Chapter 5
The Speaker and the Press
Betsy Palmer
Analyst in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
Thirteen years after he last held the gavel as Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Joseph ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon (R-MO) graced the cover of
a new national magazine. It was March 3, 1923, and Cannon, who served as
Speaker from 1903 until 1911, had just announced his retirement from the
House. The editors of Time decided to write a tribute to Cannon and his
turbulent times as leader and accompany it with a sketch of the former
Speaker on their very first cover. The article on the inside of the
magazine is hardly what modern readers would consider a cover story--
just a few paragraphs on one page. The magazine wrote:
Uncle Joe in those days was a Speaker of the House and supreme
dictator of the Old Guard. Never did a man employ the office of the
Speaker with less regard for its theoretical impartiality. To Uncle Joe,
the Speakership was a gift from heaven, immaculately born into the
Constitution by the will of the fathers for the divine purpose of
perpetuating the dictatorship of the standpatters in the Republican
party. And he followed the divine call with a resolute evangelism that
was no mere voice crying in the wilderness, but a voice that forbade
anybody else to cry out--out of turn.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Uncle Joe,'' Time, vol. 1, Mar. 3, 1923, p. 2.
Seventy-two years later, a Speaker achieved another first with Time--
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was named its ``Man of the Year'' for 1995,
the first House Speaker ever to be so honored.\2\ These profiles of
Cannon and Gingrich are part of a complex history of the relationship
between the Speaker and the press corps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Nancy Gibbs and Karen Tumulty, ``Master of the House,'' Time, vol.
146, Dec. 25, 1995, p. 54.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several elements appear to affect the kind of relationship a Speaker
has with the press corps. Among these elements, raised as questions, are
the following: Is the Speaker the opposition voice for the party that
does not control the White House? Do the Speaker and his party (they
have all been men) have a clearly defined and explained legislative
agenda? What kind of personality does the Speaker bring to the job? Is
he confrontational? Confident? Or more of a quiet, behind-the-scenes
dealmaker?
Perhaps the most important element affecting the relationship between
the Speaker and the press has been the changing nature of the press
itself. There have been three major eras that help to understand the
volatile interaction and inter-dependence between the Speaker and the
press. The first was characterized by partisanship on the part of the
press, the second was marked by Speakers who carefully cultivated
relationships with a few congressional reporters, and the third was
defined by the advent of television and electronic broadcasting. This
chapter examines Speakers during each of the three periods, focusing on
those who had well-documented relationships with the press.
An Era of Partisanship
In the earliest days of the House, reporters and the newspapers for
which they wrote were explicitly partisan. Their goal was not merely to
report the news, but to do so in a way that helped the political party
with which they were affiliated. Many reporters found that their
fortunes rose and fell with that of their party. So, for example, when
the House convened for a lame duck session in November 1800 after the
defeat of the Federalists:
Samuel Smith of the Intelligencer and John Stewart of the Federalist
were on hand to cover its debates, and the two reporters petitioned for
a place on the House floor. Federalist Speaker Theodore Sedgwick cast a
tie-breaking vote against them, on the grounds that their presence would
destroy the dignity of the chamber and inconvenience its members. When
the Intelligencer challenged the Speaker's ruling, Sedgwick ordered
editor Smith banned from the House lobby and galleries. The election of
Thomas Jefferson, together with new Republican majorities in Congress,
vastly improved Samuel Smith's fortunes. The House welcomed him back,
and in January 1802 voted forty-seven to twenty-eight to find room on
the floor for the reporters.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington
Correspondents (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 12.
Hereafter referred to as Ritchie, Press Gallery.
At first, the most important role played by reporters in the Capitol
was that of recorders of debate, taking down for the record the debates
of what went on in the House and the Senate. Those summaries were made
available to newspapers outside Washington, which were free to use them
or not. Eventually, newspapers began hiring ``letter writing''
correspondents, who would sit in the House and Senate galleries and
compose commentaries on the actions of the two Chambers that would then
be sent home to their local newspapers. By the Civil War, there was an
identifiable press corps in Washington whose members focused most of
their attention on Capitol Hill.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Ibid., p. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reporters not only shared the political ideology of some of the
Members they covered, they also worked for Members during congressional
recesses. Newspapers could not afford to pay reporters for a full year's
work when Congress was in recess for a good portion of the time; so
reporters turned to the people they covered to find additional work.
Many were hired as clerks for committees or secretaries for Members
themselves.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Ibid., p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This made for an interesting relationship between the Speaker and the
press corps. During the winter of 1855-1856, for example, Horace
Greeley, a powerful editor and reporter for the New York Tribune, became
deeply involved in the hotly contested race for Speaker, even though he
was not a Member of the House.\6\ Greeley wanted to see Representative
Nathaniel Banks (D-MA) elected because of Banks' antislavery policies.
Greeley filed daily dispatches from the House as Members cast ballot
after ballot trying to elect a Speaker, and he made it clear he favored
Banks and worked on his behalf. ``After the House cast its 118th
unsuccessful ballot, Representative Albert Rust (D-AR) proposed that all
leading contenders withdraw in favor of a compromise candidate.''
Greeley wrote a letter strongly opposing Rust's plan, and the day after
the letter appeared in the Tribune, Rust encountered Greeley and
severely beat him. Greeley, however, recovered sufficiently to write
stories about Banks' election as Speaker on the 133d ballot.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Greeley had been elected as a Whig to the 30th Congress, from
December 4, 1848 to March 3, 1849.
\7\ Ritchie, Press Gallery, pp. 50-51.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reporters were so involved in the politics of Washington that many
also decided to run for office themselves. The first journalist to
become Speaker of the House was Schuyler Colfax, a Republican from
Indiana, who served as Speaker from December 7, 1863 through March 1869.
Schuyler Colfax's election as Speaker had brought special pleasure to
the press . . . Now one of their own--the proprietor and occasional
letter writer to the South Bend Register--presided over the House of
Representatives. . . . To celebrate Colfax's election as Speaker, the
Washington Press corps hosted a dinner in his honor, one of the first of
what became a favored device for bringing together reporters and
politicians in a social setting. ``We journalists and men of the
newspaper press do love you, and claim you as bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh,'' said toastmaster Sam Wilkeson. ``Fill your glasses, all,
in an invocation to the gods for long life, greater successes, and ever-
increasing happiness to our editorial brother in the Speaker's Chair.''
