Should Bush Have Bypassed National Press in PR Blitz?
KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES. Time now to put the Iraq story through the spin cycle.</s>KURTZ (voice-over): It's no secret that President Bush is frustrated with the national media. Things are getting better in Iraq, he insists, along with Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice. But the press keeps portraying the place as a disaster area. So, the president is resorting to the old end-run. This week, Bush gave interviews to five regional TV outfits, back to back, eight minutes each. Here is what he told one of them.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes you just have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people.</s>KURTZ: Translation? Regional correspondents tend to ask less aggressive questions and are less likely to challenge the White House spin. The president, of course, can talk to anyone he wants, but no PR effort can change this sort of news.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A U.S. soldier killed early this morning, five more were injured, in a series of incidents.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was another suicide bomb in Baghdad tonight.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One American soldier is dead and another is injured.</s>KURTZ: The president may view us as a filter, but national news organizations provide something of a reality check, and the reality in Iraq, unfortunately, continues to be troubling. Well, joining me now is Dana Milbank, White House correspondent for "The Washington Post." And still with us, former CNN Washington bureau chief, Frank Sesno, also a former White House correspondent. Dana Milbank, the president decides to bypass the White House press corps and take his message to regional TV reporters. Were your feelings hurt?</s>DANA MILBANK, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I am deeply offended. The interesting thing, Howie, is that there was so much buildup and so much protest about this, that the regional reporters were being used as stooges, that if you actually tuned into these regional reporters' broadcast, they were asking the tougher questions than we were. They were cynical in their presentation. The president making an obvious naked effort to get around and put out some pollyannish fluff. It was really something that we wouldn't even do.</s>KURTZ: So, why is there still a perception that local and regional reporters are not as smart and not as sophisticated as the people who camp out in Washington?</s>SESNO: Well, it's not that they're not as smart or not as sophisticated, but they're not as involved in the inside-the-Beltway chit-chat and process. You know, the White House and others have said for a long time, and not unjustifiably, that here in Washington, we focus on who's up, who's down, horse race, nasty questions coming at you, try to do gotcha questions, and there's something to that, because it actually means something. In America, with real people and correspondents and anchors who live closer to them, I think they're going to get questions that are broader in scope perhaps, and allow the president to go over the head of these process-prone folks.</s>KURTZ: And not get bogged down in what you describe as...</s>SESNO: Presumably.</s>KURTZ: Now, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, told you in your story, Dana Milbank, that the national media engage in this 24-hour world, and more analysis and more commentary, which means they think you're biased.</s>MILBANK: I actually accept the accusation of the analysis, although not the commentary part. It is true that the wires, even cable news, is more likely to broadcast exactly what the president says...</s>KURTZ: The president said today things are getting better.</s>MILBANK: Right. We have the luxury of chewing over it.</s>KURTZ: You</s>MILBANK: We chew over it for a day. The news magazines can chew over it for a week. But that is actually providing the full context. We are providing more of a truthful, accurate version. It's really the president who is putting the filter on news. This administration is actually punishing troops in Iraq with Article 15 punishments if they speak out and say something negative in public. And we also learned this week that one unit in Iraq -- not under direction from Washington -- but one unit in Iraq was encouraging soldiers to send a form letter to their daily newspaper touting the good news. So, being...</s>KURTZ: But you're looking at it the other way around. You're saying you're giving a fair and balanced -- forgive the phrase -- report, and the president is filtering the news.</s>MILBANK: Well, of course. I mean, that's what -- everybody is a filter. Look, I mean, if we presented every fact that is seen out there, our paper would be thousands of pages long each day. So, of course, we have to sort through the facts. It's the president's job to filter the news with the best possible spin for him. That's not interesting or new. The fact is we have to balance that with all of the other...</s>SESNO: And the president's news is filtered. I mean, as Michael Kinsley (ph) wrote in "The Washington Post" today, the president doesn't prefer to read newspapers and to watch the stuff on television. He prefers to get his version of what's going on in the outside world from his chief of staff, Andy Card, and his national security adviser, Condi Rice. Everybody chooses their filters. They choose their own comfort level, and they choose, you know, where they're going to go with it. The White House is very sophisticated; so are others in this business, Howie. Because it's not just going to regional news organizations, but they know what the demographics are of every channel and every network out there. And when they parse the president's time or a congressman's time or what have you, they're going to women aged 18 to 34 or what have you, and they know where and how to go.