A Bloomberg News White House correspondent shared her experiences covering the president and her definition of a good journalist during the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Must See Monday event on Sept. 29.
Margaret Talev has always been a fan of journalism, from watching Walter Cronkite on CBS as a child to her current profession at Bloomberg. Talev gave insight into what it is like to be a member of the White House press pool.
Talev works within a small 13-person section of the White House press corps, called a pool. The pool travels closely with the president and shares important news about his activities and speeches with the public.
Talev has worked for several different publications during her time as a journalist, including the Tampa Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee, but covering the White House is completely different from regular journalism, she said.
“The White House operates like basically no other place,” Talev said. “There are stories that you can get by confronting them head on. There are stories where the police tell you you have to get away from the line and so you can’t interview the person who’s right in front of you.”
Figuring out an alternative way to reach a source is one of the most important lessons a journalist can learn before coming to the White House, she said.
Talev said her father escaped from Bulgaria in the 1960s, so her family discussed and debated politics constantly throughout her childhood. They watched CBS News every night, and Walter Cronkite became her journalistic hero and a huge inspiration in her career, she said.
She said another factor that played a role in her decision to become a journalist was learning about her father’s experiences growing up in Bulgaria, where no one could tell the truth because it would get them in trouble.
“It sort of felt like a family legacy,” Talev said.
Talev said it can be very difficult to get questions answered at the White House, especially in limited-access events called “pool sprays,” such as when the president meets with foreign leaders or addresses his cabinet.
She said in those cases, the president usually has prepared a statement to give to the press before asking them to leave. The press pool only has a moment at the end to shout questions in hopes of getting some of them answered, she said.
“Everybody’s looking for a different angle, the thing that sets them apart,” Talev said. “It’s very competitive, but sort of collegially competitive, in the White House press corps.”
Part of this is tradition, she said, but part of it is because the competing reporters have a lot more in common with each other than they do with the White House, which wants to get the press out of the way and set its own agenda.
The news media is changing, Talev said, and the White House’s exclusion of the press from certain events has made it harder to catch information in the “media filter.” The White House uses its web site and various forms of social media, including Twitter, to bypass the news media and share its agenda directly with the public, she said.
“They are, in many ways, pioneering the new internal way of communicating,” Talev said.
Talev said the best journalists are curious, humble and experienced with various types of reporting. The reporters that come to the White House have usually covered a variety of topics, including public policy, and are familiar with writing about issues of substance, she said.
“They tend to have had experiences before they came to the beat that informed their reporting and their sourcing and kind of their world view,” Talev said.
The transformation of news in recent years through the Internet and social media has “changed the game entirely,” Talev said.
She said instead of going to get the news, people now expect to receive it immediately. She added that TV news allows familiarity with the audience, because people recognize and trust newscasters, while social media allows people who normally avoid reading longer stories to still receive the news.
Talev said this has been a cultural adjustment for her because she has always been a “print person,” but there is no longer such a thing as print media. Now, journalists are expected to be able to use many different types of media.
“We’re all learning all of this stuff now, and the real commodity you guys have is that you can already do all of it,” Talev said while addressing the journalism students in the audience.
Reactions from the students about Talev’s experiences reporting on the White House were generally positive.
“This was my first time coming to the Must See Mondays, so I thought it was really interesting learning how different it is from regular journalism,” said Lillian Griego, a student at the Cronkite School.
Nicole Praga, a journalism freshman, said she enjoyed the presentation and liked that Talev incorporated personal stories.
“It was cool to learn what it’s like being a White House reporter,” Praga said.
Praga also said Talev had good advice for journalism students, telling them to take advantage of the opportunities Cronkite offers and to make sure to have a well-rounded education so they are prepared for the journalism field.
Contact the reporter at gbosch@asu.edu