. . . Having sprung from the press, Speaker Colfax applied the lessons
of his profession skillfully, making himself always available for
interviews, planting stories, sending flattering notes to editors,
suggesting editorials, and spreading patronage. He intended to parlay
his popularity with the press into a national following that would make
him the first journalist in the White House.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ibid., p. 67.
But the Speaker of this period who would transcend even Colfax's
popularity with the press was James G. Blaine (R-ME). Blaine came to
politics directly from journalism--he had been the part owner of the
Kennebec Journal, and later accepted the editorship of the Portland, ME,
Advertiser. Blaine was elected to Congress in 1862, and served as
Speaker for three Congresses, from 1869 to 1875. He was a contender for
the Republican Presidential nomination in both 1876 and 1880, and was
the party's nominee in 1884.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T.
White and Company, 1891), vol. 1, pp. 137-139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine used his news experience to win over the Washington press
corps. ``Blaine courted correspondents for Republican and Democratic
papers alike and learned how to give reporters what they wanted. Having
begun as an editor and reporter, rather than as a lawyer, he employed
his instinct for news and genius for self-advertisement to generate an
immense and devoted national following.'' \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Ritchie, Press Gallery, p. 131.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine took care to cultivate personal relationships with reporters,
calling them by their first names and seeking them out with news. He
also came up with unique ways to get his point of view into the
newspaper. ``Blaine invented the Sunday news release, recognizing that
anything distributed on that slow news day would get prominent display
in the Monday papers. He experimented with the semipublic letter,
intended more for the press than for its nominal recipient. He floated
trial balloons to test public sentiment, and disavowed them if they
burst.'' \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Ibid., p. 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``No man in America better understood the ways and means of reaching
the public ear through the newspaper press than Blaine,'' wrote
correspondent David Barry. Blaine actively pursued reporters, regardless
of their party, but ``if a reporter wrote critically of Blaine he found
himself cut off from this important source,'' Barry wrote. \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Ibid., p. 137.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine's intense attention to press relations served him well during
the Credit Mobilier scandal. Lobbyists were accused of giving Members of
Congress stock in Credit Mobilier, a Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary,
at par value, i.e., less than half its market price, sometimes without
making Members pay for the stock at all. Speaker Colfax was accused of
participating in the stock dealings, and the scandal contributed to the
demise of his career. Blaine, however, who also stood accused of
obtaining stock at less than market value, decided to take on his
accusers and managed to weather the storm.
Blaine's broker, James Mulligan, had kept letters from Blaine about
the stock deals, which investigators wanted to make public. Blaine went
to Mulligan's hotel room in Washington and took the letters. Then, from
the floor of the House, Blaine read selected portions designed to clear
himself of the charges. To the amazement of his opponents, he was
successful, though it became clear later that he had edited the letters
rather substantially in their reading to the House.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Ibid., pp. 139-142.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Credit Mobilier scandal left a lasting imprint on the relationship
between the press and Congress, as noted by Henry Boyton, an influential
reporter for the Cincinnati Gazette in post-Civil War Washington. Boyton
wrote that the scandal marked a turning point in the relations between
the press and the politicians they covered:
The general relations of friendship between the two classes continued,
however, without marked interruption to the days of the explosions over
Credit Mobilier and kindred scandals. Up to that time Newspaper Row was
daily and nightly visited by the ablest and most prominent men in public
affairs. Vice presidents, the heads of departments, heads of bureaus,
the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress, and the strongest
and most noted men of the Senate and of the House in the grandest period
of the Republic's life, were frequent and welcome visitors in the
Washington offices of the leading journals of the land. Suddenly, with
the Credit Mobilier outbreak, and others of its kind which followed it,
these pleasant relations began to dissolve under the sharp and deserved
criticism of the correspondents. To this situation succeeded long years
of estrangement. Newspaper Row was gradually deserted by the class
named.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Henry V.N. Boyton, ``The Press and Public Men,'' Century, vol. 42,
Oct. 1891, p. 855.
The press also became concerned about the many reporters who lobbied
the government at the same time they were writing stories about
Congress. In November 1877, Boyton and other leaders of the press met
with House Speaker Samuel Randall (D-PA) to discuss press gallery
accreditation. Over the next 2 years the journalists created a set of
rules that defined who could be an accredited journalist, a plan that
was adopted by a gathering of reporters in 1879. The House agreed to the
plan later the same year, and the Senate followed suit in 1884. Under
the plan, a group of five journalists, called the Standing Committee of
Correspondents, would monitor the galleries and be responsible for
ensuring that lobbyists did not use the facilities reserved for
reporters.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ritchie, Press Gallery, p. 109.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The press was also in a major transition at this time, from partisan
newspapers that covered the Capitol with an ideological intent, to
money-making businesses, where getting the news was what mattered.
``From the 1860s to the 1920s, the newspaper served less and less well
as a medium of traditional exuberant partisanship,'' wrote media scholar
Michael McGerr. By the 1870s, an independent press, focused more on a
``restrained and factual style'' had emerged, a development aided by the
creation and expansion of the Associated Press.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Michael E. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics: The American
North, 1865-1928 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 107;
Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American
Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1978), p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These elements--the development of a less partisan press, the creation
of a formalized structure for journalists within Congress and the
distance between the press and politicians following the Credit Mobilier
scandal--marked the beginning of a new period in the relationship
between the Speaker and the press, a time when many reporters were
viewed by Speakers with suspicion, but a few came to be regarded as
trusted allies and friends.
``The Boys'' of the Press
Speaker Joe Cannon, who was Speaker from 1903 to 1911, divided the
press into two groups--those who regularly covered Capitol Hill and
those who did not. For the former, Cannon had praise and even some
affection--in 1908 he was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of
Crosby S. Noyes, editor in chief of the Evening Star, then the leading
Washington daily, for example.\17\ It was the other reporters, those who
did not report out of Washington regularly, who earned Cannon's ire.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ ``Mr. Noyes at Rest,'' Washington Post, Mar. 1, 1908, p. 1.
