Mike McCurry and Dave Lapan Transcript — Oct. 8, 2025
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:00:00):
This is a session where sort of the counterpoint to our restaurant session last night where you heard from a lot of reporters in Washington and how they do their work. We have just the opposite here this afternoon. The Washington Press Corps, as you know, and you learned a little bit last night, can be a bit of an insular bunch, but they don’t own the market on translating Washington for the public. Mike McCurry, a former White House and State Department press secretary and Dave Lapan, a former chief spokesman at DHS and that the Pentagon have seen it all and they’re kind enough to be here to discuss what works and what doesn’t and how to cultivate trusting relationships key to all of your survival. I can’t emphasize that enough because it came up in the last session where how do you break through, how do you make contact with agencies or people in those agencies from afar? And so I’m so happy that Mike and Dave are here to share some of their experience with you and not that we’re kicking it off by order of age, but we are. I’m going to turn it over to Mike and then we’ll go to Dave and open it up to questions.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:01:54):
And so I’ve got these little, I have like six Cs, so you can write these down if you want to be White House press secretary someday, but I would not recommend that. The first thing is clarity D first C is clarity. Know what you’re going to say and say it so that it’s completely understandable. Now, that is true if you’re a spokesperson and you’re at a briefing podium. But it’s also true if you’re writing a lead and you’re trying to keep your readers focused in on the things that matter most. I think a lot of journalism now begins with long anecdotes about someone who’s got an experience without making it clear what is the point that you’re trying to make. The second C is candor, and that means owning up to mistakes and admitting when you’re wrong. It’s a very, very hard thing to do for people who are in professional communications working for an organization.
(00:02:59):
I think it’s also hard for journalists to do that. And news organizations, yeah, you can put a little box of corrections on page two, but if you make a front page mistake, you ought to have a front page correction in my view. The third is compassion for thinking about the overwhelming amount of information that people are getting, the bubbles in which they live and how can you make important content stand out so that it actually penetrates. You all know that you can bypass anything, particularly local media now and go straight to whatever social media site that you live in and be in that bubble all the time. So how do you get people to break out of their bubble and make things really important to them and relevant so that they pay attention? The next would be see would be connection. We live in a world of networks now, and so thinking about whatever I am working on, how do I amplify that by distributing it through other networks, other people and their networks?
(00:04:20):
How do I get it out there so that it will make a difference over time? And then my last C would be commitment. It’s actually perseverance, but that’s a piece so I wouldn’t have Cs, but this is hard work and it requires a lot of diligence and requires commitment on your part to actually go the extra mile sometimes to get the information that you need to get out there. Now I’ve got other ideas about how you interact. I think part of what we want to talk about is how do you interact with people who are in government? How do you build relationships? I can have more to say on that, but I’ll turn it over to Dave.
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:05:13):
So I’ll just start with two things based on Kevin’s introduction and also what Mike just said, I was telling Kevin that when he first reached out and invited me to participate, I was still an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs. I was one that took the deferred resignation. And so I’ve been on paid administrative leave until last week. So the timing of this is great because I am more free now than I would’ve been two weeks ago to say what I really think and to give you some thoughts again from my observations. The other one, and Mike and I didn’t rehearse this, is that since I left va and actually before I got to va, I had my own communication consulting business, which named C3 communications for Clear, concise and compelling. That’s the name of my consulting firm. Anyway, so perfect entree. I was here a bit for the previous panel.
(00:06:17):
So one, we both recognize that you have lots of questions and we want to talk about what you want to know. So I will keep my remarks brief so that we can get to the q and a. The one thing that I would say again as a former spokesman, as Kevin said at the Pentagon at Homeland Security and my role at VA wasn’t quite spokesman, I was more senior advisor, but also doing communication. And that’s that I used to counsel senior military and civilian leaders all the time that they needed to get out and meet reporters, meet their local reporters before something bad happened. And I always tell ’em, if you’re a marine commander of an air station, you don’t want to meet a reporter the first time you have a crash on your runway or God forbid out in the local community. So my lesson to them was get to know local reporters, build those relationships before bad things happen.
