Breaking News: A Woman Journalist's Perspective on Three Presidencies (1981-2000)
Sarah Asterbadi Andrea Mitchell US inthe20'^Century World Mr Brandt February 10.2006 Table of Contents
Statement of Purpose Biography Historical Contextualization Interview Transcript Interview Analysis Works Consulted Statement of Purpose
The purpose of the American Century Oral History Project is to enable students to gain a valuable and intimate perspective on particular events that cannot be found
elsewhere by interviewing individuals who either participated in or witnessed those
events. My particulm^ project aims to gain a better understmiding of women in journalism
and the special issues one faces while reporting on the presidency through an interview
with Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News.
Table of Contents Biography
Andrea Mitchell was born to Cecil e and Sydney Mitchell on October 30. 1946 in
New York, New York At a young age, she and her family moved to NewRochelle, New
York, which is a suburb about thirty minutes from the city Mitchell studied at New
Bochelle Elementary School and High School She then majored in Enghsh Literature and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967 from the University of Pennsylvania Ms
Mitchell also attended the Aspen Music School where she studied violin
From 1967 to 1976, Mitchell worked for Philadelphia's KYWNewsradio and TV
She was then moved to WTOP Channel 9, in Washington, DC, in 1976 and worked there for two years In 1978, Mitchell transferred to NBC where she has been working ever since She has covered Capitol Hill, the White House, and foreign affairs for NBC since
1981, and today is chief foreign affairs correspondent
Andrea Mitchell is interested in pohtics, hterature, and history She enjoys playing tennis, listening to music, and watching baseball and football She and her husband, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System, hve in Washington, DC
Table of Contents Historical Contextualization Paper
After World War II, women who had filled so many men's jobs while they were
at war were displaced when the men returned home. The few women who entered journalism were confined to reporting on fashion and lifestyle topics of feminine interest,
while hard news reporting was dominatedby male journalists. By the late 1950s, women
were starting to break this barrier. The year 1960 seems to mark a great divide for
women, because the birth control pill first became available, and young housewives
began to spe^ out about being confined to the home (Harvey 226). As television
became more widespread and local stations were established, women began to find jobs
as broadcast journalists. This gave them the visibility and the opportunity to report hard
news. Today, almost fifty years later, men still outnumber women in both print and
broadcast newsrooms, but the problem of their gender is no longer a barrier to women.
Rather, "[t]he great divide is between two distinct subsets of women, who register
notably different aspirations, concerns, mid career paths" (The Great Divide 3). In fact, today there are a number of women in the top rmik of hard news reporters (Joan Biskupic
of USA Today. Jemine Cummings of The Wall Street Journal. Karen Tumulty of Time
Magazine. Dana Priest of The Washington Post. Gwen Ifill of PBS, mid Gloria Borger of
US News & World Report, among others), whose business it is to report on world affairs
and newsmakers, most especially Americmi presidents. Reporting on presidents today is
very different from the way it was approached until sometime in the 1960s. At least through John F. Kennedy's presidency, presidents' private lives were considered "out of
bounds." This barrier began to deteriorate during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration
and continues to the present. Few topics are considered taboo, although not all reporters are comfortable dealing with people's private lives, which may or may not be relevant to
hmd news. All political administrations are often seen as controlling the news, hiding
essential information they do not wish to reveal, and today's reporters believe it is their
responsibility to uncover that information. In order to understmid the perspective of a
wommi who has reported extensively on two recent presidents, it is necessmy to review those presidencies and the challenges they faced.
Four women who have been at the forefront of presidential reporting since the
beginning of the nineteen-eighties are Helen Thomas, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer,
and Andrea Mitchell. Thomas, the fearless questioner at presidential news conferences
since the nineteen-sixties (who did not, contrary to popular belief, coin the phrase,
"Thank you, Mr. President" [Thomas 67]), is best known for her print work in major
newspapers. Walters, Sawyer, and Mitchell are broadcast journalists. While the
women's personal styles differ, each is known for getting through the presidential lock,
and each of them has covered the Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton presidencies.
Ronald Reagan, president from 1980 to 1988, was originally a liberal Democrat,
who became a Republican after World Wm II in large part because of the high taxes he
and his fellow actors had to pay (Beschloss 477-478). He became president on the
promise "to cut taxes, raise defense spending, and balmice the budget, all within his first term" (Beschloss 481). Reagmi's chief of staff, James A. Baker, his counselor Edwin
Meese, mid media affairs director Michael Deaver, were assigned to present Reagan "in
his most favorable light" (Beschloss 480). While President Reagan managed to get a
healthy tax cut through Congress, he was not successful in achieving a balmiced budget. Aside from taxes, the president's major concern was the Soviet Union.
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss states, "For Reagmi, the Cold War was a battle
between 'right and wrong and good and evil'" (483). He repeatedly referred to the Soviet
Union as the "evil empire." His goal was to spend massively on Americmi arms in order to bankrupt the Soviets (Hilton). In addition, he refused to meet with Soviet leadership; the Cold Wm grew distinctly colder. By his second term, Reagan was convinced he
could negotiate with Mikhail Gorbachev. They met in Geneva in 1985 and in Iceland in
October, 1986 ("Reagan-Gorbachev Transcripts"). The leaders came extraordinarily
close to agreeing to make a radical reduction in nuclear weapons, but failed when Reagmi
would not agree to confine his Strategic Defense Initiative resemch to the laboratory
(Beschloss 486). The excitement generated by the president's astounding arms reduction
proposal was quickly overshadowed by the Iran-Contra scandal, which broke a month
later.
In November, newspapers revealed that the United States had sold arms to Iran in
exchange for its pressure on Hezbollah mid other terrorist groups to release their Western
hostages, despite America's insistence that it would never negotiate for hostages.
