White House Report on Education

Well I had the pleasure of first reporting from the White House - Thursday May 7, 2009. 'Kid in the candy store' moment with broadcast colleague Errol Lewis, morning talk show host for radio station WWRL in New York city. Errol also had his first report from the White House. And both of us were ready and prepared in our political suit and tie, digital recorders, and digital cameras. A lesson learned long ago to be ready at a moments' notice.

Internal grins were evident in our calming humor conversing with these seasoned White House reporters. And further with our keen journalistic senses, we ended up also covering Press Secretary Robert Gibbs daily press briefing. We found out that as long as you are on the White House grounds, you get press priviledges for all briefings.

Earlier that day, I was sitting in my office and Al Sharpton called me and said, "Kirk I am meeting today with the President, Mayors Bloomberg (NY) and Villaragoosa (LA - unable to attend), Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at the White House to discuss Education and the 'Close the Gap on Education' Rally (May 16th, at the White House Elipse). You can you get the word out for." Sharpton had teased something big days earlier, but could not yet speak about it. I told him that one of my guesses was a meeting with the President.

I then congratulated Rev. and told him to kick some butt in the meeting with the President. Understandably Rev was on the run, but he again emphasized to get the word out, meaning to hit the press.

Following the conversation, I first contacted Rev's organization, the National Action Network, asking if there was a press release. There was, and they promptly emailed the Press Release. I forwarded the Press Release to our affiliates, my supervisors, press contacts, and parent company Radio One.

But after fully reading the Press Release, I noticed that there was an email address listed for press to cover the 1:30p Press Conference...at the White House. The Press Conference followed the private 12noon meeting with the President. And after roughly...ahh...ten seconds (maybe less), I emailed my interest in covering the Press Conference to that e-address. I additionally stated that I was Operations Supervisor of Syndication One News-Talk network with our marquee talk show host Al Sharpton.

Shortly afterwards I received a reply to give my personal information. It was the same Secret Service personal information I was familiar with, having covered the Democratic Convention and the Presidential Inauguration. After they checked me out, I was approved and told where to report at the White House. It was about 10:30am.

I prepared the day for the Syn1 staff, got the recorder, camera, went home to put my Political suit and tie on, and quickly off to the metro (DC subway system). I arrived at the White House security gate at 1p. My name thankfully was on the list, and after a few beeps from my belt I was cleared by security. Cool!

In this particular press area, there were no mult-boxes but a mic stand for the speakers. I had a RE-20 and none of the mic holders on the mic stand were big enough to hold the RE-20. I cussed at myself on the inside, loud and clear in my mind though. I mulled over this unfortunate dilemma for about 20 minutes. But as most of my colleagues and friends will tell you, I always figure it out.

I was in the front row with my camera, as some of the pictures reveal. I did finally managed to figure out the mic dilemma by leaning that silver wide-body RE-20 microphone on two other shure microphones. Manage to face the directional RE-20microphone sky-ward toward the mouths of the principal speakers. The sound came out clean as a whistle.

At roughly 1:35p the principals were let out of the White House interior by a guarded Marine soldier. In the tradition of Great Britian's Buckingham palace guards, the Marine soldiers stand still at the doorway, rotating stylistically with other marines about every 30 minutes. The complete cadenced ritual is intriqing and quite impressisv. The tapping of heals, spins, salutes, and stiff march walk in and out of the downtown side entrance door of the White House.

I noticed that Sharpton, Bloomberg, Duncan, and Gingrich exited the White House approaching the mic-stand, where roughly 30 mics stood erected. I then turned on my Marantz digital recorder. Al Sharpton was first to speak. He began by announcing his May 16th Close the Gap in Education Rally, explaining why it was necessary. Sharpton spoke of the disparities of education between races and socio-economic levels within the same public school system. Sharpton talked about their meeting with the President, leaving the meeting with optimism that this President will do something about the disparities.

Sharpton continues to demand highly-skilled teachers, an equally quality school curriculum, clean school environment, and highly resourced public schools for all. Bloomberg, Duncan, and Gingrich followed the same suite on improving education K-12, with Duncan adding that those in their 20's need programs too with a need to catch up where a deteriorating failing educational program passed them by. A Q&A followed, and then the rain poured down ending the hour-long session.

All the principals went back inside the White House with the exception of a campaigning Mayor Bloomberg, who moved to an roofed area outside to answer thirty more minutes of questions. I even got a question in asking Bloomberg financing computer centers by Microsoft and Apple computer companies. Bloomberg stressed the importance of both technology and teaching, moreso hammering home the importance of hiring and retaining the highest grade of teachers. Bloomberg bragged that he raised teachers' salaries to the highest in the nation, where 50-thousand people applied for 4-thousand jobs.