(00:07:21):
So my advice to you is the converse of that is as you are developing sources, do so when there’s not a crisis, do it before you have a story. Even start to build that relationship. So it’s not all about, it’s not a transactional thing. Why are you coming to me? You’re looking for information. Build the relationships early on so that you can establish the trust and credibility so that when you do need them in a pinch, you’ve already developed that and you as journalists will make those individuals on the government side much more comfortable that they can trust you with their words, what they’re going to tell you, and that they’re more likely to share information if you have that trust relationship. So again, build those relationships early on before you need them in a crisis. And as I said, even if you don’t have a story, you’re working, start building a relationship before you ever get to that point. So it’s more relational than transactional. So I will stop there.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:08:33):
I am going to indulge you in. I’ve got a couple of other things just as suggestions for rules of engagement. One, ask simple questions. Multi-part questions are very useful to people who are spokespeople at government because we pick out the one part that we want to answer and ignore the rest the question. So very direct, straightforward questions. Sometimes they even require yes and no answers, although sometimes it’s not easy to give yes or no answers. Be clear when you schedule an interview what the objective of the interview is and make it don’t do gotcha stuff because that is really annoying to people who are having to answer questions and schedule interviews and do that. So make clear what the objective of the interview is and what the story is that you’re working on. Acknowledge and be nice to the press handlers who you have to deal with to schedule this, but figure out how to bypass them because they are mostly useless there.
(00:09:48):
They’re to get in the way and to try to know the quote that you want. You go into every interview and you know what the money quote is that you want and be transparent about that You’re subject of your interview. You can say, here’s what I’m trying to find out. And you more or less feed them the line because they don’t understand. Most people who are interviewed who are in government, the common thing that they say, Dave will agree with this is I talked to the reporter for 45 minutes and they only use one sentence that I said, well, that’s the way it goes. So make it clear to them what it is. You don’t have to feed them the quote, but you have to actually make it clear to them that the exact thing that you’re trying to find out. But that said, listen for the unexpected because if you get people talking, they will sometimes say things that you hadn’t thought of or hadn’t imagined. The other thing is be quiet in the hardest interviews I’ve done is where the reporter sits there, I give the answer, do my spin, and then the reporter just sits there and looks at me and you start wanting to fill the silence and you start blabbing and saying more than you should. But sometimes just sitting there and listening and being quiet is a very good interview technique.
(00:11:32):
The next thing is after you do an interview, write your notes quickly because your memory will fog and the better that you record and keep track of exactly what the transaction was, you can go back and that’s useful. And then the last thing I will echo what Dave said is just be nice. These people all got jobs and they’ve got lives and they’ve got family and if you know can find out a little bit about their family, oh, your kid plays soccer with a friend of mine or things that establish a relationship, as Dave said, that’s very, very useful. I think there’s a predilection sometimes in journalism that you don’t want to get cozy with your sources, but that’s not helpful now because there’s so much mistrust when people are calling you the enemies of the American people. You need to sort of reassure them that you’re there to be engaged in a common purpose, which is the pursuit of truth. So the more you can kind of establish that personal bond, I think that’s a good thing. Questions
Jack McGee | Springfield Daily Citizen (00:12:57):
Jack McGee. I’m with a paper in Springfield, Missouri. One of you mentioned, you mentioned if you can bypass the press person, which I’m sure most of us have experience doing at one time or another, but in my experience there’s times where that’s appropriate, but afterwards when the story comes out, it almost kind of damages the trust you had with that press person. And so how do you recommend balancing something like that, trying to respect the trust you built with them while also knowing when you can avoid going through that process?
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:13:51):
Well, remember you’ve got the barrel of ink and they don’t. And so they have got to forever much. They might get pissed off at something that you’ve written. At the end of the day, they’ve got to come back because they can’t get to the public without going through you. And you’ve got to respect the fact that they’ve got their job to do. You’ve got your job to do. And it is an adversarial relationship. We call it that for a purpose because it is not on the same team. But it goes back to if you can establish any kind of relationship so that they may say, I don’t like what you wrote and it really made me angry, but at the end of the day they know you’re basically doing your job and you’re a good person, then you’ve got much better chance of overcoming it.
(00:14:50):
It’s when you treat people hostilely and when you denigrate ’em and make fun of ’em. Or I am now coming close to talking about the current White House press secretary, which I did not want do. I said I’m not going to do that. But that is what creates kind of the ill will that you cannot then overcome. So I think it goes back to this idea, if you’ve got a relationship with that person and you know them, and I believe in socializing and going out and having off the record dinners and going out for a drink at the end of the day, if it’s all off the record, I believe that of course nothing is always truly off the record, but going out and establishing some kind of bond like that as a way to overcome that. But my point is that press spokespeople are there to sometimes get in the way of you doing your business. And so figuring out how to circumvent that and work around it is the point that I was trying to make
Kirstin Garriss | Independent (00:16:12):
There. Kirstin Garriss, I’m an independent creator journalist here in DC and thank you for your time today. Really appreciate it. Dave, this is for you, but feel free to chime in. Mike, I’m curious, since you have your experience in the Pentagon, obviously this administration has drastically changed access for journalists at the Pentagon. And granted this was never my beat, but I appreciate the journalists who work there and cover the Pentagon for us and really the relationships they’ve built there. And I’m curious, what are your thoughts on the changes to their limitation of access and just how that could affect how us as journalists of fourth estate cover the largest big part of our government and one that needs critical eyes at multiple times? Exactly. Now this is all you.