Subsequently, newspapers uncovered the fact that the money from those sales had been
diverted to support the Nicaraguan contras in their fight against the Sandinista
government, in direct defiance of Congress' prohibition of such support in the Boland
Amendment (Beschloss 484, 486). This scandal would cloud the remainder of Reagan's
second term. While Reagan was forced to admit he had exchanged weapons for hostages
and that the proceeds of the weapons sale had been transferred to the contras, he still
managed to convince the Americmi public that he had not deliberately done anything wrong: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages.
My heart mid my best intentions still tell me that's true, but that facts mid the evidence tell me it is not" (Spartacus 8). His popularity was high when he left office in 1988.
Pmlly as a result of that popularity, Reagan's successor was his vice president, George
H.W. Bush.
The first President Bush served only one term, but several world-chmiging events
occurred during its course. The Berlin Wall, which had symbolized communist
repression since 1961, fell in November, 1989, when the East Germans opened the gates
and allowed people to pass freely between East and West Berlin (BBC News). East
Berliners poured into the West, and soon citizens from both sides begmi literally teming it
apart ("Freedom!"). Its fall vividly portrayed the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which
would become increasingly fragmented in subsequent years. American foreign policy
had been driven by its determination to contain communism since the end of World Wm
II, but suddenly its guiding mission no longer existed. President Bush was confronted
with the need to develop a whole new plan for dealing with the world.
When Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of Russia, and Boris Yeltsin
succeeded him, it was clear to the world that communism had failed as mi economic and
political system ("Fall of Communism"). American foreign policy had to learn how to
deal with Russia's struggles to become democratic. The end of the Soviet bloc affected
its former client states, most especially Yugoslavia, a country made up at the end of
World War I from different ethnic groups and conflicting religious groups and only held together by the communist dictatorship of Marshal Tito (Clinton 502). After the
dictator's death, that country dissolved into civil war between its Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim states, with atrocities on all sides (Lee mid Wheeling Jesuit University).
Although the country lay between countries in the NATO alliance. President Bush was
very reluctant to become involved. He was, on the other hand, quite willing to invade
Pmiama when American soldiers were assaulted and one killed. General Manuel Noriega,
its president, was captured and brought to the United States for trial, where he was
convicted and imprisoned.
Perhaps the defining event during Bush's presidency was the Gulf War
(Beschloss 495-496). When President Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait,
President Bush felt the invader must be expelled. He set about building a world allimice to join the United States in exerting economic and political pressure, and, when those
failed, in invading Kuwait and driving the Iraqis back into their own country (496-497).
At the end of Bush's term, he sent American troops to deliver hummiitmian aid to
Somalis, who were suffering from starvation mid civil wm (499). Somalia would be
among the first foreign policy crises confronted by Bush's successor, William Jefferson
Clinton. Because foreign affairs dominated the Bush administration, the American public
felt the President was little concerned with domestic economic affairs, which were of far
greater concern to Americans ("Presidential Elections 1992").
Bill Clinton was elected largely on the informal slogan conceived by James
Carville, one of his principle advisors, "It's the economy, stupid!" (Feulner) Wikipedia.
in its article on Clinton, quotes Cmville saying the sign actually read "The economy,
stupid!" Yet foreign affairs occupied a significant amount of Clinton's attention. He
inherited the Somali mid Yugoslav crises, both of which forced him to widen his focus.
The troops sent by Bush to Somalia were coming under increasing pressure from warring tribal chiefs. In September and October, the Americans clashed several times with
Somalis rebels under General Muhammed Far^ Aidee, mid a number of Americmis were
killed. The defining moment came on October 3*^ to 4 in a major clash with Aideed's
supporters, mid several helicopters went down. Somalis mobbed one crash site and killed
all of the occupants except one pilot whom they captured. Fierce combat continued in
multiple locations through the two days. America lost 16 soldiers and had 57 wounded.
Further casualties followed on October 6*. ("U.S. Army in Somalia, 1992-1994").
Congress and the American public began demmiding the country withdraw from Somalia
(Clinton 551). Despite Clinton's build-up of troops, he was unable to impose peace on the country and bowed to domestic pressure to pull out in Mmch, 1994 ("U.S. Army in
Somalia, 1992-1994" and Baum).
Meanwhile, the situation in Yugoslavia worsened. There, the Bosnians Serbs,
Bosnian Muslims, and the Croats continued to battle over their respective independence
or union. Because they were better armed (with support from Russia), the Serbs
(Orthodox Christians) were able to besiege Muslim areas, in particulm, causing great
distress. Clinton wanted to bomb the Serbs supply lines, but the European nations
refused to go along (Dobbs 360). The small UN peacekeeping force was unable to
protect the Bosnian Muslims, whom the Serbs periodically slaughtered. Finally, in 1994,
Clinton persuaded the Europeans to exert pressure on the Serbs. In 1995, the
administration brought the warring pmties to Dayton, Ohio, where they engaged in
intense peace negotiations, resulting in the Dayton peace accord. It divided Bosnia into two autonomous regions under one government. (ChoUet and Freeman). NATO troops
remained to enforce the fragile peace. The Dayton Peace Accord ended the fighting and set a road map for Bosnia two main communities. Christian and Muslim, to live together
in some degree of peace. Perhaps more importmitly, "Dayton brought to mi end one of the most difficult periods in the history of U.S.-European relations, helping to define an
new role for NATO and restore confidence in American leadership after a period during
which it had been cast into doubt" (ChoUet and Freeman). Serbia, Montenegro, and
Kosovo remained united as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but in 1998 more ethnic
violence flmed. Kosovo was largely inhabited by ethnic Albanimis who wanted
independence, but the region was of prime importmice to Serbian history. As a result, the
Serbs begmi a campaign of ethnic cleansing (State Department "Ethnic Cleansing"). As
Albanians begmi fleeing, Clinton tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution (Drozdiak and
Harris). Unsuccessful, Clinton persuaded NATO to bomb military installations in Serbia
and Kosovo (Clinton 848-851, 855). An international peace plan was negotiated in 1999
(CNN). Americmi forces were part of the peacekeeping forces in both Bosnia and
Kosovo.
