As Americans prepare to head to the polls in November, 59% say they are following news about the presidential candidates very or fairly closely. But the current election cycle is presenting many challenges for reporters who cover the White House.
While our major parties are offering starkly different visions for the country, the mainstream press should focus on clarifying rather than confounding those choices. Instead, it may be contributing to confusion about the candidates and the issues by highlighting what’s wrong with our government, while underplaying what’s working well.
The term “news conference” reflects the formality of an interaction between the President and members of the press, often held after the President gives a speech to a particular audience or a public event. In the early twentieth century, journalists tended to bring questions for the President in writing and then submit them one by one. Later, some Presidents (Coolidge, Hoover, and Reagan) encouraged journalists to ask their own questions at press conferences, which were filmed and broadcast live.
The practice of shouting questions at the President can appear ill-mannered and can disrupt a news event’s decorum. But it is a valuable tool for reporting on a presidency. When a reporter shouts a question at a President, it allows the audience to hear the response without interruption and to better understand why the President is taking a certain position on an issue. At the same time, this type of reporting can also reveal the ways in which a President interacts with the media.
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