Filtering History: Photojournalists' Access to US Presidents, 1977 to 2009

Abstract

Photojournalists assigned to the White House strive to provide an independent record of the president. Each presidential administration determines whether and how photojournalists may receive access to photograph the president. Narratives from professional organizations and interviews of photojournalists reveal that photojournalists' access to each president varied between 1977 and 2009. During the administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, photojournalists suggested the White House managed each president's image by determining whether and under what circumstances photojournalists could photograph each president. The administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush took additional steps to manage the president's image by releasing pictures taken by White House staff. Those practices limited photojournalists' abilities to provide the public with independently captured images of each president.

Notes

1 Elisabeth Bumiller, “Keepers of Bush Image Lift Stagecraft to New Heights,” New York Times, May 16, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/16/us/keepers-of-bush-image-lift- stagecraft-to-new-heights.html. Editorial, “Keep the Handouts,” News Photographer, September 2005, 4.

2 W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion (Boston: Longman, 2012), 52, 122–123.

3 Paul Lester has described a successful photo op as an image that appears to portray reality although the image actually is “a contrived fiction” created to receive publicity. Paul Lester, On Floods and Photo Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2010), 70–113.

4 “About the White House News Photographers Association,” accessed August 5, 2014, https://www.whnpa.org/about/.

5 See, for example, Robert Hariman, “Framing the Presidency: The Evolution of the Campaign Image,” Aperture 192 (Fall 2008): 44–49.

6 Dennis Brack, Presidential Picture Stories: Behind the Cameras at the White House (Washington, DC: Dennis Brack, Inc., 2013); David Hume Kennerly, Photo Op: A Pulitzer Prize–Winning Photographer Covers Events That Shaped Our Times (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); David Hume Kennerly, Shooter (New York: Newsweek Books, 1979); Dirck Halstead, Moments in Time: Photos and Stories from One of America's Top Photojournalists (New York: Abrams, 2006); Diana Walker, Public & Private: Twenty Years Photographing the Presidency (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2002).

7 The photographers have a combined total of more than 180 years photographing Washington politics and presidential administrations. The affiliated university Institutional Review Board approval prevents the authors from identifying people interviewed for the study; thus names are kept confidential. Since referencing gender could identify certain interview participants, all are referenced with male pronouns.

8 Richard W. Waterman, Robert Wright, and Gilbert St. Clair, The Image-Is-Everything Presidency: Dilemmas in American Leadership (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 9–15.

9 See, for example, Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York: First Vintage Books, 1992), 11–12.

10 Margalit Fox, “Cecil Stoughton Dies at 88; Documented White House,” New York Times, November 6, 2008, A30.

11 See, for example, Robert E. Denton Jr. and Dan F. Hahn, Presidential Communication: Description and Analysis (New York: Praeger, 1986); Charles Walcott and Karen M. Hult, “The Bush Staff and Cabinet System,” in Testing the Limits: George W. Bush and the Imperial Presidency, ed. Mark J. Rozell and Gleaves Whitney (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 23–45; Alex Marland, “Political Photography, Journalism, and Framing in the Digital Age: The Management of Visual Media by the Prime Minister of Canada,” International Journal of Press/Politics 17, no. 2 (April 2012): 214–233.

12 Denton and Hahn state, “The result of this symbiotic relationship is a constant battle of presidential access and control.” Denton and Hahn, Presidential Communication: Description and Analysis, 75.

13 Michael B. Grossman and Martha J. Kumar, Portraying the President: The White House and the News Media (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 20.

14 W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston, When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News from Iraq to Katrina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 148–49.

15 See, for example, Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion.

16 Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, 40, 197.

17 David A. Baird, “An Emerging Emphasis on Image: Early Press Coverage of Politics and Television,” American Journalism 20, no. 4 (Fall 2003): 20.

18 Jack M. McLeod, Carroll J. Glynn, and Daniel G. McDonald, “Issues and Images: The Influence of Media Reliance in Voting Decisions,” Communication Research 10, no. 1 (January 1983): 49–50.

19 Marland, “Political Photography, Journalism, and Framing in the Digital Age,” 215.

20 Robert Hariman and John L. Lucaites, “Public Identity and Collective Memory in US Iconic Photography: The Image of the ‘Accidental Napalm,’” Critical Studies in Media Communication 20, no. 1 (March 2003): 35–66.