In addition, Clinton faced foreign policy challenges in Afghanistan, Haiti, and the
Middle East. The World Trade Center was flrst bombed in 1993, and Osama Bin Laden
was soon identifled as the prime suspect. Clinton responded by bombing the Muslim
radical's training camp in Afghanistan; however. Bin Laden had already escaped. In
1991, a coup ousted democratically elected President Aristide. A wave of refugees tried to enter the United States but was turned back (Clinton 463-464). Although Congress
opposed intervention, Clinton sent a force to restore Aristide to power (Clinton 616-619).
Finally, like most Americmi presidents. Bill Clinton was involved in the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Clinton-influenced negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians resulted in a number of agreements but none had a long-lasting effect (Clinton 728-729, 740, 747-748,
814-820, 911-916, 923-924, 936-938, and 943-945). He had better success with Jordan
and Israel, who signed a peace treaty and established diplomatic relations in 1994 (609-
610,625).
Despite his heavy involvement in foreign affairs, Clinton did not neglect the
American economy. He managed to get a tax increase passed by a Democratic Congress
in 1993 (Budget Reconciliation Act, Clinton 492-494), which helped lead to balmicing the budget and a long period of economic prosperity. He failed, however, to pass major
medical insurmice reform (Clinton 555, 594-595, 601-602, 620-621), and issues like gays
in the military earned him enemies (Clinton 483-486).
Republican conservatives had disliked Clinton from his days in Arkmisas politics,
and they increased in number as he moved to the national stage. A good portion of their
animosity was based on policy differences, but much of their hatred of Clinton grew from
more personal reasons. There had long been rumors about Clinton's womanizing, mid there was also the issue of Whitewater, an Arkansas real estate venture that went bad.
Congress appointed a series of special prosecutors to investigate the various rumored
"scmidals." The Whitewater report was that there was insufficient evidence to charge
anyone with a crime. The allegations of sexual misconduct by Clinton brought by Paula
Corbin Jones were investigated by the state of Arkansas, and Clinton was called to testify to the grand jury. During the questioning, Clinton was asked about allegations of an
improper relationship with one of his interns. The President denied any such
relationship. Soon after, the Monica Lewinsky scandal becmiie public, and Clinton faced
further special counsel investigation. The special counsel, Kenneth Star, concluded there was enough evidence that Clinton had committed perjury that he presented his case for
indictment to that House of Representatives. The House called for impeachment hearings
and subsequently voted for impeachment in December, 1998 (Beschloss 509). When the
Senate tried the matter, however, Clinton was acquitted (Beschloss 510). The balance of his presidency continued to be shadowed by the rumor of scandal, especially
domestically.
Clearly, during the last twenty years of the twentieth century, the coverage of
presidents has changed, as has the role of journalists, particulmly women journalists. In
order to better understand the three presidencies of the period, one needs to examine not
only the traditional print sources, but also to study them from the perspective of someone
who was present during their administrations. Andrea Mitchell is among the premier
female journalists today. She has covered Capitol Hill, the White House, and foreign
affairs for NBC since 1981, mid today is its chief foreign affairs correspondent.
Table of Contents Interview Trmiscription
Interviewee/Narrator: Andrea Mitchell Interviewer: Sarah Asterbadi Date: December 23, 2005 Location: NBC Studio, Washington DC
Sarah Asterbadi: This is Sarah Asterbadi mid I'm interviewing Andrea Mitchell of
NBC News as part of the American Century Oral History project. This interview took place on December 23, 2005 at NBC studios in Washington, DC. Where were you bom and raised, Ms. Mitchell?
Andrea Mitchell: I was bom in New York City and raised . . . [there] for the flrst flve years of my life and then [in] New Rochelle, New York which [is] a suburb, about a half hour from New York City.
SA: Where did you get your education?
AM: I was educated at New Rochelle High School, which was a public school in New
Rochelle, New York, New Rochelle public Elementary School, mid then at the University of Pennsylvania where I majored in English Literature and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967. And I also studied at the Aspen Music School, where I studied violin.
SA: Were you always interested in media as a child? AM: I was always interested in news and politics, and I wrote for the hometown
newspaper and for school newspapers and got involved in college radio. But I always thought I wmited to be an English teacher, not a journalist. And then [I] becmiie more
and more involved in college radio as I pursued my interest in music, which was
programming music broadcasts, and also doing newscasts on the college station. That
led me to working in a local all-news radio station in Philadelphia, where I was going to
school during summers and weekends as an Intern, and eventually getting a job there
when I graduated.
SA: What was it like growing up in the United States as a woman in the 50's mid 60's?
AM: Our town was very typically middle-class, my parents had lived through the
Depression, mid we were very deeply affected by that experience. My father had had
polio so he was not in World War II, but there was a great deal of focus on family, on
public service; my parents were very active in the community in charitable organizations.
We studied very hard, we did a lot of activities - Girl Scouts, violin, choir, All-County
Orchestra, piano, charitable organizations. I was active in my synagogue, and America
was a much more peaceful place. We had come through the Korean Wm, which I was too young to remember, but America was in a time of economic expansion and very
stable, and then the 60's happened. Vietnam, well, flrst, the death of John F. Kennedy,
which was profoundly important to all of us, and then the beginnings of our focusing on the Vietnam war and problems with the anti-war movement, civil rights movement
protests - so there was a great deal of political activity, and we as high school kids were really conscious of that, we really focused on all of these struggles. Once I got to college,
I spent a lot of time at the radio station on campus and also doing English, my English
major, but the backdrop with all the Vietnam war mid Civil Rights Movement and all the
changes that were taking place in Americmi society . . . (interrupted by a third party).
