom in a pluralistic society.
April 5 2018