21 Barbie Zelizer, Covering the Body (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 9–13.

22 Shahira Fahmy, Mary A. Bock, and Wayne Wanta, Visual Communication Theory and Research: A Mass Communication Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 41–49.

23 National Press Photographers Association, “The Preamble to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Code of Ethics,” accessed September 10, 2014, https://nppa.org/code_of_ethics.

24 Alexander Meiklejohn, “The First Amendment Is an Absolute,” The Supreme Court Review 1961 (1961): 256; Patricia Aufderheide, Jan Lauren Boyles, and Katie Bieze, “Copyright, Free Speech, and the Public's Right to Know: Journalists and Fair Use,” Journalism Studies 14, no. 6 (2013): 876.

25 For example, a federal district court judge found a Reagan administration policy that excluded television reporters from the White House pool was unconstitutional. Cable News Network, Inc. v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., 518 F. Supp. 1238 (n.d. GA, 1981), 1245–46.

26 Mary Kollath, “The Pack,” News Photographer 32, no. 8 (August 1977): 14.

27 A. O. Sulzberger Jr., “Portrait of Personal Photographers to the President,” New York Times, April 18, 1981, A7. See also “History Lesson: Those Who Photograph Presidents,” News Photographer 44, no. 4 (April 1989): 14.

28 Richard Reeves, “Maestro of the Media: The Prime-time President,” New York Times Magazine, May 15, 1977, 17–18.

29 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

30 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 12, 2014.

31 John Herbers, “The President and the Press Corps,” New York Times Magazine, May 9, 1982, 75.

32 “Banishing the Press: The President Views Tutankhamen Relics,” New York Times, March 13, 1977, 26.

33 Kennerly, Shooter, 238; Kennerly, Photo Op, 115.

34 Kennerly, Photo Op, 115.

35 Ibid.

36 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

37 Paula Winslow, “A President's Photographer Returns to the White House,” News Photographer 36, no. 3 (March, 1981): 16–17.

38 Ibid. See also Martin Tolchin, “News Organizations Balk at Curb on Photographers on Carter Trip,” New York Times, August 15, 1979, A18.

39 For example, media complained about the first photograph released of President Regan recovering from being shot. The White House photographer released a picture that was somewhat out of focus. “The Story behind the Picture,” News Photographer 36, no. 8 (August 1981): 22.

40 Robert E. Denton Jr., The Primetime Presidency of Ronald Reagan: The Era of the Television Presidency (New York: Praeger, 1988); name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

41 Ibid.

42 Phil Gailey, “Photographers Finding Reagan Picture-perfect,” New York Times, November 4, 1981, A20.

43 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 1, 2014.

44 Gailey, “Photographers Finding Reagan Picture-perfect,” A20.

45 Halstead, Moments in Time, 230.

46 Larry M. Hatteberg, “Security Measures Questioned,” News Photographer 36, no. 5 (May 1981): 20.

47 “The Story behind the Picture,” News Photographer 36, no. 8 (August 1981): 22.

48 See, for example, Herbers, “The President and the Press Corps,” 96.

49 Donald Winslow, “Those Brief, Shining Moments,” News Photographer 61, no. 2 (February 2006): 8.

50 James M. Cesnik, “Non-news Nonconference,” New York Times, October 3, 1984, A27.

51 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, July 29, 2014.

52 James M. Markham, “Getting Ready for Visit to Bitburg, White House Keeps an Eye on TV,” New York Times, May 5, 1985, L20.

53 David Woo, “10 Minutes in the Oval Office,” News Photographer 40, no. 4 (April 1985): 12.

54 Gailey, “Photographers Finding Reagan Picture-perfect,” A20.

55 Herbers, “The President and the Press Corps,” 96.

56 “Quiet on the Set,” News Photographer 36, no. 10 (October 1981): 47.

57 Herbers, “The President and the Press Corps,” 75.

58 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, August 31, 2014.

59 “Bush Picking up on Term ‘Photo Dog’ Leads to Swearing In,” News Photographer 44, no. 3 (March 1989): 3.

60 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

61 John Moore, “An Eddie Adams Workshopper Wins a Little Time with George,” News Photographer 46, no. 8 (August 1991): 14, 17.

62 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, July 29, 2014.

63 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 1, 2014; Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, August 31, 2014.