SA: When and how did you become interested in journalism?
AM: I became interested in journalism as a young girl, I really was writing stories for the
hometown paper when I was in sixth grade. I won a competition to be the school reporter
for a newspaper, which was called The Standard Star, mid once a week I would write
stories, mid my mother would drive me downtown, and they would do a school page, and that was the flrst time I wrote, quote, professionally. I was twelve years old, mid I also
did announcements on the public address system at school from the principal's office
each morning, so these were competitions within the school to be the broadcaster mid the
reporter, and I always seemed to win those, which was great. So I was interested in journalism, but I was interested in it because I was interested in current events. We had
all these Girl Scout badges which involved going places, and we went to the United
Nations building, which was new in those days, and so we would study these things, and
I found it very interesting. I also very interested in history, and our town had been settled
by French Huguenots who had escaped from France to avoid prosecution - persecution,
excuse me - and there were mmiy historic homes, and I loved going out with my camera.
My mother would drive us around and [I would] take pictures of some of the old homes,
and Thomas Payne had lived in New Rochelle and had written there, and his house was. in fact, where we had our Girl Scout meetings. There were all these wonderful historic
connections which, of course, was not like living in Washington, DC, where you have so
many historic monuments, but even in our little town we had a lot of historic buildings,
and I loved writing little stories about them . . . (phone rings).
SA: What made you choose television as opposed to print?
AM: Well, actually, I chose radio, but to the broader question of why broadcasting, I
love the immediacy of it, mid I really thought some day I'd be a print reporter, because I
love to write But I write for television and it's a different form of writing, more
abbreviated certainly; there's a certain technique that has to be achieved in writing for television, because you don't have as much room, but I like the visual component; I love
using pictures to tell my stories.
SA: Could you please tell me about how you chose politics as your beat, particularly
once you were assigned to The White House mid then to Capitol Hill?
AM: Always loved politics. From my earliest days in Philadelphia, I started out
covering what was considered a woman's beat - social issues, problems in nursing
homes, mid other what we would call softer news, but I always loved politics and,
pmticularly, in Philadelphia when I was starting out as a reporter, just a wonderful variety
of political stories. We had a tough mayor, who was the former police chief, very
controversial character; a lot of friction between different ethnic, racial, mid religious groups in town. So it was big city messy politics and changed all the time; a lot of
colorful characters - it was like going to the movies or watching a play; it was a really
wonderful narrative line; and I guess I found it very compelling.
SA: As you were choosing your career, who were your mentors mid role models?
AM: There were very few, because there were so few women, and I found it very, very
hmd to get a job. They didn't want to hire women - they said there was, quote, no room
for broads in broadcasting, close quote. And just very few women at all involved in
politics, television or radio. There was a woman named Pauline Frederick, who was
working for NBC radio and some television at the United Nations; there was a woman
nmiied Liz Trada, who went to Vietnmii for NBC. Bmbara Walters was in a different
sphere, because she was doing the Today Show, but there was a lot of entertainment
involved as well as what you'd call hard news, so while she was a path breaker and had a
great difficulty herself getting that flrst job mid being taken seriously, it wasn't exactly
what I was doing, and there just weren't too many of us. I had many male mentors; the
few back in the initial days who were helpful were some of the radio anchormen and then, later, a wonderful man named Jim Snyder, who was the news director at Channel 9
here in Washington, who brought me from Philadelphia, who was a terriflc teacher. And then, my flrst bureau chief here, Sid Davis, at NBC taught me a great deal. He was a
former White House correspondent for Westinghouse Broadcasting, which is now part of
CBS, mid then became our bureau chief, and he was a really tough taskmaster but a
wonderful man and a good teacher, so there were certainly a number. My great friend. Judy Woodruff, was the White House correspondent, John Palmer, another White House
correspondent, and they mentored me when I had a lot of ups and downs early in my
career.
SA: How do women like Helen Thomas and Bmbara Walters blaze the trail of political
reporting for women in journalism?
AM: Certainly not in television but certainly in journalism, Helen Thomas was the path-
brewer, mid she was always very good to other women at the White House and taught us the ropes mid taught us that we had to come early, stay late, be there seven days a week,
and it did really interfere with having any personal life, and that was the trade off. And I
certainly hope that's no longer necessmy for young women like you, that you can have a
vmiety of careers without sacriflcing so much of your personal life. We felt that we had to be there all the time; give up vacations, because we had to be there on those days when the men were taking the day off, because that was the only chance we had to shine. I
wonder how different that is since we're talking on December 23 , which is an NBC
company holiday, and I'm the only one who came into work today. I'm really wondering
if I ever learned any of these lessons after being here since 1978. Oh well.
SA: How has covering politics changed over the time you have spent in the fleld?
AM: It's chmiged enormously because of the technology; it's changed because of video,
digital techniques. And live television, of course, has transformed what we do. Initially, we were traveling with fllm crews on buses to cover presidential campaigns, and we had to stop shooting at noon in order to get the fllm developed and on satellite. Now it can be
live and instantmieous; when we covered the Vietnmii War, mid I didn't - it was before
my time - they would shoot a story mid, maybe two days later, it would appear on television, because they had to fly it out, develop the fllm, [and] get it, somehow, to a transmission point. Now, we have satellite television phones transmitting from the front
lines of the desert during a march towmd Baghdad, plus we have live television hook-ups
from a converted tank recovery vehicle - our great friend, the late David Bloom, was our
correspondent in the desert, live with mi the 3 infantry division of the U.S. Army - so
we can bring information to the people instantmieously. There's a down side, in you have to ask, does that lead to distortion?, does that put too much of mi emphasis on what's
happening in the fleld and not enough context?, are the pictures so dramatic that they
overwhelm other facts?. So you always have to try and flnd the balancing act and, in
pmticular, with the internet. We have to make sure that information is correct and that
it's well attributed, so there are pluses and minuses to this whole technological
revolution.