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:16:55):
My initial thing about, in a word, I think it’s terrible. Having worked in that building for so long, having worked with the Pentagon Press Corps, which not to ve irate any other group of journalists, but I think the Pentagon Press Corps is probably the most experienced professional group of journalists in the world. The White House, they rotate in and out. There’s a whole different Yes, kudos for the State Department. Yeah, state department as well. And I think that the steps that have been taken, one trample on the First Amendment very clearly, two are meant to create a culture of fear, not just within the Press Corps, but the people that work inside the, but I think what happens is there are a number of reporters that cover the Pentagon that don’t need to be in the building, right? A lot of this is about that badge and having access.
(00:18:04):
Well one, a lot of times the badges were because reporters were doing their work day in and day out of the building doing standups in the press briefing room, which doesn’t happen anymore. Doing briefings with people like me and the Secretaries of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Those don’t happen anymore. So the need to be in the building has shifted from what it once was, and frankly, it hurts the Department of Defense and I refuse to call it freaking that one. I won’t even say it, and nobody else I’m sure either. This whole idea, this is the secondary name, Congress hasn’t changed the name of the department. It’s still the Department of Defense. Anyway, get me on my soapbox. Where was I going with this?
(00:19:00):
The thing is that for the Department of Defense, it also is useful to have reporters in the building when there was breaking news when you wanted to do a press briefing. They’re all right there. State Department, very similar on a different floor, but they’re in the building and that doesn’t happen anywhere around the world where the media have offices have space in the building of large government agencies. And so it was in our best interest to have reporters there so that we could reach them when we wanted to provide information and news. So I think doing this hurts the department in that way.
(00:19:39):
And going back to the access thing, there are a lot of reporters that only come into the building for briefings. They don’t need to be there every day. And I think this will just drive more of them to work their sources from outside the building because if it comes down to having to sign a non-disclosure agreement, I don’t think they’re going to do that. And the things that are being threatened, I think are going to, again, have journalists who cover the Pentagon find different ways to do so. And we can only look back a couple of years during COVID and they weren’t in the building anyway, and they were still reporting on what was happening at the department within the military and at the Pentagon by not physically being there. So I think they’re overplaying their hands by trying to restrict the press in this way.
(00:20:27):
And the last point I’ll make on this, and it gets to some of the earlier discussion in the last group was people in government positions now are being made fearful of talking to the press, right? Threat of their jobs, the threat of polygraphs, threat of nondisclosure agreements, all of these things. And I think it’s backfiring because it’s making people reach out to the press even more because they don’t want their first amendment rights there. The government employees First Amendment rights to be stomped on by the government. And so people are reaching out to reporters in spite of these threats because they feel so wronged by it. And the soapbox,
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:21:15):
I want to amend something that I said earlier because I busted a little bit on the people who are handlers and press spokespeople. I want to talk about how important it was to me at the White House to have some of the career public affairs people from the defense Department who got seconded over to the National Security Council work. They were among the finest public information officers that I have ever experienced in government. And they were diligent and they were nonpolitical, they understood what our political prerogatives were in the White House and they respected that, but they were truly great sources of information. And I just hope that I know all of ’em probably, and I just hope that their careers are not impeded by the environment that we’re in now because we got a lot of them promoted. One of ’em, actually a state department guy that I worked with, I went to Clinton in the Oval Office one time and demanded that he make that guy an ambassador, which he did, and he went on to do extraordinary things in his career as a foreign service officer. But I think having respect for people who devote their careers to public service who are just not political appointees, I mean, you learn a lot from people like that and they are good sources if you develop relationships as we’ve been talking about.
Sean Keenan | Atlanta Civic Circle (00:22:59):
Hey there, I’m Sean Keenan here from Atlanta. Thank you guys for joining us. We’ve probably all heard political analysts use terms like we are living in a post fact age or the era of alternative facts. So please bear with me as I seek out I guess a silver lining. We’re reporting on an administration that at least on occasion spreads falsehoods, and oftentimes bold face lies go completely unpunished. How should we or could we journalists, I guess, harness that fire hose of information in a way that not just proves falsehoods false, but reveals greater truths about where we’re headed as a nation and where democracy is right now?