I was always fond of the newspaper boys in Washington. Few of them
ever betrayed my confidences, and they said many nice things about me.
For the great part they were honorable men, animated by decent
instincts. It was significant that during the ``muckraking'' campaign
that flourished from about 1907 to 1911, few, if any of the regular
newspaper men in Washington took part. Their work was to report facts,
not to deal in slander and half-truths. The ``muckrakers'' were
generally men unfamiliar with Washington, politics or men in political
life. I attended Gridiron dinners regularly, for the Club was always
kind enough to ask me to go.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Joseph G. Cannon, The Memoir of Joseph Gurney ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon,
as transcribed by Helen Leseure Abdill (Danville, VA: Voorhees Printing
Co., 1996), p. 132.
This distinction between the ``regulars'' and those who did not spend
their time at the Capitol was adopted by many Speakers who followed
Cannon, regardless of their political affiliation. To some extent, it
has influenced how Speakers from Cannon on related to the press.
Cannon, known to friend and foe as ``Uncle Joe,'' was a major national
figure during his speakership, particularly in 1910 during the struggle
with a group of insurgent House Republicans over the scope of his
control. He became a favorite subject of editorial writers and
cartoonists, who called him a ``czar'' or a ``tyrant.'' The Speaker
blamed the bad press, or the ``muckraking'' as he called it, on what he
said was a cabal of newspaper reporters and editors who had wanted him
to support changing the tariff on woodpulp and print paper.
According to Cannon, a newspaper editor by the name of Herman Ridder
said he would help Cannon obtain the 1908 Republican Presidential
nomination if Cannon would support the changes to the tariff. Cannon
said later he had no idea if Ridder could have helped him win the
Republican nomination, but he thought it was clear Ridder could hurt him
for not going along. ``[A]nyone who read the papers for the three years
or so following 1907 must remember the success that he or someone else
achieved in a campaign of vilification, virtual misrepresentation, and
personal abuse of myself, along with the responsible Republican leaders
of the House.'' \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Ibid., pp. 140-141.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever the reason, Cannon certainly saw his fair share of critical
coverage by the national press, as documented by scholar Scott William
Ranger.
Extensive and sometimes biased press coverage of the rules controversy
had alerted the public to the fact that Speaker Cannon might not be
quite the benevolent character they had once believed him to be.
The Baltimore Sun cited Cannon as being ``the very embodiment of all
the sinister interests and malign influences that have brooded over this
land and exacted toil from every hearthstone.'' Both Colliers and
Success magazines had been running articles in regular installments that
not only detailed the Speaker's wrongdoings but also praised the
insurgents. When a large segment of the public responded by turning
against Cannon, some moderate Republicans realized that their own
political futures would soon be in jeopardy if they continued to support
him. The press, therefore, did the insurgents an absolutely invaluable
service. The Speaker was angered by the press assault and the public
response to it but refused to make changes in the way he ran the
House.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Scott William Rager, ``Uncle Joe Cannon: the Brakeman of the House
of Representatives, 1911-1915,'' in Roger H. Davidson, Susan Webb
Hammond, and Raymond W. Smock, eds., Masters of the House: Congressional
Leadership Over Two Centuries (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), p.
77.
The Washington Post, in a profile of Cannon, began the story like
this: ``The central figure in every discussion of the American Congress
today is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph Gurney
Cannon. He is as much of a character in American politics as was the
rugged Andrew Jackson, or the terrible John Randolph of Roanoke, or the
imperious Roscoe Conkling.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Frederick J. Haskin, ``The American Congress: XX. Speaker Cannon's
Career,'' Washington Post, Dec. 12, 1909, p. 7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Speaker, Cannon was in charge of the House press gallery, an
organization of reporters established in 1890. The 1890 agreement
between the House and the press corps established a permanent gallery on
the third floor of the Capitol from which reporters could watch House
floor action. In addition, the press gallery had office space for
reporters to make and receive phone calls and write their reports.\22\
Cannon delegated control of the gallery and the care of the press to his
secretary, L. White Busbey, a former Washington correspondent for
Chicago newspapers:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ This was the first press gallery, designed for the ``print'' press,
or those who wrote for daily newspapers. Over time, both the House and
Senate created additional, separate press galleries for the periodical
press (such as weekly magazines) and for radio and television reporters.
The Speaker had charge of the press gallery, and I turned this over to
Busbey, telling him that I would hold him fully responsible for keeping
the boys happy, and that he was not to bring any disputes to me unless
there was no escape . . . The newspaper boys always seemed to have a
hankering for stories and Busbey relieved me of too much interruption by
them. Busbey had a busy life, working to all hours.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Cannon, The Memoir of Joseph Gurney ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon, pp. 119-
120.
Speakers who followed Cannon, also appeared to enjoy the company of
Capitol Hill reporters. Speaker Frederick H. Gillett, for example,
joined a dozen members of the Senate press gallery and an equal number
of Senators in a golf game in 1922.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Henry Litchfield West, ``Scribes Easy for Senatorial Golfers,''
Washington Post, June 28, 1922, p. 10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Nicholas Longworth (R-OH), Speaker from 1925 to 1931, played
the inside game with reporters to great advantage. The charming husband
of Alice Roosevelt was extremely popular with the press. He was able to
move portions of President Coolidge's legislative program through the
House in just 2 short months, for example, and won plaudits from the
press for this achievement.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Donald C. Bacon, ``Nicholas Longworth: The Genial Czar,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 135.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Said another writer: ``. . . an indisputable aura of glamor did hover
around Nicholas Longworth. He was even profiled by a movie magazine, and
though he was the only Speaker in history to whom the klieg lights were
so attracted, there was no egoistic pretension about him.'' Further,
``Another result of Longworth's characteristic detachment--or cynicism,
some call it--was to endear him to newsmen who had been born knowing
that life would go on no matter what the Congress decided. Many of them
became enthusiastic fans of Longworth, and they tendered him the kind of
praise few politicians have ever enjoyed.'' \26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Richard B. Cheney and Lynne V. Cheney, Kings of the Hill: Power and
Personality in the House of Representatives (New York: Continuum, 1983)
pp. 156, 158. Hereafter referred to as Cheney, Kings of the Hill.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
His method of dealing with the press was described in detail in an
Associated Press article, written by Walter Chamblin, that was included
in a biography of Longworth written by his sister. The story sets the
scene in Longworth's private office just off the floor of the Chamber
after the House had adjourned for the day:
It was in this retreat that the press learned to know and to love him.