SA: Is the White House easier or harder than covering Capitol Hill?
AM: In some ways, it's easier because it's all hmided to you - we get that daily briefing
and it's just all out there - but in other ways it's harder, because you are a captive
audience, and you can't float around and develop as mmiy sources. In congress there are
so many different committees and staff members and diverse points of view; in the White House, especially this White House, there's such a premium placed on loyalty that it's
very, very hard to pierce the facade that is corrected [constructed] by the President and
his top communications team.
SA: What differences did you experience or witness between how men and women me treated by the people they reported on?
AM: Well, in the days when there were very few women staff in the White House or the tops of political campaigns, there was certainly a man's club, and the men would go out
drinking or could be palling mound with White House officials and had a much easier time of it, frankly. In this White House, there have been more women who have reached
prominence - Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Dina Powell, personnel chief of the
White House who is now at the State Department - so there's a little bit more diversity.
SA: Now, I would like to focus on your experience covering the Presidents. How hard is
it to ask difficult questions?
AM: It's very hard, because you're exposed; you've got to make sure of your facts. But
it's also something that where intuition mid instinct takes over, and if it's a formal news
conference, you really prepme hard - you study, you research a variety of questions; you
don't know whether you'll be called on and in what sequence, so you don't know
whether what you're going to ask has already been asked, so you have to have a variety
of approaches. It's different when you're on the run, mid you have a moment to ask the President a question during a photo opportunity or on the campaign trail, mid sometimes
instinct takes over. And you have to make sure you're always respectful, because it is the
Presidency of the United States, but that you don't get intimidated.
SA: How do you get at the real story, not the politicized or "spinned" story?
AM: Very good question - that's what we keep trying to do. You know, and especially
with some of the stuff I've covered, which is intelligence community information, which
is classifled and hard to get at, people don't want to talk, and now in the aftermath of this
whole investigation into the CIA leak involving Valerie Plmiie Wilson, people me really
afraid to talk; it's had a real chilling effect. They know that their calls from reporters are
logged and that people could be given lie detector tests if they are CIA offlcials, if they talk to a reporter inappropriately, so it's gotten very hmd to flgure out what's real and
what's not real. It's easier with politics or political stories, because you can smell the
spin, but not always and you just have to talk to as many people from different political
points of view as possible so you know when you are getting the truth.
SA: Do you think that technology has helped cover-up the spin or the false story?
AM: I think that the White House has become very adept, not just this White House -
certainly the Clinton White House was great at communications once they got their act together, after some big stumbles in the flrst yem or two. I'm just talking about
communication strategy now, not talking about the real scandals of the later years, but this White House has been particulmly adept at spin mid at communications, using the technology, great cmiiera angles, you know, made for television events... .you know
we've got to do a better job of not showing the "White House video show," not doing
what they want - then it's just a commercial visually - but, if you've noticed, they've
started doing things like putting slogans up behind the President when he speaks, like
"Victory" or "Mission Accomplished" which, of course, backfired; but they have figured
out ways to try to project their message past us and go over the heads of the media.
SA: How did Ronald Reagan differ from George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton as an
interviewee; who was the most difficult to get answers from, and who was the easiest to
get answers from?
AM: Ronald Reagmi was a tough interview, because he could persuade himself with his
own reality, mid you couldn't shake him from it. I really liked him, respected him, and
admired him, but there were moments when he just really didn't think he had traded arms for hostages in Iran-Contra, and his staff couldn't talk him out of it even when Howard
Baker came in as the new chief of staff mid said, "Mr. President this really did happen"
he had a cinematic reality sometimes and sometimes, he confused things that happened in
movies with things that he thought happened in real life. It was part of his charm, but it
wasn't always the best for running the country. He had other strengths, and was a great
communicator; I mean, really, his speeches - after the Challenger was lost and the Pointe
du Hoc at Normmidy on the 40 anniversary of WWII, the invasion, he was just a
remarkable communicator. And the country needed that kind of leadership in a way; it certainly helped us confront the former Soviet Union. Clinton was a great "retail"
politician; he could go charm the pants off anyone . . . (pause) I shouldn't use that
expression, but you know he was a real charmer. In New Hampshire, for instance, he'd
go door to door, small groups of people, and could give a great speech. He was
undisciplined, as we know in his personal life mid certainly undisciplined in the way he
hmidled the budget and some other things in his flrst year in office, so they had a lot of
problems. Bush 41 was not as good a politician or communicator; he couldn't explain
why he wmited a second term, he couldn't explain his thoughts. He was a very nice mmi
and certainly had a lot of governmental experience; he was not a novice. This president
Bush has less government experience and a very different point of view towmds foreign
policy thmi his father mid is not as adept as making speeches as Bill Clinton, but certainly
[he] showed leadership skill after 911, which the American people responded to.
SA: How were women journalists treated by other journalists.. .treated by the Reagan
White House?
AM: We were not treated very well by the Reagmi White House, at all. Larry Speakes, the White House Press Secretary, was extremely tough on women like Judy Woodruff,
Leslie Stahl, and me, and others, like Helen Thomas and Ann Deveroy, and very mean
and it meant that we just had to work a lot harder.