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:23:47):
So again, in my opinion, understatement of the day, these are not normal times. And I think news organizations have to recognize and react to the fact that these aren’t normal times. In one way, and I’ll get directly to your point in just a second, but one way it goes back to a previous discussion about things like background, right? When you have so many government officials that are fearful of speaking on the record because they could lose their jobs because they could lose their security clearances, making greater use of background can benefit us all. And I don’t know that news organizations to include the big ones that are here have done that enough. They keep acting as business as usual and wanting on the record quotes. And again, I agree on record quotes are primo. That’s the best that in this environment, if it takes some background quotes to get to a story that you wouldn’t get otherwise, then we should do that.
(00:24:57):
To your other point, when administration officials, and this doesn’t just implicate the person in 1600 Pennsylvania, but across the government, my former agencies where I’ve seen this, when they don’t even bother to answer the question ask and this go on an ad homan and attack against the journalists, why should you feel compelled to print that or publish that? We have again, this idea of normal times that’s past where you, out of fairness, well, we need to go to the government and get their position. Well, if they’re not giving you a position, if they’re just attacking, why do you need to include that quote? You just said that they refused to answer the question and instead engaged in an attack. Just describe what happened, but don’t give them the quotes that they want. Same thing with the facts. When they are saying things that are factually inaccurate, call it out. You can quote them, but then in the next graph say, here’s the fact, right? They said this. Here’s what actually is happening. That is my sense of how to attack some of what’s going on because the American needs that from journalism. They need to not just, it’s not just called emulsion strikes anymore. Unfortunately, it’s not both sides and equal access. If government spokespeople aren’t going to provide the information you asked for, then don’t give ’em the platform that dispute lies or attacks.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:26:41):
I agree with that, but I disagree with one thing, which is I think there is way, way too much backgrounding done by senior government officials on behalf of the government. And I think you should resist that. I think you should say, I want to do this interview on the record and I want you to be on the record and I want to quote you and be able to put your name to whatever you’re going to tell me. And if they resist that, then you have to explore that and say, do you have something that you want to tell me that you can’t attach your name to? You got to be very transparent with them about, because I think that’s a lot of the problem is unnamed sources and anonymous officials and news organization now say so-and-so who requested anonymity to provide information about confidential conversations that were being happened.
(00:27:42):
Well, that’s bullshit. We want to know who is it that is speaking and what is their authority to tell you content that is important and they should be willing to attach their name to it. Now, if they won’t, there’s a reason for that and you can explore that, and that might be a story in and of itself. But I think this incessant use of background is not healthy. And I personally, I tried to do everything that I did at the White House on the record. I mean, I had people come in and they would say, can we talk? And I said, sure. And he said, well, is this on background? I said, no, it’s on the record. And one time a reporter said to me, well, if it’s on background, it sounds better to my editor because then they think I’ve really gotten the inside scoop on stuff. And I said, well, that’s just total horseshit. But if that’s what you want to say, you can quote me as a senior government official who works at the White House in the West Wing office, normally occupied by the press secretary
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:29:00):
And sorry Mike. And to go back to one of our Cs Clarity, I should say that I completely agree to that point. I think that the government writ large has used background to high too often. My idea of background is when you’re talking to unofficial sources, not the spokesman or not the senior official, but people that are giving you some insight information that you’re not getting from those senior officials. But I agree that in fact, when I was at the Pentagon during a period, it became norm to do everything on background. And it’s ridiculous because again, as consumers of news, how are you to judge the credibility of a source that doesn’t identify themselves? And I worked for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff who said the same thing. He goes, those four stars on my shoulder in the position I hold is the credibility.
(00:29:55):
So when I say things on the record, people can take that to the bank. If I’m just another unnamed official, how do I know? And this was the favorite thing people would prefer. I get reporters who would call me and try to confirm a story that was existing and they’d say, but it says right here, according to a Pentagon Official. I said, that could be there’s 24,000 people that work in this building. It could be any one of ’em that could have been a janitor, right? He’s a Pentagon official. So I agree that the background can be abused by the government, but can be helpful to reporters as you’re seeking non-traditional sources, not can be on the party line.
Mini Racker | The Nevada Independent (00:30:41):
Hi, I am Mini with the Nevada Independent. I’ve found working with press people to be one of the more challenging parts of being a reporter because their interests are so often in opposition to mine. So for instance, they want to be prepared the principle for what I’m going to ask about, but I want a natural reaction or I want to break news and they want to make sure to manage the rollout of that news very carefully, or I want to get a politician on the record on an issue that it’s advantageous for them to be ambiguous on. So as people who’ve been on that side of things, can you suggest some strategies or approaches for addressing these issues with press people?