64 Halstead, Moments in Time, 261.

65 Carol Schlagheck, “Are We Having Fun Yet?,” News Photographer 47, no. 9 (September 1992): 57.

66 Moore, “An Eddie Adams Workshopper Wins a Little Time with George”: 17.

67 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

68 See, for example, Bill Carter, “Cutbacks by Network News Ground Bush's Press Plane: Retrenching in TV News Cancels Trip,” New York Times, April 2, 1991, D1, D5.

69 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

70 Brack, Presidential Picture Stories, 132.

71 See, for example, Halstead, Moments in Time, 272.

72 See, for example, Andrew Rosenthal, “Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed,” New York Times, February 5, 1992, A1.

73 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, August 31, 2014. See also Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston, When the Press Fails, 143–44; Waterman, Wright, and St. Clair, The Image-Is-Everything Presidency, 147.

74 See, for example, Dan Habib, “3rd Place, News,” News Photographer 47, no. 6 (June 1992): 54.

75 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 1, 2014; Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

76 Carol Schlagheck, “The Great Clinton Cat Caper,” News Photographer 48, no. 1 (January 1993): 16.

77 Ibid.

78 Douglas Jehl, “Clinton and Aides Meet Rushdie at White House in Rebuke to Iran,” New York Times, November 25, 1993, A1.

79 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 1, 2014.

80 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, April 27, 2015.

81 “President Scores Hit as ‘One of Us’ at WHNPS Banquet in Washington,” News Photographer 50, no. 6 (June 1995): 14.

82 Elizabeth Shogren, “Candid Clinton Photos Hit, Hailed,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1998, http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jan/06/news/mn-5394.

83 John Mottern, “…The Right Thing to Do?” News Photographer 52, no. 11 (November 1997): 12–13.

84 Ibid., 13.

85 “News Media Chastised,” News Photographer 53, no. 2 (February 1998): 19.

86 David R. Lutman, “An Invasion of Privacy?,” News Photographer 53, no. 3 (March 1998): 8.

87 Shogren, “Candid Clinton Photos Hit, Hailed,” http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jan/06/ news/mn-5394.

88 Lutman, “An Invasion of Privacy?,” 8.

89 Kenneth Kobre, Photo Journalism: The Professional's Approach (Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2013), 50–53.

90 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, August 31, 2014.

91 Adam Nagourney, “White House Enters Senate Race with Release of Photo of Lazio and Arafat,” New York Times, September 11, 2000, B1.

92 Donald Winslow, “No More Handouts Please,” News Photographer 61, no. 2 (February 2006): 8.

93 Brack, Presidential Picture Stories, 137.

94 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 12, 2014.

95 Elisabeth Bumiller, “Glimpses of a Leader, through Chosen Eyes Only,” New York Times, July 13, 2003, N14. See also Jeremy D. Mayer, “The Contemporary Presidency: The Presidency and Image Management: Discipline in Pursuit of Illusion,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 34, no. 3 (September 2004): 625.

96 Douglas Kellner, “Media Propaganda and Spectacle in the War on Iraq: A Critique of US Broadcasting Networks,” Cultural Studies–Critical Methodologies 4 (August 2004): 329–338.

97 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Erin K. Coyle, August 31, 2014.

98 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, July 29, 2014.

99 Bumiller, “Glimpses of a Leader,” N14.

100 Kellner, “Media Propaganda and Spectacle in the War on Iraq,” 329–338.

101 Bumiller, “Keepers of Bush Image Lift Stagecraft to New Heights.”

102 Ibid.

103 See, for example, “Mission Unaccomplished,” Nation, May 17, 2004, 3.

104 Lester, On Floods and Photo Ops, 63–69.

105 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 12, 2014.

106 Ibid.

107 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 12, 2014.

108 Clint Hendler, “No Handouts,” Columbia Journalism Review, March 25, 2010, http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/no_handouts.php.

109 Susan Walsh to Dan Bartlett, 30 July 2005, in the authors' possession.

110 “Keep the Handouts,” 4.

111 Sheryl Stolberg, “Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image,” New York Times, August 28, 2006, A1, A12. See, for example, On Floods and Photo Ops, 62–63.

112 “Keep the Handouts,” News Photographer, 4.

113 Hendler, “No Handouts.”

114 David Hume Kennerly, “The Photographer's President,” News Photographer 62, no. 3 (March 2007): 27.

115 Name withheld for confidentiality, telephone interview with Nicole S. Dahmen, August 12, 2014.