SA: Can you please spell Speaks? AM: Sorry, S-P-E-A-K-E-S; he was the Press Secretary. Jim Brady was the Press
Secretary, but he was previously wounded in the assassination attempt of March 1981,
and so Larry Speakes was his deputy, and he took over mid was acting Press Secretary for the rest of the term, until Mmlin Fitzwater took over from him.
SA: How difficult was it to get the real story about the Iran-Contra affair?
AM: It was hard, and we did not cover ourselves with glory. As I wrote in my book, we
didn't learn about it independently, we were told right before Thanksgiving in '86; we
were told about it from the Attorney General Ed Meese. So, this was not something we
discovered, and then the cover-up began and it took a lot of time and congressional
investigation to get to the bottom of it. Some people feel we never did.
SA: How would you describe your relationship with former flrst lady Nancy Reagan?
AM: I'd say she was very wary of me, because I think she thought I was a little too
aggressive. I liked her; I felt sorry for her sometimes when the press was beating up on
her a lot. There were some really mean stories written. At the same time, we did a
number of interviews, and she was always very opaque, very hard to interview; she
stayed on message. She seemed to respond to male interviewers. She had a good
relationship with Chris Wallace - my colleague with NBC back then - knew him through
his father, who was a very good friend of her mother's, Mike Wallace, and he and Nmicy
Reagan's mom were very good friends, and so Chris got good interviews with her. And so did Tom Brokow, who knew her from California when she was the flrst lady there;
Tom was a local reporter when Reagmi was flrst elected governor. She seemed to
respond better to men.
SA: Was there a big difference on how women journalists were treated by the White
House when Bill Clinton cmiie into office?
AM: There were more women in Clinton's administration, and, generationally, some of the younger White House officials were more open-minded about men and women.
Women were more equal in the Clinton White House, but I think we still had some
challenges. Women were still not as successful as men in a lot of ways; we had to work
hmder.
SA: How difficult was it for journalists like yourself to cover the Whitewater
investigation mid/or the Monica Lewinsky scandal?
AM: That's a really good question, Sarah, because it was so hard; I hated it. I didn't
want to know about his personal life; it was none of my business, yet, it became our
business because it was part of a national debate over impeachment, so it was public, a
public issue. I was offended. Fortunately for me, I was then covering foreign policy; I
had left the White House before Monica broke, and although I did have to cover some of
Gennifer Flowers mid Paula Jones, I hated it, and I wanted to be doing what I considered
serious things, and I stayed away from it as much as I could, frankly. SA: How would you describe your relationship with Hillary Clinton?
AM: Again, wmy. I think they were always nervous around me, because I tend to not be
easy. I covered her full time in 2000, when she rmi for U.S. Senate in New York and traveled a lot, mid she always preferred to do interviews with local reporters, who might
not ask her some of the tougher questions, frankly, just to be perfectly blunt about it. So,
at the same time, when we traveled overseas - we went to Bosnia and China and
Mongolia and Turkey - we had a lot of fun; she could be a lot of laughs, really.
SA: In your book there's a picture of you two smiling together.
AM: Yeah, we really, um - we had fun. She had a great sense of humor; we're almost the same age - we were both bom in October.
SA: Me too.
AM: What's your birthday?
SA: October 8*.
AM: Cool! Mine's the 30 . So we just had a lot in common in a funny way SA: What is different about covering the current administration?
AM: They are - in the past, for instance. Bush 41 brought together the Reagan people,
his own people, the Jerry Ford people, so there was a variety in his inner circle from
different wings of the Republicmi Party. Same thing happened in the Reagan White
House. They had the Ed Meese types and Mike Deaver - D-E-A-V-E-R - mid then Jim
Baker people, so there was a variety of conservatives, moderates, more liberal
Republicans. This White House, they're all Texas loyalists to George W. Bush. It's not that they represent the different extremes of the Republican party - you don't have
McCain people in there, you don't have Democrats working temporarily for a Republicmi
administration - so their loyalty is to him, not to an idea or cause, and that helps him keep
discipline; but it also means it's a lot harder to get information.
SA: Do you think it has ever been difficult to keep your journalistic perspective? For
example, in your marriage (to Alan Greenspmi, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bomd)
as a feminist and as a defender of human rights (Condoleezza Rice in Africa)?
AM: It did not. I have not had a problem because of my marriage, because I don't cover
monetary policy, which is his business, and it just has not been an issue. We've kept
very, very separate work experiences; we have a sort of flre wall where we never talk
about what we're doing, and what he works on is all classified, so he cmi't discuss it
anyway; so it doesn't matter that I'm a reporter, he couldn't tell any wife what he's up to.
I guess I did get involved in Dmfur, and other parts of Sudan with Condi Rice. I really. really was angry at the way people were being treated. And then I was pushed around,
and that was unpleasant, because I became part of the story, so that was uncomfortable. I
haven't had a difficult time with other political points of view. I tend to react to the story that I'm covering, no matter what it is, and I just love to flnd out what's new, what's
edgy, what's different; and it doesn't really matter whose ox is being gored, you just want to get to the bottom of it. So it isn't really as hard to keep your own opinions out of it.
Where objectivity does, or lack of objectivity does, come into play is when producers,
correspondents, editors decide what is news, what's important today? Is it importmit today that there's a debate over the surveillance without wmrmits or is that unimportant?
Are we making too much of it? That's where judgments comes into play, mid just what
you edit in and edit out of the newscast is partly determined by your own background and
your own judgments, and those are subjective.
SA: What would you tell [a] high school student is the most importmit aspect to know
about journalism or covering Presidents?
AM: To be independent, to not be bullied around, to not be intimated, to be respectful
but to be persistent, and also to really get your facts straight. Do your homework so that
if somebody claims something is true, you know what the counter-arguments are.