Bloomberg concluded at roughly answering questions at 3p and went back into President Obama's pad.

Errol and I hung out, shot a few White House flicks, and spoke candidly of our "kid in a candy store" feeling. Five minutes later, we were then summoned a reporter that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was about to begin the daily Press Briefing. We went with the flow baby stating: "Ok, hold the door please" and went inside the Press room. We figured out that once a reporter is in the White House, you have access to most of the press conferences.

The press room set-up, camera operators, reporters etc... were near ready for Gibbs. Ready to get busy I quickly asked a camera operator, "where is the mult-box?" A mult-box is a number of three-prong outlets, where you plug in the recorder, which receives audio from the Press Secretary's podium microphone.

Gibbs entered about ten minutes later. The primary topics of the day were the Bank's Stress reports, and the President carving out seventeen billion dollars from the budget proposal. Gibbs also answered a few questions about the recent Education meeting the President had with Al Sharpton. Gibbs said that the President values education and intends to make some northward education improvements and innovations.
After Gibbs conference, I combed the area noticing the multitudes of press set-ups throughout the area, and additional set-ups in the back rooms for radio, newspaper, internet bloggers, and television operations.

Quite lengthly hallway area behind to the rear door of Gibbs Press area. I ran into NBC's Chuck Todd, who was nice enough to take a picture with me.

After the picture with Chuck, I went further back, just about ten steps before I noticed the most-feared White House Reporter by past and present Presidents Helen Thomas. I shouted respectfully "Helen Thomas! How are you?." She laughed, knowing my admiration of her. Before she stood up for a picture, I had a brief conversation with her. I talked about President Obama calling upon her in his first Press Confernce, but not in subsequent press conferences. She immediately quipped, "I know. They (Presidents) all end up scared of me." I prodded: "Why is that? Judging from the primaries, it seemed that President Obama would entertain tough questions?" She replied: "Well he is President now. They all change when they are elected President." Helen strongly added: "I got some bombshell questions for him too." We laughed, took the pictures, and I then left." While leaving I gladly ran into a colleague that hung out with me at a few of the Presidents campaign speeches we both attended in the Maryland area. He, an NBC cameraman (forgot name), and I chatted for a minute and was kind enough to give me some professional and equipment advice in covering the White House.

I ran into Ellen Ratner of Talkers Magazine and talkradionews.com, who directs many radio rows for Political events that we (Syndication One News-Talk network) were a part of, including the Democratic Convention and the Inauguration. She also had some advice for me, knowing my political reporting interests for both Capitol Hill and the White House. Ellen was very helpful, and of course, promoted the next Radio Row in New York with the United Nations, which we will also attend.

I left in the rain with the excitement of:
1. Covering a White House Press Conference, and,
2. Seeing our (Syndication One News-Talk Network) radio talent Al Sharpton as the major principal involved in our Education fight.

I then had to put my promotion hat on gathering material collected promote the event.
The post-promotion included -- aside from aforementioned sending out the Press Release -- producing audio clips to be played on Sharpton's Friday's radio show. I produced roughly fifteen audio clips from Sharpton, Bloomberg, Gibbs, Duncan, and Gingrich.

The best pictures with Sharpton and the other principals with a brief caption and photo credit instruction, were sent to my growing press list. I even sent for the first time the power-pictures to the "The Hill" political website and magazine's chief editor with hopes they print it and Congress would see it and get involved with the May 16th Education rally. I intend to personally meet the Hill's editors, to insure that we have a much needed relationship with such a prestigious magazine.

As far as the Education Rally, from the outset Sharpton and I knew we did not have the proper time to promote this important Rally, that began following the annual N.A.N. convention that ended on April 5th. We had to hit it hard, fast, and I insured him that NAN's communication staff and I would mass promote at a high level, and that he should focus on gathering the major hitters. We are not-so-surprisingly over-achieving and look forward to an impactful rally.

The White House meeting with the President was a major boost for our upcoming Education Rally in Washington DC. We hope to gain a large showing of support on behalf of improving our Education system. States that have exceptionally high dropout rates like North Carolina and Georgia where we broadcast on several radio stations, we expect a large outcome along with the local Washington DC region.

Our President pledging major educational improvements, acting by budgeting billions for education in the Stimulus Bill, and promising expanding to other cities the Harlem School Zone, we feel comfortable that our rally will not be spitting in the wind. And considering the new global economy, re-structuring under-funded, under-resourced, and inadequately staffed public school system -- primarily in low-income African-American and Latino communities -- is imperative. Fast action must be taken now, as America's education performance worldwide is embarrassingly low.