His door never was closed to a reporter and no matter how muddled the
legislative situation might be, Nick ever was smiling and genial.
Nothing pleased him more than for the correspondents to arrive with a
batch of good stories. He would laugh heartily and then would tell one
of his own. His supply seemingly was inexhaustible. It was in such a
setting that Nick liked best to discuss affairs with the press. He never
cared much for formal conferences, which are so popular with most
officials in Washington, although at times a troop of correspondents
would arrive from the Senate or downtown departments and insist on such
an interview. He always complied, but seldom spoke as freely as he did
at the informal gatherings. No matter how his social engagements might
pile up, he always found time to attend any gathering of correspondents.
He was invited to all . . . Upon a few occasions when the correspondents
felt that their prerogatives were being ignored, such as instances
usually arising with some new Representative who arrived at the Capitol
quite puffed up over the importance of his office, the Speaker each time
personally took up the battle for the press. He believed the press of
paramount importance in the functioning of the House.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Clara Longworth DeChambrun, The Making of Nicholas Longworth:
Annals of an American Family (New York: Ray Long and Richard Smith,
Inc., 1933), pp. 306-307.
This easy, comfortable behind-the-scenes relationship with the press
allowed Longworth to shape news coverage to his liking in many
instances, persuading some reporters, for example, that the House was
the predominant Chamber over the Senate during much of his
speakership.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Cheney, Kings of the Hill, p. 158.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following Longworth's unexpected death, there followed three one-term
Speakers. The first of those, John Nance Garner held views about the
press similar to those of Longworth. ``He granted few formal interviews
to the press, although he admitted a small number of correspondents into
his personal circle and sometimes used them for his political purposes.
Reporters such as Cecil Dickson, Marquis James, and especially Bascom
Timmons were as close to him as any politician.'' \29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Anthony Champagne, ``John Nance Garner,'' in Masters of the House,
p. 152.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Garner, who was Speaker from December 1931 through March 1933, held a
regular, daily briefing for the press when the House was in session,
possibly the first Speaker to do so. This tradition, of meeting with the
press before the start of the day's session to discuss the House's
schedule, continued for more than 60 years until Speaker Newt Gingrich
dropped it in 1995.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ ``Garner and Rainey Reply,'' New York Times, June 26, 1932, p. 21.;
Howard Kurtz, ``Gingrich Plans to End Daily News Briefings,'' Washington
Post, May 3, 1995, p. A7.
A Complex Relationship
Speaker Sam Rayburn was known to dislike dealing with the press. The
Texas Democrat ``actively avoided much of the media, especially
television. He refused to appear on the popular television talk show of
the day, `Meet the Press,' and routinely avoided most print and
broadcast reporters as well . . .'' \31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Elaine S. Povich, Partners and Adversaries: The Contentious
Connection Between Congress and the Media (Arlington, VA: Freedom Forum,
1996), p. 13.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During at least some of the time he was Speaker, however, Rayburn
rented a room in the house of C.P. Trusell, a congressional reporter for
the New York Times. Rayburn and Trusell were good friends, such good
friends that the reporter eventually asked the Speaker to move out.
Trusell reportedly was having trouble keeping his information straight,
separating what he knew from his own work and what he had learned about
the goings on in the House from his friendship with Rayburn, information
that could not be reported.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ Jim Cannon, ``Congress and the media: the loss of trust,'' in
Partners and Adversaries, pp. 68-69.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn distinguished between ``the press,'' a generic group he did
not like, and certain congressional reporters, who he trusted and with
whom he was friends. Two anecdotes illustrate how Rayburn saw this
divide. One, recounted in a largely positive biography of the Speaker,
shows him helping a reporter he knew. The other shows his disdain for
television, a form of media with which he was uncomfortable.
In the first story, the teenage daughter of a reporter who had been at
several of Rayburn's press conferences had died. Early the morning after
her death, Rayburn went to the reporter's house to offer his
condolences. The book continues:
``I just came by to see what I could do to help,'' he [Rayburn] said.
A bit flustered, the father replied, ``I don't think there's anything
you can do. We're making all the arrangements.''
``Well, have you had your coffee this morning?'' Mr. Sam asked.
``No, we haven't had time.''
``Well,'' he replied promptly, ``I can at least make the coffee this
morning.''
And while Mr. Sam was puttering about in the kitchen, the reporter
said, ``Mr. Speaker, I thought you were supposed to be having breakfast
at the White House this morning.''
``Well, I was, but I called the President and told him I had a friend
who was in trouble, and I couldn't come.'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ C. Dwight Dorough, Mr. Sam (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 287.
In the second tale, Rayburn explained to Lawrence Spivak, a well-known
journalist, why he would not appear on the NBC program, ``Meet the
Press.'' ``I never go on programs such as yours because some twenty or
more years ago I did go on a panel program on the radio and all the
folks on the panel got in such an argument that I had enough.'' The
writer continues, ``Never having had a very high opinion of publicity,
he wasn't going to change his mind about it now. One of the greatest
compliments he could pay a colleague was to say, `He doesn't run around
getting his name in the newspapers all the time.' '' \34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Cheney, Kings of the Hill, pp. 177-178.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn was direct with the reporters he did decide to talk to. ``He
handled the press in the same straightforward way he had since they
first started paying him attention. The reporters who came to his office
got five minutes for their questions. His answers were short, to the
point and off the record. `You'll have to go somewhere else to get your
quotes,' he told them.'' \35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Ibid., p. 178.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was clear that Rayburn saw the value in letting certain, selected
reporters into his confidence. They were invited to the ultimate
insider's meetings, the sessions with the ``Board of Education,'' as it
was known, the late-night meetings and drinking sessions of some of the
most powerful men in Washington, led by Rayburn in his Capitol hideaway.