SA: Is there anything I forgot to ask that you think would be important to know about
your experience as a woman journalist? AM: I think it's hard to explain just how much discrimination there was when I started
out. They basically said, 'we've never had a woman in this newsroom and we're not
going to have a wommi.' And if you can imagine today, it -1 mean - it would be against the law, but if you cmi't even imagine somebody saying . . . + you walk out into the
newsroom and see how many women are sitting there, so it's just unimaginable that
people would be that way. And there's residual discrimination; I think women are judged
on different, for different qualities; they have to worry more about presentation. That's just the way our audiences expect us to be, mid that's part of the gmiie. I understmid that;
I get it. I spend time on it, but you can't - it is hard - you can't just jump off an airplane
after being up for 24 hours and go right on the air as easily as the men can; they can just
straighten their ties and comb their hair, those who bother to, but they get away with
murder (laughs). It might be a lot easier being a mmi, but I love being a woman, so it's
sort of part of it. The other thing that most people don't get is that women really, for the
most part, really help each other, especially those of us who came up together. Judy is
still my best friend, mid you know, Judy Woodruff, mid we went all through those years together, and we really helped each other on the road. Cokie Roberts, [too] - a lot of
women in those days and we weren't competitive amongst each other. We all really had to watch each other's back, so it was a very good experience.
SA: Well, Ms Mitchell, thmik you so much for taking time out of your day in your busy schedule to meet with me. Happy Holidays to you and your husband.
AM: It was my pleasure, you too. It's been fun, thank you.
Table of Contents Interview Analysis
Oral history captures an individual's recollection of an event or period which that
person witnessed or in which that person was involved. When the junior class began their American Century Oral History Project, Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs
correspondent for NBC News, immediately cmiie to mind. It is my good fortune to be the
neighbor of one of America's most prominent female television correspondents.
Although I have not been particularly interested in politics, the idea of questioning
someone who has been so close to major events in our recent history was especially
appealing. In our interview, Ms. Mitchell not only provided fascinating details about the
early difficulty of women being taken seriously in hard news journalism and insight
about covering three recent presidents, but also how little some things have changed for
women in journalism.
Standard histories recount major events, important people, and politics. When
writing, historians rely principally on documents such as proclamations, legislation, treaties, letters and diaries, minutes of meetings, executive and military orders, and other
official records. Contempormy news articles are another important source. As Donald
A. Richie states, "Although archival documents have the advantage of not being
influenced by later events or otherwise changing over time, as an interviewee might,
documents are sometimes incomplete, inaccurate, and deceiving. ... As a result of such
blind spots, oral history can develop information that might not have appeared in print"
(23). In addition, while formal sources provide importmit facts, they usually fail to reveal the negotiations and compromise behind their creation. Oral histories also differ from the
standard sources in that it provides a signiflcantly different perspective: it is an individual's experience in a certain time and place in his or her life as it has been affected
by larger events. That experience may be colored by the passage of time, but that time
may well also provide a better perspective through which to view that experience. In
order for an oral historian to make the best use of mi interviewee's memories, the
historian needs to have done their homework by resemching a vmiety of conventional
sources. This enables the historian to make an informed judgment about the place and
value of the recollections of the interviewee, as well as gain a richer understmiding of the
events.
While preparing for the interview, I found relatively little about the history of
women in journalism. There do not appear to be any histories on the topic of women in journalism, although there are a few texts on individual female journalists. The same is true in periodic literature. There, however, is the occasional article on some speciflc
issue for women in journalism. I learned how difficult it must have been for women to
break into hard journalism simply because they do not appear in historical sources much
before the advent of Helen Thomas on the national stage in 1961. This meant my
questions about women in journalism for the interview were necessarily broad because there was no real background information.
During the flrst pml of our conversation, Ms. Mitchell talked about her childhood.
Although there were almost no women journalists at the time who might have served as
role models, Ms. Mitchell, who majored in English in college, seems always to have been
directed towmd journalism. She spoke about the difficulties of brewing into her
preferred field of "hard news" because the assumption was that miy woman in journalism
was capable only of reporting on news of interest to women alone. When asked about mentors, Mitchell said her mentors had been men rather than women, simply because they were doing the "hmd news." The one exception was print journalist Helen Thomas,
who served as an invaluable tutor at the White House to the female reporters, and "taught
us the ropes mid taught us that we had to come early, stay late, be there seven days a
week. . ." (Asterbadi 19). Mitchell also spoke about her female contemporaries, in
pmticular Judy Woodruff and Cokie Roberts, and how they helped each other as they
struggled in a man's world.
Pmliculmly intriguing were Ms. Mitchell's observations on Presidents Reagan,
Bush 41, and Clinton. She noted that covering the White House is difficult because the
reporters are a "captive audience" and cannot simply float around the building to follow a
story to its sources (Asterbadi 20). This makes reporters much more subject to political
"spin." Ms. Mitchell noted that". . . this [Bush 43] White House has been particularly
adept at spin and at communication. . ." (Asterbadi 22). She also commented that in ". . . this White House, there's such a premium placed on loyalty that it's very, very hard to
pierce the facade that is corrected [constructed] by the President mid his top
communications team" (Asterbadi 21). Clearly, while a White House assignment would
appear to place a journalist in a prime place for information, it turns out that a reporter is
both physically limited and subject to an administration's message control. This makes
uncovering the facts that much more difficult.