</s>KURTZ: Let me get to the larger question, which is: Does the White House have a point that a lot of the reporting from Iraq was unduly negative? I mean, "The New York Times" the other day, the front page story saying the streets are cleaner, the shops are well- stocked, the pay is better if you have a job, but these attacks are continuing. Most of the coverage, though, tends to be about the things that are going wrong. True or false?</s>MILBANK: I can't say for certain, because I'm not the one on the ground risking my life in Iraq. I know some of our best reporters are doing that, and so I certainly believe that they're conveying the proper balance of things. It's interesting to note that we actually did a story a few months ago with two correspondents -- one went with the troops through a patrol, the other one, who speaks Arabic, stayed behind and listened. So, the people, were on the one hand, looked to be greeting them with open arms, and then as soon as the patrol passed, they were telling the Arabic-speaking reporter what they really thought, which was that they found this whole thing despicable. So, the real question is: Are the troops there deceiving themselves?</s>SESNO: But the fact of the matter is that much of the reporting in print and on television is about three B's: bombs, bullets or ballots. And if they're not voting or they're not shooting at one another or things aren't exploding, it's harder to get that story written and played.</s>KURTZ: But particularly for television, Frank Sesno, because how do you show, how do you visualize that the electricity is staying on longer and the streets are cleaner, when obviously the dramatic footage is about today's attacks?</s>SESNO: Well, that's not hard to do, Howie. I mean, you can go out and you can look at the telephone poles and the lights that are on, and you can talk to people if things are changing. The problem is if you turn the lights on, on Monday, is it still a story on Thursday? And the fact of the matter is that if a bunch of -- if troops are attacked on Monday and they're attacked again on Thursday, it's news both days.</s>KURTZ: I want to take a look at a clip from "Nightline." Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, was on. Ted Koppel was giving him a hard time about a pre-war estimate given to ABC that the post-war period in Iraq would cost only $1.7 billion, not the 87 billion we're now being -- the Congress is now being asked to approve. Let's take a look at that. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP -- ABC'S "NIGHTLINE") TED KOPPEL, HOST, "NIGHTLINE": Do you think the context, Dan, might have been a little bit easier to understand if the administration had been a little more forthcoming in acknowledging that things didn't quite go the way you were expecting after the war? And I guess I'm just asking whether you think if you had been a little more forthright earlier on you might be having an easier time now?</s>DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, I strongly disagree with the premise.</s>KURTZ: How much of the president's frustration with the coverage of post-war Iraq is based on all of these stories about whether or not the administration was deceptive during the run-up to war and making the case for war?</s>MILBANK: Well, to understand it in the full context, you know, the president has complained about the filter before when we were writing things about the economy not being terribly well. So, this will...</s>KURTZ: It's a common White House complaint.</s>MILBANK: No, no, you're right. It goes on and on. And things are particularly sensitive now because of the weapons of mass destruction and the failure to find them, because of the investigation of the CIA leak. But because the poll numbers have dropped down to 50 percent support or 55 percent support, that, in turn, is generating some sniping in the administration. It was hysterical this week that Knight Ridder did a report that said President Bush was angry with officials -- senior administration officials for not speaking on the record, and he has directed them not to do that anymore, a senior administration official who requested anonymity told Knight Ridder.</s>KURTZ: But, it seems like this president is really fed up with the media, and not just on the economy and not just on Iraq, but all of these stories about weapons of mass destruction. The guy has held nine solo news conferences, and his father held about 60 at this point. What do you make of that?</s>SESNO: Well, he doesn't especially like or think it's necessary to go out and meet the national press. I mean, no offense to Dana Milbank here, but, you know, he's got better things to do, he thinks, with his time, and part of that is to reach out through the regionals. But this is not new. You know, I mean, John Kennedy discovered he could hold a news conference and be charming and be humorous and take responsibility when he was in trouble, and it worked with the American people. Ronald Reagan discovered he could go right over the heads of the national media and the Congress and talk right to the people. Presidents, when they think they're doing the right thing and they're confident, will do that. This is just the latest version of that.</s>KURTZ: So, does that make the national media marginal or even irrelevant?</s>SESNO: Neither. It neither marginalizes them nor makes them irrelevant, because they continue to write the headlines that most people read or many people read, and to write the headlines that dominate conversation of programs like this and discussion here in Washington. It sets the agenda. It's called agenda setting, and the media, the national media included, will do that. They also influence the regionals.</s>KURTZ: Got to blow the whistle here.</s>SESNO: OK, blow the whistle.</s>KURTZ: Frank Sesno, Dana Milbank, thanks very much for joining us. Up next, is it an interview or an infomercial? A Florida TV station on the hot seat in our media minute.