``In Rayburn's mind, these trusted reporters were different from the
rest of the national press; they understood and appreciated the work of
the House of Representatives. They also understood the importance of
longstanding personal relationships as Rayburn did, and would not
sacrifice those relationships for a single story. It was a true
symbiotic relationship.'' \36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Joe S. Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in Ronald M. Peters,
ed., The Speaker: Leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives
(Washington: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1994), p. 137.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn's contact with this group of media was not necessarily
designed to reach out to the country, or to try and build any kind of
grassroots coalitions. Rather, he used the reporters, many of whom
worked for the country's top news organizations, to communicate with his
fellow Members. ``Speaker Rayburn perceived relationships with reporters
as an advantage internally within the House rather than a conduit to a
national constituency. He was far more concerned with what his
colleagues read than with what the general public read.'' \37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ Ibid., p. 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn also continued the daily press briefings begun under earlier
Speakers. For 5 minutes before the start of the House he would meet with
reporters. The questions and the tone of those briefings made it clear
he was aiming the information at his fellow House Members primarily.
``It was purely an insider's game. Questions focused on arcane procedure
or mundane scheduling of business. . . . Observers not initiated to the
process would have a difficult time understanding what was going on.
House jargon and parliamentary shorthand punctuated answers.'' \38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was clear that the trust he gave to the reporters was repaid. In a
lengthy profile of Rayburn for the New York Times, reporter William S.
White tells the story of having been in the room when Rayburn was
notified of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he makes
it clear that he would not divulge the specifics of what Rayburn said:
His heavy and very nearly immobile face was still in the shadows and
the only movements upon it were the small and barely visible traces of
the tears. He swept them away roughly. For a long time, no one said
anything at all. Then Mr. Rayburn hunched his shoulders and, looking out
unseeingly into the dusk, he spoke slowly in short, hard, phrases as
though talking to himself. There, before friends, in words that are yet
under the seal of that room (in which this correspondent was among those
present), Mr. Rayburn took an oath for the future. Its substance was
that Sam Rayburn--Southern Democrat and all--had followed Franklin
Roosevelt in life, and that Sam Rayburn would follow Franklin Roosevelt
in death.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ William S. White, ``Sam Rayburn--The Untalkative Speaker,'' New
York Times, Feb. 27, 1949, p. SM10.
Rayburn's dislike of television extended into committee rooms. In
1952, Rayburn decided to ban radio and television broadcasts of House
committee hearings, reasoning it was an extension of the ban on
televising House action. In 1957, the chair of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, Francis E. Walter (D-PA), implicitly challenged
the ban by holding a televised field hearing in San Francisco. He was
admonished by Rayburn sufficiently so that no other chair challenged the
camera ban.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in The Speaker: Leadership in
the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 140.
Changing Environment
While Rayburn was a master at using the press to play his inside game,
the nature of the press and the relationship between the press and the
politicians they covered began to change in such a way that Rayburn's
successors, John McCormack (D-MA) and Carl Albert (D-OK), were not able
to use the same relationship-based technique for their media plan.
The Vietnam war and Watergate influenced the way reporters viewed both
their jobs and Members of Congress. The two events combined to change
the relationship between the reporters and their subjects into a much
more confrontational posture. Added to that, the growth of television
and broadcast as the way Americans were getting their news left Speakers
such as McCormack struggling to cope with new demands from rank-and-file
Democrats to be more of a national figure and party spokesman. That
meant more air time, making television and radio speeches--a role
McCormack was uncomfortable trying to fill. ``Both the presidency and
the television networks grew in stature and visibility during the 1960s
while Congress stood silently in the background.'' \41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Ibid, p. 141.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elected to the speakership upon the death of Rayburn, McCormack served
in the Office from 1962 until 1971. As early as 1967, however, there
were rumblings among some House Democrats that Members wanted a more
dynamic spokesman. ``The question now being asked by his Democratic
critics is whether Mr. McCormack, with his gaunt, pale visage and his
tendency to talk in patriotic platitudes, has either the intellectual
drive or the proper public image to serve as a spokesman for the
Democratic party over the next two years,'' wrote John W. Finney for the
New York Times. He quoted an anonymous young Democratic House Member as
saying ``The trouble with John McCormack is that he is completely out of
touch with modern American politics.'' \42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ John W. Finney, ``McCormack, 77, Faces Increasing But Disorganized
Criticism,'' New York Times, Dec. 22, 1968, p. 32.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to one study, McCormack was mentioned on the nightly news
broadcasts of the three major networks 17 times in 1969. Five other
Members of the House, including Minority Leader Gerald Ford were
mentioned more frequently. In 1970, McCormack jumped to the front of the
pack, being mentioned 46 times, but by 1971, he did not make the list of
the top 15 House Members to be talked about on the evening news.\43\
However, it was during McCormack's speakership that the House authorized
its committees to make their own decisions about whether to allow
broadcast coverage of their hearings or meetings, thus overturning the
ban that Rayburn put in place in 1952.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Timothy E. Cook, Making Laws and Making News: Media Strategies in
the U.S. House of Representatives (Washington: Brookings Institution,
1989), pp. 192-193.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Albert, Speaker from 1971 until 1977, also found it difficult to
adapt to the new, changing media environment. When he was elected
majority leader under McCormack in 1962, he noted that he had done so
with very little media coverage. ``I never once got on television. The
sum total of my national publicity was a [press] release when I got into
the race and a [press] release when I got up to Washington saying I
thought I had enough votes to win. I refused to go on television,
although I was invited to go on most of the news and panel shows.'' \44\
Albert continued his low-profile style throughout his time in the
leadership. ``As Majority Leader, Albert has attracted little national
attention. He has made relatively few televised appearances and has
introduced little legislation on his own,'' a feature story on Albert
said.\45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Robert L. Peabody, Leadership in Congress: Stability, Succession
and Change (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976), p. 77.