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:31:24):
The one thing I’d say, one of the roles that I had at the Pentagon is that I would do a Gaggle, which was an on the record, but off camera every day, Monday through Friday, talk about a high wire act. But in order for me to prepare for that, I wouldn’t ask for questions, but I would find out from reporters, what are you interested in so I can be prepared, right? It doesn’t mean no good or does good as a journalist to come in and ask a question, and I say, I don’t know. I’m going to have to get back to you. So I’m not looking for questions, but I’m looking for, Hey, I’m going to ask you about this latest thing on the budget and then I can prepare and be ready for that. So I think in dealing with folks like me, it’s those things of I want a spontaneous reaction.
(00:32:15):
And I have trained a lot of senior leaders about, because we get that as public affairs folks, Hey, I want the questions in advance. Well, one that’s not happening. And what I explained to them is the reporter doesn’t even know what questions they’re going to ask. It depends on what you say to them, right? They may have a sense of, I want to talk about this or that, but their exact questions, they don’t know until they sit down, start rolling, then you’re going to say something and they’re going to pick up on that, and then they’re going to ask a question. So I tried to dissuade them from trying to get questioned in advance. Not only is this unethical, but because it doesn’t make sense. So when dealing with folks in those roles, again, avoiding explaining to them, right? I can give you a sense of the types of things I’m interested in, but we’re not going to get into specifics until we have that discussion. Does that help
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:33:11):
Comment about, he mentioned the phrase gaggle. Now, that was a custom that we had at the White House as well, that we would do the senior staff meetings in the morning and I’d get loaded up and do my homework and get ready for the day. And then the first thing, we’d invite all the White House press to come into my office for a discussion that was on the record, but not on camera and not available for broadcast, which was, and there’s a whole story about broadcasting press briefings at the White House, I could tell too, but that them coming into the office and asking questions if there was breaking news and I had something that I could say definitively, I could give them something that they could use for a breaking news purpose. But the main purpose, as Dave said, was to say, what’s on your plate today?
(00:34:09):
What’s on your agenda? Here’s what we’re trying to sell today. So we would tip, here’s what our message is, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s what the purpose of this event is. But then I would then collect from them, here are the things that we’re going to ask you about, because then I did an on the record on camera briefing later in the day at one o’clock, and I could be better prepared because I would sort of say, okay, here’s what I know that they’re going to ask about it, and I could work my butt off to get the answers. I mean, one quick story, be anecdotal. I mean, I would do, before I do the one o’clock formal on camera briefing, I’d go see the president. If we hadn’t had other opportunities during the morning to talk about stuff, I would go in and read him what the guidance was that we’d get, what the suggested answer to particular questions are.
(00:35:09):
And I’d go through that with him. And on more than one occasion, Clinton would say, well, that’s just bullshit. And I’d say, well, that’s your policy. Do you want to do anything about it? And he would sometimes pick up the phone and call Secretary Shaler or call someone in else government calling one the cabinet people and say, well, we’re going to have this question over here today, and we got to get a better answer to this. So it was an action forcing thing to have this encounter with the press every day to get better answers, which led to better policy. And it is such a critical point because that has totally evaporated. Now, I won’t say it just under Trump that it’s evaporated, because I don’t think that Obama people were particularly good at this either. But the encounters with the press and the accountability you have when you have to stand up and answer legitimate questions from the press are not faking it for the camera, which there’s too much of that on behalf of the Press Corps.
(00:36:17):
But when you get tough good questions that require good answers, you got to go get them. And if you don’t have them, that means that the government’s got to do something about whatever the policy is. So it improves the functioning of government to have this adversarial back and forth between the press and the people who have to stand up and be accountable and answer questions. I just wish we could just ingrain that in more of the functions that we have. But we’ve lost so much of that. I mean, a lot of that is just evaporated. I mean, don’t you think I’m being too gloomy? Sorry, I don’t want to,
Douglas Soule | WUSF | Florida (00:37:06):
Oh, there it is. Sorry. Hey there, I’m Douglas. So I work for public radio in Florida. You mentioned the adversarial back and forth. That being said, don’t want to unnecessarily tick off press people if I can avoid it. So I was just curious, what kinds of things tick you two off the most when interacting with us journalists? Any examples
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:37:28):
Of things that I missed? The question
Douglas Soule | WUSF | Florida (00:37:31):
Take you off the most in terms of interacting with journalists?
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:37:36):
I’ve got mine, and I know some of this is a function of the news organization itself, and a lot of times reporters get late direction from their editors and others about what they’re going to do. But reporters that come and say, Hey, I need this and my deadline’s in 30 minutes. I’m not in a government. Again, that is a bureaucracy. I’m not getting that. If that’s all you have because of, again, your higher ups have told you to go get this, but too often it was, I can’t get that for you. Well, how about an hour? Well, how about an hour and a half? And then it starts to become a negotiation. Thought you had a 30 minute deadline. Oh, well, it’s fungible, huh? Okay. So that was one of the points of trying to meet late deadlines. And the corollary to that was then reading or hearing a story the next day that said that we refused to comment. We didn’t refuse to comment. You gave us no time to get an answer. So that’s that.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:38:58):
There are not in the White House or other places of government, a truth closet, you just go and open up and it all come tumbling out. I mean, a lot of it takes work. I mean, I would say I spent, I would say a good 50% of my time reading memos and going through things and trying to decipher what various memos were that were coming from the interagency process into the White House to figure out what was really going on. And then you’d have to call and follow up and hunt down someone who could say, explain this to me because I don’t really understand what’s going on here.
