Bush administration babysits media

By PAUL FARHI of The Washington Post

Reporters who cover the White House are accustomed to being spun by administration officials. The modern presidential toolbox includes carefully rationed press conferences, say-nothing spokesmen, dead-of-night releases of unfavorable news, and phony “town hall” meetings composed solely of sycophantic supporters. More recently, government agencies have issued fake-news videos and secretly contracted with two pundits to promote the administration's policies on education and marriage.

But now the art of press handling has evolved into actual manhandling. The Bush administration has expanded the use of “minders,” government employees or volunteers who escort journalists at a newsworthy event.

I was among those who was assigned a little friend. Or I should say, I was monitored for about half of the presidential party I covered for The Post. For the first couple of hours of the Independence Ball, I roamed the vast width and length of the Washington Convention Center hall dangerously unescorted.

I had arrived early to cover this quadrennial event and mingle among the roughly 6,000 people eating and dancing to celebrate the president's re-election. Unaware of the new escort policy , I blithely assumed that in the world's freest nation I was free to walk around at will and ask people such national security-jeopardizing questions as, “Are you having a good time?”

Big mistake. After cruising by the media pen, a sharp-eyed volunteer spotted my media badge. “You're not supposed to go out there without an escort,” she said.

I replied that I had been doing just fine without one and walked over to a quiet corner of the hall to phone in some anecdotes to The Post's Style desk.

As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a middle-aged woman. “You ignored the rules, and I'm throwing you out!” she barked, snapping my phone shut. “You told that girl you didn't need an escort. That's a lie! You're out of here!”

I explained that I had been unaware of the escort policy. She ordered a couple of security guards to hustle me out. I appealed to them, saying that I was happy to follow whatever ground rules had been laid down. They deposited me in the media pen.

There, I was assigned a pair of attractive young women, who, for the next hour or so, took turns following close at my heels. They never interfered with my work. I found I was able to go wherever I wanted, and to talk to whomever I desired. The minders just hovered nearby, saying nothing. (My Style colleague, Peter Carlson, inquired of his minder, “How did you get to be an escort? Do you work for an escort service?”)
Their civility didn't ease my suspicions. At one point, one of my escorts — Amy — told me we needed to return to the media pen. Aha, I thought, I must have seen something or talked to someone I shouldn't have. In fact, Amy apologized and explained that she just needed to find a relief minder because her feet were sore from all the walking around.

By about 10:15 p.m., long after President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had made their perfunctory appearances, a supervisor waved off the escorts and told them to go home.

Free at last! Feeling like a citizen of some newly liberated country, I immediately walked across the room to confront my cell phone snatcher. I told her what I thought of her media management skills — at which point she ordered me thrown out again. I talked my way out of that, too.

I know: It's hard to work up a lot of sympathy for reporters trying to cover a party. But this isn't really about me.

Consider that the escorts weren't there to provide security; all of us had already been through two checkpoints and one metal detector. They weren't there to keep me away from, Heaven forbid, a Democrat or a protester; those folks were kept safely behind rings of fences and concrete barriers. Nor were the escorts there to admonish me for asking a rude question of the partying faithful, or to protect the paying customers from the prying media.

Their real purpose only occurred to me after I had gone home for the night, when I remembered a brief conversation with a woman I was interviewing. During the middle of our otherwise innocuous encounter, she suddenly noticed the presence of my minder. She stopped talking for a moment, glanced past me, and then resumed talking.

No, the minders weren't there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, would be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.

I have a suggestion. As long as government officials are now fixing up reporters with dates, I would be happy to be escorted by my wife anytime they choose. If they can't work that out, I wonder if they have any pull with Halle Berry.