\45\ ``Carl Albert of Oklahoma: Next House Speaker,'' Congressional
Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. 28, Dec. 25, 1970, p. 3074.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, he did take some steps into the media age. Albert was the
first Speaker to hire a press secretary. During Watergate, Albert took
into account the massive needs of the press, going so far as to begin
planning for possible broadcast of House impeachment proceedings against
President Richard Nixon:
While uneasy about the carnival atmosphere that was developing around
the Judiciary Committee hearings, Speaker Albert tried hard to
accommodate the television networks and the rest of the media. When the
Judiciary Committee had completed its work, Speaker Albert authorized
his staff to make plans for the televising of impeachment proceedings in
the House. This was a key decision, because it represented a turnaround
from Rayburn's strict ban on television in the House, which had been in
effect since the day Albert came to Congress in 1947. Speaker Albert's
willingness to open the House to television during this crucial moment
in history paved the way for permanent access to the House five years
later. \46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in The Speaker: Leadership in
the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 144.
A Media Celebrity
Albert's successor, Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill (D-MA) won rave reviews
both inside and outside the House for his handling of the media. One
reporter called him ``the first media celebrity in the history of the
Speakership.'' \47\ Another attributed much of O'Neill's success to his
management of the media:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ Alan Ehrenhalt, ``Media, Power Shifts Dominate O'Neill's House,''
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. XXX, Sept. 13, 1986, p.
2131.
O'Neill has built his mystique through the press. Albert feared the
press. O'Neill plays with it like a cat with a mouse. He has killed the
tough, post-Watergate press with candor and charm. Ask O'Neill about an
alleged gambling ring in a House office building and whether he has
quashed a Justice Department investigation into it. O'Neill says no, he
knew nothing about it. Then he regales the press with stories and mottos
about gambling. He tells the story of going to the Pimlico racetrack as
a young congressman and meeting J. Edgar Hoover there. Hoover offers him
a lift. He accepts. When they get back to town, Hoover discovers he has
taken the wrong car from the parking lot. There are no more questions
about the gambling ring.\48\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ Mary Russell, ``Speaker Scooping Up Power in the House,''
Washington Post, Aug. 7, 1977, p. 1.
O'Neill responded to the changing demands of the media by adopting new
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
patterns:
When I became majority leader in Washington, I was interviewed
constantly. I was always happy to talk to the press, but I drew the line
at the Sunday morning talk shows on television. After a full work week,
consisting of long days and frequent late evenings, I insisted on
keeping my weekends free for my family and friends. In 1977, when I
became Speaker, I started meeting with TV reporters each morning when I
arrived at work. Later in the morning, I would hold a news conference
before the House opened. I always told the truth, and almost never
answered with ``no comment.'' Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you're
straight with the press, they'll be straight with you.\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House: The Life and
Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill (New York: Random House, 1987),
p. 227
O'Neill realized, too, that he could use the daily Speaker's press
conference to get the party's message out to the public, as well as
fellow Members of Congress.\50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Ibid., p. 285.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite concerns from his fellow Members, O'Neill agreed to allow C-
SPAN broadcasts of House floor action, beginning in 1979, a decision he
would later say was one of the best he made as Speaker.\51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Ibid, p. 288.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As skillful as O'Neill was with the press, it was the 1980 election of
Republican President Ronald Reagan and a Republican Senate that really
thrust the Speaker on to the national stage. ``In the aftermath of the
Republican takeover of the Senate in the 1980 elections, the press
anointed Speaker O'Neill--now clearly the highest-ranked Democrat in
Washington--as chief Democratic spokesman and thus enhanced his media
access,'' wrote one congressional scholar.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ Barbara Sinclair, ``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House
Leadership,'' in Masters of the House, p. 309.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Democrats took a page from Reagan's playbook to urge O'Neill to
challenge Reagan's policies--frequently and publicly.
In the early 1980s Ronald Reagan taught House Democrats a lesson about
the uses of the media that altered their expectations of their own
leaders. Reagan's media skills and the favorable political climate
allowed him to dominate public debate and thereby dictate the policy
agenda and propagate a highly negative image of the Democratic party.
Unable as individuals to counter this threat to their policy and
reelection goals, Democrats expected their leaders to take on the task,
to participate effectively in national political discourse and thereby
promote the membership's policy agenda and protect and enhance the
party's image. Unlike rank-and-file House members, the party leadership
did have considerable access to the national media.\53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ Ibid, p. 290.
It was a part of a growing realization that the climate of Congress
itself had changed. No longer was it enough to make the case for
legislation within the Capitol, the public needed to be involved as
well. ``A decade ago, nearly all influential House members would have
said that legislative arguments are won on the floor, by the tireless
personal cultivation of colleagues. Nowadays, many of them say that sort
of work is only part of the story. Increasingly, they believe, floor
fights are won by orchestrating a campaign aimed over the heads of the
members, at the country at large. . . . `Sometimes to pass a bill,'
[House Majority Leader] Foley says, `you have to change the attitude of
the country.' '' \54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker O'Neill used his Office as a ``bully pulpit'' to challenge the
Reagan White House, particularly during his daily press briefings:
An O'Neill press conference these days is a media event, not only
because dozens of print and broadcast reporters crowd his office to hear
him, but because much of what he says is designed for their benefit.
O'Neill often begins with a prepared statement challenging one or
another aspect of Reagan administration policy, drafted for him by press
secretary Christopher J. Matthews, a glib wordsmith and specialist in
one-liners. Often, O'Neill's comments are repeated on the evening news
that night; even more often they are printed in the New York Times or
the Washington Post the next day.\55\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Ehrenhalt, ``Media, Power Shifts Dominate O'Neill's House,'' p.
2131.
Republicans saw this as an opportunity to use O'Neill as a target for
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
their anti-Democrat campaign--a strategy that did not succeed:
As part of their 1982 election campaign, Republicans tried to make the
Speaker, a heavy, rumpled man with a cartoonist's dream of an old pol
face, into a symbol of big, out-of-control government; generic ads with
an O'Neill look-alike were run nationwide. As a result, O'Neill became
much better known to the public at large than any Speaker before him.