(00:39:43):
That is the hard work that goes into doing the job effectively if your purpose is to provide information to the public. Now, I firmly believed in my time that the public has a right to know. They have a right to know what the White House is doing, what the government is doing, and we should be accountable for that. But the corollary was the government has an obligation to tell. We have a responsibility to be forthcoming and provide that information. I do not think that is the ethic that applies in our current environment and holding people accountable and writing about that is important. I think news organizations generally have been pretty good about, now, you used to be verboten that you would use the word lie, that someone lied. Well, you can routinely now read stories in which journalists point blank, say, president Trump without any evidence enunciated a falsehood. I mean, and sometimes they’ll say, I ride lied, but that that’s a brand new thing that never would’ve happened in my time, although it’s my daughter said, dad, your time in the White House. That was in the last century. So
Ethan Weinstein | VTDigger | Vermont (00:41:19):
Hi, I’m Ethan Weinstein. I’m a reporter at VT Digger in Vermont. We’re talking a lot about spin, but I think we’ve also probably all encountered press secretaries who just say less than zero. I’m wondering how much of that in your experience is a directive from the person in charge versus the philosophy of the individual press secretary and what can we do to sort of fairly undermine that behavior and maybe piss off a boss enough to change that policy?
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:41:56):
So I’d say in my experience, it was more often a directive from on high, and that was one of the toughest parts of the job, is not being able to say things when it comes to classified information. That’s very easy, right? And that’s one of the challenges in a military construct is that I had lots of classic information in my brain. I had to figure out what I could say and couldn’t say when I was asked about things. But as I always, again, train folks is if you don’t know, say you don’t know and explain why you don’t know. If you can’t say, you can’t say and explain why. You can’t say that’s the part that’s sometimes missing is explaining why you can’t say a certain thing. And whether that’s, I don’t have that information right now, I can get it to you later or that information classified so I’m not able to share it or whatever it is. But the more that you can explain why you’re not answering a question, the better off I think you are.
(00:43:11):
And I’m probably jaded by working with the Pentagon Press Corps because we knew one another and they knew when I couldn’t answer something and I didn’t have to say they could tell that this was something that, and that goes back again to trust and credibility because I had that with them in the times that I couldn’t give them an answer. They didn’t press too much because they understood the pressure that I was under at that time, and they figured if I could tell ’em I would. And if I’m dancing around a little, that’s because there’s something else going on there.
(00:43:49):
One quick example, again, in my Pentagon time, I was still in uniform. I was a marina officer. And when I started doing the gaggles, which had previously done by one of the civilian spokespeople on day one, the first gaggle that I did, one of the Pentagon reporters said, Colonel Lapan, with all due respect, here it comes. Is it appropriate for you as a uniformed military officer to defend administration policy? And I said, no, it’s not. And if you have those type of questions, you can talk to my counterpart who was a civilian political appointee, but if you have military related questions, operations, all that stuff, that’s me. So I was able to draw those lines as well so they understood where I could go and where I couldn’t go.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:44:51):
The White House is different from the State Department and the Pentagon because it is a thoroughly political beat. The White House Press Corps are political reporters first and foremost, because they actually are reporting on the ups and downs and spin becomes a natural part of your job, but there are limits to how much you can do it. In fact, a guy named Howie Curtis wrote a book about my time at the White House called Spin Cycle, and it was about my artful attempts to be good at spin. But my philosophy of spin is yes, you do it. And yes, the White House has got a lot of politics involved and you have to kind of put things in the best possible light to satisfy your boss. I don’t know how many of you have ever been into the West Wing, couple of you, the press secretary’s office or what used to be, I think now maybe they’ve made it back into the press secretary’s office, but it has the front door where all the staff is and then the back door.
(00:45:58):
And if you turn right, you’re in the Oval Office and 50 feet, and if you turn left, you’re in the press briefing room that you all see on tv. And that to me was the geographic metaphor that explains the job. You’ve got to be halfway between these two actors in this adversarial relationship. You’ve got to satisfy the president because he sort of more or less signs your paycheck. But if you’re not being responsive and helping the Press Corps do its job, you’re not going to succeed in the job. And I think that is a definition that we ought to kind of try to figure out how to reinforce because as many things now it is gone away, but the idea of spin is we’re in baseball season right now, right? So spin, you can throw a curve ball with a lot of spin, but it’s got to get over the plate to be a strike.
