Towson
White House essay

Another essay for the course on White House communications operations:

There are those who criticize a President and his staff for having such elaborate communications operations. Why do Chief Executives need such operations and how have their publicity operations grown? What are some of the forces leading them to create publicity operations? In your answer, describe the White House communications operations presidents use and detail the uses they make of them.

"For a president in the new century, there are no off the record remarks, no statements made on background, and no speeches to a limited audience. The presidency today is on the record and broadcast live to audiences around the world" ("Source" 669). This is why a robust communications operation is essential. For every speech to a group, for every meeting with a foreign leader, for every statement to the press, a team of staffers must work diligently to prep and prepare.

Communications operations are essential because public opinion is shaped through it - or the lack of it. "News organizations provide the mechanism through which influentials in the Washington community as well as important constituencies throughout the nation take their assessment of the President. News about the White House influences the actions of organized interests both within and without government. Congressmen, bureaucrats and lobbyists base their decisions to grant or withhold support for the President on perceptions gleaned from the media...What the media present to their audience has important consequences for the public as well as for the President, and for political institutions as well as for the individuals and groups who are actors on the national stage" ("Portraying" 299).

FOX News and CNN are constantly beamed into the west wing. The morning newspapers are devoured by aides before dawn. Schedules are set, in part, by deadlines for the nightly news. Put simply, the news media is the conveyer of information about the presidency; and that information leads to perceptions and decision-making. The role of the press is tremendously important.

Opposing forces constantly seek to define the president's policies and practices in less-than-positive terms. "A president needs an effective communications operation for both defensive and offensive reasons. He seeks to define himself and his programs and to keep to a minimum threat level the efforts of others to portray him in terms not of his choosing" ("Source" 675). Examples of these groups include members of Congress, interest groups, and the opposing political party ("Source" 675).

Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry called communications a "total team effort" because "everything is about driving your agenda forward:" "A successful communications strategy is only one aspect of a successful presidency. You have to have a good solid sense of priority and where you're going and mission, and everything is supportive of that. That involves good leadership from the Chief of Staff, good policy planning, good legislative relations on the Hill. It's all part of a seamless whole. That's what makes for a good presidency" ("The Office").

Spin
People can argue that the communications operations of the White House are all about 'spin.' In his book "P.R.!: A Social History of Spin," Media critic Stuart Ewen describes visiting the home of public relations legend Edward Bernays. He becomes awestruck by Bernays' library: "It was a remarkable collection of books, thousands of them: about public opinion, individual and social psychology, survey research, propaganda, psychological warfare, and so forth--a comprehensive library spanning matters of human motivation and strategies of influence, scanning a period of more than one hundred years," he writes. "These were not the bookshelves of some shallow huckster, but the arsenal of an intellectual. The cross- hairs of nearly every volume were trained on the target of forging public attitudes. Here--in a large white room in Cambridge, Massachusetts--was the constellation of ideas that had inspired and informed a twentieth century preoccupation: the systematic molding of public opinion."

Bernays' principles are applied to average Americans every day. The White House seeks to mold public opinion by communicating a coherent message to their audience. Senior adviser Clay Johnson says: "I hear people describe the purposes of the White House as to maximize the value of the president's time, voice. And I guarantee you that no other company defines their headquarters' role as maximizing the value of their chairman's time and voice" ("Source" 679-680).

"There is no good definition of spin," Bill Press writes in a book called Spin This. "It's easier to say what it's not than what it is: It's not the truth. Neither is it a lie. Spin lies somewhere in between: almost telling the truth, but not quite; bending the truth to make things look as good - or as bad - as possible; painting things in the best possible - or worst possible - light" (Press).

Press Secretaries
'Spinning' is one job qualification for a press secretary. "The daunting thing about Mike McCurry's job was that he was always one phone call away from disaster," Howard Kurtz wrote in Spin Cycle (Kurtz). It sums up their difficult role. Bush aide Pete Roussel said that press secretaries are "in the middle of giant taffy pull" ("The Office"). The press corps always wants to know more; the administration always wants to control that flow of information. "They have to be schizophrenic. They have to wear two hats," Helen Thomas said. "They are so secretive now, and they are so robotic, and they are so on-spin...it has changed a lot" (Thomas).

The relationship between the press secretary and the press is a dynamic one. McCurry "somehow managed to maintain friendly relations with most of the reporters who worked the White House beat," Kurtz wrote. "He would go to dinner with reporters, share a beer, give them a wink and a nod as he faithfully delivered the administration's line. He was walking the tightrope, struggling to maintain credibility with both the press and the president, to serve as an honest broker between the antagonists" (Kurtz). On the other hand, Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan seem to have only one loyalty: to the President. The press secretary's past role of supporting the press seems to have diminished in the current administration.

The job is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. McCurry once commenced a briefing by remarking that the press corps "look like a bunch of caged animals that have had nothing to eat all day long." Kurtz summed up the competing interests: "The three principles of his job were telling the truth, giving people a window on the White House and protecting the president, but the last imperative often made the first two difficult" (Kurtz).

Global Communication
In the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush team realized the critical importance of communication. Quoting adviser Mary Matalin: "...[Bush] pulled us together and said, 'Communications is critical on this because fighting this war is not going to be like anything that Americans or the world have seen. There's no storming of beaches. There's no CNN cameras, you know, watching grainy pictures that night. It's going to be a lot in the shadows, a lot that does not lend itself to visuals, breaking up financial networks' and other actions taking place outside of a theater of war.' And he said, 'Therefore, it is critical that you all have a communications strategy that's effective and that I speak with clarity, that I' -- you know, it was more than just giving speeches and that kind of stuff" ("Communications").

Dan Bartlett offered one example of this shift. "I remember our first big opportunity to prove we knew what we were talking about we failed because the following weekend they sent some documents up to Camp David for him to sign. It was the first action on freezing financial assets. He called Karen, pulled her out of church on Sunday. She got me on the phone. He was furious. He said, 'Why am I just signing this document and Secretary [Paul] O'Neill is announcing this tomorrow. This is the first strike in this new war against terror. It's not with a missile. It's with a stroke of a pen'." The communications operation put together a Rose Garden signing event for the following morning" ("Communications").

In July of 2002, President Bush had 50 communications staff members. In July of 1998, President Clinton had 39 ("Communications"). Increasingly, Presidents must communicate with the global population - and the newly formed Office of Global Communications is designed for that. During the Afghanistan offensive, the Coalition Information Centers offered immediate responses to unfolding events. "The idea was to have an offensive and defensive operation where the American government and our allies could act within the same news cycle as our opponents, most especially the Taliban" ("Communications"). The office mission statement reflects that goal. "President Bush understands the importance of conveying America's message to the world. The Office of Global Communications (OGC) was formed in 2002 to coordinate strategic communications overseas that integrate the President's themes while truthfully depicting America and Administration policies" ("About Us"). The office now releases a "Global Message" almost every day.

Since September 11, 2001, news organizations have covered the presidency in even more depth. Common events have become worthy of live coverage on the cable networks. "The microphone is even bigger, our ability to puncture through the clutter of what's out there is even more powerful, and the international component of it, that we're not just speaking to our citizenry; we're speaking to the world," Dan Bartlett said ("Source" 675). That, in a nutshell, explains the need for a coherent communications operation. "Communications is central to the modern presidency and its position is reflected in what it is the White House senior staff do every day" ("The Office").