(Presumably much to the Republicans' surprise, by the mid-1980s O'Neill
not only became a nationally known figure but a highly popular one.)
\56\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\56\ Sinclair, ``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House Leadership,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 309.
At the end of his speakership, Tip O'Neill was a nationally known
figure. ``Sam Rayburn could have walked down the streets of Spokane,
Wash., without anybody noticing him,'' Majority Whip Thomas S. Foley of
Washington [said in 1986], ``Tip O'Neill couldn't do that. And it's very
unlikely that any future Speaker will be anonymous to the country.''
\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Ehrenhalt, ``Media, Power Shifts Dominate O'Neill's House,'' p.
2131.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
O'Neill remained a popular public figure after leaving office in 1986.
``That Speaker O'Neill's autobiography was a best seller and that he
received contracts for a variety of high profile commercial endorsements
after leaving office showed just how high a Speaker's visibility could
climb in the television age,'' wrote one scholar.\58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in The Speaker: Leadership in
the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 150.
Democrats after O'Neill
Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX) continued in the steps of his predecessor,
reaching out to the press and maintaining high visibility as an
outspoken opponent of many Reagan administration policies, particularly
those in Central America. His relationship with the media had peaks and
valleys and some of his encounters with the press became verbal battles.
``Speaker Wright courted the media aggressively and was more available
for television appearances than any of his predecessors. . . . Yet, he
also had a more contentious relationship with journalists than previous
Speakers, once calling them `enemies of government.' '' \59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ Ibid, p. 151.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wright and the Democratic leadership of the House decided to use the
daily press conference even more than O'Neill had to push their
priorities. The leadership would meet prior to the press conference and
create a message for the day. ``Upon completion of the press conference,
the other party leaders would remain to talk to reporters in an effort
to reinforce Wright's points. Wright also extended contacts to broadcast
reporters immediately following the daily print meeting.'' \60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Douglas B. Harris, ``The Rise of the Public Speakership,''
Political Science Quarterly, vol. 113, Summer 1998, pp. 201-202.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Wright resigned as Speaker in May 1989, his successor, Thomas S.
Foley, had a much warmer relationship with the press. Foley cultivated
reporters by, among other things, having regular early morning
breakfasts with the Capitol's bureau chiefs and major newspaper
columnists.\61\ He also decided to release an unedited transcript of the
daily press conferences, which made it easier for reporters to check
their quotes and for those reporters who had missed the session to know
what had happened. Foley's relationship with the press is evidenced by
the following anecdote:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Jeffrey R. Biggs and Thomas S. Foley, Honor in the House (Pullman,
WA: Washington State University Press, 1999), p. 114.
Symbolic of Foley's relationship with the congressional press was the
press conference day when members of the press presented him with a T-
shirt that many of them had shown up wearing. A cartoon from the
Baltimore Sun portrayed the Speaker as a bonneted and exasperated nanny
surrounded by a pack of childlike adults dressed in knickers and in the
middle of a food fight. The text quoted Foley from his June 10, 1993
press conference when he was asked whether there was a lack of
leadership being marshaled on behalf of the president's agenda. Foley's
response: Everybody is exercising sufficient leadership. It is the
followership we are having trouble with.\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Biggs, Honor in the House, p. 131, italics in original.
Foley recognized the limits of what he could do in his daily meeting
with the press. ``While the traditional daily Speaker's press conference
served to influence the perceptions of opinion leaders in Congress and
the congressional media, it proved to be a very limited vehicle for
reaching the American people,'' he wrote in his book.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ Quoted in Ibid., p. 180.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foley wrote that he wondered if he should have opened up the daily
briefings, known to reporters as pad and pen briefings, to broadcast
media. ``If I had it to do over again, I would have experimented
occasionally with radio and television coverage. The electronic media
were represented at the press conferences, but without tape recorders or
cameras. It was, perhaps, an anachronism for a Speaker to be carrying on
his principal communication with the press through the print media at
the same time that the entire House proceedings were being carried live
on cable television's C-SPAN.'' \64\ Foley acknowledged that the
audience he wanted to reach required a broader outlet:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ Ibid., pp. 180-181.
When you went on a television program you were trying to reach the
public, the press beyond the program itself, and your own congressional
colleagues. It depends on the issue, but part of the way you influence
your colleagues is by having some impact on public opinion and creating
a mood or attitude toward legislation, or explaining what might
otherwise be difficult for the public to understand. You don't do that
all alone, but it's part of the task of being Speaker to try to explain
the Congress to justify what might be unpopular legislation, to defend
the institution during periods when it comes under fire or attack. I
think members appreciate that.\65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\65\ Ibid., p. 128.
A Television-Age Speaker
No other Speaker to date has had the media exposure of Newt Gingrich
(R-GA), nor experienced the highs and lows of such coverage in such a
short period of time (he was Speaker from 1995 to 1999). In part,
Gingrich's appeal to the media was based on his long-standing reliance
on reporters to convey his message to the public. Elected to the House
at the same time that cameras for C-SPAN began covering House floor
action, Gingrich became well known to C-SPAN watchers for delivering
impassioned 1-hour speeches after the daily business of the House
sessions was completed. It was C-SPAN that elevated his national
visibility, especially after one contentious episode.
As one reporter noted, Gingrich spoke daily to:
[A] sea of empty seats and a nationwide C-SPAN audience largely
unaware that the chamber was deserted. This practice so nettled Speaker
Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill of Massachusetts that he ordered the camera
operators to pull back and expose the charade. The fracas that followed
led O'Neill to lose his temper and speak of Gingrich's behavior as ``the
lowest thing I've ever seen.'' O'Neill's remark had to be stricken from
the record as an offense to House rules, the first time since 1797 a
Speaker had been rebuked for language.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\66\ Ronald D. Elving, ``CQ Roundtable: The Media Whirlwind of Speaker
Gingrich,'' CQ Weekly, vol. 51, Dec. 9, 1995, p. 3774. Online version.