(00:46:59):
And I think the same thing is true political spend. If it varies too much from the plate of truth, it’s not going to be credible and it’s not going to satisfy any of your audiences. And so there’s an art to it, but it has to be done in a way that kind of respects what the ultimate purpose is, which is you get your story out. I mean, in theory, the Press Corps has the same ultimate objective as the people at the White House. People in the White House want the truth to be reported because they think we all think we’re doing a great job. If people would just report the great job we’re doing, then we’d be more politically popular. And of course, the press scorer wants the truth because that is fundamentally what they’re there to report. And so there should be an alignment there, but it’s when the objectives and the perspectives get out of whack that I think the relationship gets a little bit afraid and difficult.
Lauren Gibbons | Bridge Michigan (00:48:07):
Hi, I am Lauren Gibbons. I’m a reporter with Bridge Michigan, and I was curious to ask both of you, especially as a reporter who frequently like to have some of those on background conversations and really get to know my sources, who I’m interacting with, for those of us who are representing regional or statewide newsrooms but don’t have the direct DC presence, do you have any tips on how to stand out or how to build those relationships from afar?
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:48:41):
I would start with the fact that the folks that you deal with locally at the state and regional government level have connections here. And it goes back to what one of the previous panelists said about who can you connect with that knows somebody else. So while you may not have sources in dc, other people that you do know locally have sources that can put you in touch with folks that might be able to help, that’s the easiest, not easiest. That’s one way because again, you’re not physically here to develop those one-on-one relationships, so how can you leverage the relationships you have, the people you do know? Because one of the other things, and one of the previous panelists talked about oftentimes government officials out in parts of the country where you are away from DC are also afraid to speak because this word has come down from on high. But in my experience, the farther you get away from the flagpole, as we say, the easier it is to get away with that stuff. It’s the ones that are here that are under the most pressure. Not that there’s no pressure on the folks out where you are, but it’s less likely those folks aren’t getting polygraphed like the folks here and signing NDAs and things like that. So developing those local sources that have sources in DC that can help.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:50:12):
I would also say know something personally about the people that you’re dealing with. Look up their bios, know where they went to college. Do they have kids? Where do their kids go to school? Because then you might find some common connections and then that establishes more rapport. The more you look like you have an interest in them as who they are as people as opposed to whatever official title they have. I mean, flattery will get you a long way as we discover all the time now. So I would show some interest.
Taylor Vance | Mississippi Today (00:50:54):
Hi, my name is Taylor Vance. I’m a reporter with Mississippi today, a news outlet based in Jackson, Mississippi. And something that I have noticed that communications and press officials are doing more and more to use to their advantage is to rely more on partisan media outlets and less on mainstream traditional outlets. And it makes our job very hard because we’re not even necessarily looking to be jerks or overly critical. We’re just trying to do our jobs and just be very fair and be accurate. But I find less or more and more that communications officials, they don’t really even want that. They want to turn to partisan outlets who are going to give them more glowing coverage than a mainstream outlet. So I’m just curious what advice that you would have to sort of combat that.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:51:50):
Well, the first thing I would do is I would cover that. I would write a story about that and point out that these officials are going to their home audience, but remember something important politically, they may do that, but they’ve got to, if they want to win elections, they got to get to 50%. And if they’re only going to go talk to the social media platforms that correspond to their base, they’re going to get like 35 to 40% if they’re lucky, but they’re not going to win elections that way. And so then you begin to report on so-and-so is in political trouble because they can’t seem to summons up enough support from independence or people who are centrist, who don’t necessarily buy into whatever partisan stuff that they’re doing. So I think part of this is reporting on the political culture that we’re in right now, which is obviously very dysfunctional, but it’s calling out the idea that you can get by with just only talking to your base because I don’t think that works in politics and it shouldn’t work.
(00:53:07):
The best politics should be about how do you assemble a coherent majority or plurality that actually brings people together, and you can’t exist in a democracy that only is catering to people who are on the extremes. So I think one of the other things would be to venerate and hold up people who are in the center who are trying to bring people together. There’s been a couple of stories the last couple of days that you may or may not be following all the stuff going on here in Washington, but some stories about Jeanne Shaheen, who’s a US Senator from New Hampshire, who’s actually been working to try to figure out how do you bring a center together and how do you actually recreate something so that the center can hold, which that great poems, things fall apart, the center cannot hold. You’ve got to figure out how do you profile and lift up the people who are actually doing good work. There’s so much in the press of which contention, confrontation, conflict. Those are the things that really get journalists excited. If we could get journalists excited about people who are actually doing good work and bringing people together and trying to do the right thing, that would be restorative for our democracy.