When Ms. Mitchell was flrst assigned to the White House, there were few women
on the executive staff or in the upper tier of political campaigns, and this made her task
more difficult; women were simply excluded from the informal settings where reporters
could mingle with news sources. She candidly revealed that "we were not treated very well by the Reagan White House at all. Larry Speakes, the White House Press Secretary,
was extremely tough on women like Judy Woodruff, Leslie Stahl, and me. . . and very
mean, and it meant that we just had to work a lot harder" (Asterbadi 24). Mitchell found
difficulties interviewing both President Reagan and his wife, Nmicy: "Ronald Reagan
was a tough interview, because he could persuade himself with his own reality, mid you
couldn't shake him from it. ... [S]ometimes he confused things that happened in the
movies with things that he thought happened in real life" (Asterbadi 23). Nancy Reagan,
on the other hand, was ". . . always very opaque, very hmd to interview; she stayed on
message; she seemed to respond to male interviewers" (Asterbadi 25), which seems to be
a further indication of bias against female reporters in the Reagan White House. The
control of message by the Reagan White House helped prevent journalists from
uncovering the Irmi-Contra affair, a failure Mitchell readily confessed.
Since women have begun to flll more high level positions at the White House, it
has been a little easier for female journalists to do their jobs. Mitchell talked about how the increasednumber of women and the youth of President Clinton's staff made the
White House ". . . more open-minded. . ." (Asterbadi 26). But while women seemed to
be more equal in the Clinton White House, they held very few of the top jobs, and ". . .
we still had some challenges. Women were still not as successful as men in a lot of
ways; we had to work hmder" (Asterbadi 26). The most difficult task for Mitchell and
other journalists was to cover the Clinton scandals, pmlicularly Whitewater and Monica
Lewinsky, both subjects of special prosecutors. Ms. Mitchell found it terribly difficult to
be asking questions about the President's personal life, which she considered none of her
business, but which had to be covered because of the possibility of impeachment and a Senate trial. She stated, "I hated it, mid I wmited to be doing what I considered serious things, and I stayed away from it as much as I could, frankly" (Asterbadi 26). I believe
Mitchell felt aspects of a President's personal life were gossip or "soft news," and thus
was not where she wmited to go. I found it interesting that Ms. Mitchell found it just as
difficult to interview Mrs. Clinton as she had Mrs. Reagan. She described her
relationship with Mrs. Clinton as "wary" because she thought both the President mid his
wife 'Svere always nervous around me because I tend not to be easy. . . . [S]he always
preferred to do interviews with local reporters who might not ask her some of the tougher
questions. . ." (Asterbadi 27).
When I asked about covering the current administration. Bush 43, Mitchell made
an interesting observation. She spoke about how Reagan and Bush 41 had brought into their administrations people from all wings of the Republican Party, from conservative, to
moderate, to more liberal Republicmis. George W. Bush (43), on the other hmid, has
brought in "all Texas loyalists to George W. Bush ... so their loyalty is to him, not to an
idea or cause, mid that helps him keep discipline; but it also means it's a lot harder to get
information" (Asterbadi 28). Because the current President chooses aides based on
friendship rather than ideology, he is better able to control "the message" because the
aides are more loyal thmi committed to a particulm policy. For Bush 43's aides, it is a
matter of'Triendship flrst."
When asked if there was anything she wanted to add that she felt was important,
Ms. Mitchell returned to the issue of discrimination against women in journalism. She talked about how incredibly challenging it had been for women to break into print mid
broadcast journalism, particularly in hard news. Although women have come a long way. she continued "there's a residual discrimination; I think women are judged on different
for different qualities . . ." (Asterbadi 30). Her flnal comments continued in this vein.
She noted that instead of being competitive, women in journalism "really, for the most
pmt, really helped each other, especially those of us who came up together ... we all
really had to watch each other's back, so it was a very good experience" (Asterbadi 30).
Looking back at my contextualization and interview, I think the most valuable thing I learned from Andrea Mitchell was just how very complicated it was for women to
break into hard news journalism; none of the print sources provided as much detail as she
did. She also supplied valuable insight on how a politically heterogeneous administration
(both Reagan and Bush 41) differs in accessibility from a homogeneous one (Bush 43).
At the smiie time, while she pointed out that the lack of women at upper levels made
reporting in the Reagan White House complicated, she also stated it is even more difflcult today to uncover the facts, despite the fact that there have never been so many women in top positions as in Bush 43's White House. Ms. Mitchell's comment that Hillary Clinton
was as difficult to interview as Nmicy Reagan had been took me aback. I would have thought they would have been quite comfortable with each other since both are highly
professional women, but I suppose political wives are naturally defensive of their
husbands.
During the interview, Ms. Mitchell was even-handed in her assessment of the
vmious presidents she has covered, flnding things both to praise and criticize. Asked
how she has managed to keep her journalistic perspective, Ms. Mitchell said she simply
reacts to the story, "mid it doesn't really matter whose ox is being gored; you just wmit to
get to the bottom of it. So it isn't really as hard to keep your own opinions out of it" (Asterbadi 29). She asserted that judgment (opinion) comes when the editors prepare the correspondents' reports for the airwaves. Of course, I would have liked to have questioned Ms. Mitchell further, but our time was limited. I would have liked to have learned more about each of the presidents. However, the strength of my interview is that
I gained essential information about women in journalism, but I believe by not growing up discussing politics within my family limited my interview with Mitchell. If I had been more politically informed, I would have been able to ask better follow up questions which would have led to a conversational interview opposed to a cut and dry interview.
Doing oral history is a complex, time-consuming process. I have lemned that it is necessary to be thoroughly prepared for the interview by researching all the relevant history of the time the interviewee witnessed. This contextualization is essential to formulating the initial interview questions, understanding the answers, and formulating follow-up questions during the interview. The very process of post interview mialysis has brought out information mid insights beyond those I had gained doing the contextualization and from the interview. The whole experience taught me that oral history illuminates historical events in a way beyond print sources. Frankly, I find oral history more interesting than the standard historical text because it is personal.
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