In brief, Gingrich's use of the media likely contributed to his
``climb up the leadership ladder,'' and eventual election as
Speaker.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ Sinclair, ``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House Leadership,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 315.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gingrich became Speaker when media coverage of Congress was increasing
both in kind and in frequency, from the number of print media outlets to
Internet publications to radio talk shows. As Gingrich stated: ``But by
January of 1995, when the new Contract with America class was being
sworn in, the amount of congressional media coverage had expanded
immensely. In addition to C-SPAN, there was now CNN, a twenty-four-hours
a day news channel, a daily Congressional Quarterly bulletin, and two
`local' newspapers, Roll Call and The Hill. In short, we now had a giant
screen and loudspeaker to catch all our missteps and misstatements.''
\68\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Gingrich, Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report, p. 5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Speaker, Gingrich decided to permit television and radio coverage
of his daily press briefings. Gingrich explains the decision like this:
Because we had been so successful at getting our message out before
the election, my press secretary Tony Blankley and I still hoped that we
might still get at least part of the press on our side. So we decided to
hold daily televised press briefings. The daily press briefing was an
institution that Democratic Speakers had used for years, but their
briefings had been restricted to reporters without cameras. We on the
other hand had decided to show how bold and up-to-the-minute media-wise
we were. . . . CNN indicated how important it considered these briefings
by carrying them live. That alone should have been the tip-off to us
that we were playing with fire. But we plunged on. It will thus surprise
no one to learn that our press briefings turned out to be an ongoing
headache. They got to be little more than a game of ``pin the tail on
the Speaker.'' \69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ Ibid., pp. 36-37.
A congressional reporter who covered Gingrich on a daily basis
explained the significance of allowing media coverage of the Speaker's
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
briefings.
In the pre-camera era, speakers comfortably gave one-word answers and
reporters barked out short, cryptic questions. In the camera era,
answers go on for pages and the questions are elaborate, even
pretentious. . . . In the pre-camera era, the reporters who gathered
around the speaker's desk in his private office were mostly anonymous
worker-bees. In the camera era, network White House correspondents
swallow their pride and settle their expensive suits into one of the
coveted eight seats at Gingrich's table . . . . In the pre-camera era,
reporters could run through a dozen or so questions. Jokes were welcome.
Humor is a rarity in the camera era--after all, editors have television
sets, too. . . . With a regular crowd of about 30 newspaper and magazine
reporters and TV producers, Gingrich starts the 20-minute briefing with
an opening monologue.\70\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Jeanne Cummings, ``When Gingrich Holds Court, Washington Listens,''
Austin American-Statesman, Apr. 2, 1995, p. J1.
After a particularly intense exchange between Gingrich and a reporter
for Pacifica Radio, the Speaker decided to pull the plug on the daily
press briefings. They had lasted just a few months of 1995. ``Tony
Blankley, a spokesman for Gingrich, said May 2, that the decision was
due to `excessively flamboyant questions' from reporters. The staff was
also concerned that as they made the Speaker available to meet the daily
and varying demands of reporters, Gingrich was in the limelight far too
often. In all, Gingrich had 30 briefings between Jan. 4 and March 29
before stopping the sessions.'' \71\ During the remainder of his
speakership, Gingrich met irregularly with reporters. His successor, J.
Dennis Hastert (R-IL) conducts infrequent ``pad and pen'' briefings with
journalists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\71\ Donna Cassata, ``Gingrich to End News Briefings,'' CQ Weekly, vol.
51, May 6, 1995, p. 1224. Online version.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The media were also at the heart of what Gingrich called the ``single
most avoidable mistake I made during my first three years as Speaker.''
He calls it the saga of Air Force One.\72\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\72\ Gingrich, Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report, p. 42.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israeli Prime Minister Rabin had been assassinated in November 1995.
President Bill Clinton flew to Israel for the funeral and asked several
Members to join him on Air Force One, including Speaker Gingrich and
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS). At the time, President Clinton
and congressional Republicans were having trouble agreeing on how to
address the budget for that year, problems that eventually led several
Federal agencies to close down later that year because they had not
received an appropriation. The Republicans had hoped that on the plane
ride back from Rabin's funeral they might have an opportunity to sit
down and discuss the budget situation with the President. But Gingrich
and Dole were seated at the back of the plane, and they did not have the
opportunity to speak with Clinton about this. In addition, Gingrich and
Dole were asked to deplane from the rear, again nowhere near Clinton.
Several days later, Gingrich went to a morning breakfast to talk with
reporters. There, he says he told reporters that the plane incident
showed how hard it was to do business with the Clinton administration.
``If he is genuinely interested in reaching an agreement with us,'' I
said, ``why didn't he discuss one with us when we were only a few feet
away on an airplane?'' Then, I continued, digging my grave a little
deeper, ``if he wanted to indicate his seriousness about working with
us, why did he leave the plane by himself and make us go out the back
way?'' I said it was both selfish and self-destructive for the President
to hog the media by walking down those steps from the plane alone
instead of showing a little bipartisanship precisely when he claimed he
wanted to reach an agreement with us . . . By now my press secretary
Tony Blankley was positively white with horror . . . The story exploded
almost immediately. Of all the papers, and there were quite a few who
put the story on the front page, the worst was the New York Daily News,
which ran a banner headline on page one that read simply, ``Crybaby.''
\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\73\ Ibid., pp. 44-45.
Blankley characterized the next few days after the story broke as the
``single worst press moment'' of Gingrich's career. It ``all but
destroyed his speakership,'' he said.\74\ The loss of GOP House seats in
November 1996 and particularly in 1998 also contributed to the end of
Gingrich's career in the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\ Tony Blankley, Washington Times editorial page editor, telephone
conversation with author, Aug. 20, 2003.
Conclusion
The relationship between the Speaker and the press, in sum, depends to
a great extent on the individual style of the leader, the context of the
times (whether he is the opposition party leader, for example) and the
constantly changing media technology. It is unclear, for example,
whether Speaker Longworth would be as successful with the press now, in
the days of instant Internet news and live television coverage, as he
was when personal relationships were the key to getting his message out.
The individual style of the current Speaker, J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL),
appears to be headed down a different path from his predecessor
Gingrich. While Speaker Hastert does not show the blanket antipathy
toward television that Sam Rayburn did, neither does he invite the
limelight.