Whitney McKnight | The Edge (00:54:45):
Hi, my name is Whitney McKnight with the edge on the edge of Appalachia in Kentucky. I’ve been listening to everyone speak, and the aggregate seems to be, we don’t know what kind of times we’re actually in, they’re just chaotic. So I’m wondering if you could either of you, both of you go deeper into the ways that the media or the press can respond and also kind of shape expectations about the future. Because one of the takeaways I’m formulating as I listen to everyone is that media should change too. News should be changing too, but not to just be responding, but maybe there are some proactive things, better questions, predictions, even listening to the former panels speaking about how the weather service is going to really, the bottom seems to be falling out, maybe put some parameters around that explain to people, look, this is coming. This is what’s happening. This will be different. Do you think that that sort of take on the future for reporters would be useful, appropriate? I don’t know. I just feel like that our jobs are actually changing as a result of this, and it’s more than just saying, oh, he lied. Everything should be changing. It’s kind of a theoretical question, but I think that it’s driving different decisions.
Former Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (00:56:11):
Yes. One, I would agree that it calls for a different approach than what we’re used to. I think part of this, and local journalists, I don’t want to make it sound like local journalists haven’t been doing this forever. You all do day in and day out, but it’s finding those issues that affect people personally. It’s so easy to get caught up in the circuits of what’s happening in DC that people lose sight of what’s happening to affect people. Personally, I’ve said, and again, I worked at Homeland Security. I’ve said that this immigration issue that people theoretically are like, yes, we should secure our borders and we should cut down an immigration until it affects somebody in their town, the local people that they know and go to school with or that coach the soccer team or that work in the local plant, right? And we’re starting to see more on of those types of stories that can provide more of a perspective on what’s going on globally here in DC because all the major news organizations, certainly the cable nets are the worst, in my opinion, at making everything about DC and about and horse race politics.
(00:57:41):
So getting beyond the politics to what’s actually affecting people in their lives. Like Mike said, policy formulation in DC is this thing that goes on making the sausage, but at the end of the day, it affects people’s lives very personally. So get beyond the policy arguments, get beyond the partisanship and the bickering, and talk about how these are affecting people day in and day out.
Mike McCurry/former White House Press Secretary to Pres. Bill Clinton (00:58:10):
I think this is the great question for the future of journalism, and it began back in the seventies and eighties about the question, should we have advocacy journalism or some call it accountability journalism that actually calls out and very directly challenges those in power when they do things that are demonstrably false or against the common good? Or do we just stick with journalism 1 0 1 and report factually what happened? Here’s what so-and-so said, here’s what the response was, just the facts. And I think there’s got to be a journalism that develops both of those in parallel. There has to be a place where you’re just going to get factual information on which I can then have my opinion, and then you can have opinion based journalism that actually points out what the flaws are, what the dangers are, what the lies are, but they cannot merge and coexist.
(00:59:26):
I mean, one of the things I have seen grow over time is the amount of opinion that is inserted into straight news reporting. And I don’t think that’s a good thing. I mean, I think you need to divorce the reporting about here’s what so-and-so said, and here’s factually what the information is and separate that out from everyone’s opinion about all of that. And I almost think like the other thing about in communications consulting, you always have to tell your clients, you have to repeat it over and over and over again. Journalists do not have that concept in their head because they think, we told you this once and we reported it as news, and now we’re off to the next subject. So part of this would be journalism that goes back to, again, every day reporting the same factual information that what was said yesterday was a lie, and it’s a lie today and it hasn’t been corrected, and put it on the front page every day so that there’s a little box that says, here’s the truth box on the front page every day that says the same lies are standing and have not been corrected.
(01:00:51):
So it is changing the concept of how you present information, content to the public in a way that allows them to begin to get a better grasp on what is reality, because we are losing that as it drifts off into social media and wherever bubble you want to be in, and that’s where you’re going to live to get your content, you got to bring people back to the important stuff that matters that they have to confront every day. It can be done in print. It’s hard to do it in print. I know and print publications, many of you are in print publications, as we all know, local news coverage is drying up as the economics and the business changes, but we’ve got to somehow either keep hold of that and keep it vibrant and figure out economic models that make it profitable to run those kinds of news organizations. Otherwise, we’re going to lose something that is, I think, pretty critical to democracy.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (01:02:00):
Honest brokers are hard to find in this town and in all the business that we do. But these are two of the best, and I want you to join me in thanking them for spending the time and sharing their knowledge with us today. Thank you so much.
