White House Garden Tours

Twice annually, the White House opens its gates and lets tourists see the various gardens on the South side of the grounds.  This Fall, upwards of 25,000 visitors toured the White House gardens, and my White House unilateral crews covered it, shooting extensive tape elements.

Washington correspondent Norah O’Donnell did this piece the following Monday morning for the Today Show, highlighting the attendance of the tours over the weekend, as well as providing an expose into the gardens themselves, and the groundskeeper who oversees them:

Field Producer: TODAY – Zachary Christie

This assignment was my first field producer job that could have qualified as domestic travel.  It was a late night school board meeting; it was a local news story that garnered big, national news attention; and, it was about a hundred miles away from DC… in Delaware.

The story involved a little 1st grader, Zachary Christie, who was strictly reprimanded for bringing a Boy Scouts multi-purpose eating utensil into school.  The utensil contained a knife, and for possession of a weapon, the child was suspended from his school, and would be forced to attend a reform school for 45 days.  As aforementioned, the story had national spotlight because Deborah Christie, Zach’s mother, brought the contentious story forward to the local media, and the story picked up from there.  The evening of October 13th, the school board of Christie’s district would visit the case, and vote on what course of action to take with the boy: move through on the intended punishment, or give Zachary a reprieve.  I would be the field producer on-site to coordinate coverage of the event for the Today Show.

I traveled 104 miles to New Ark, Delaware and met my cameraman on-site, who had left a few hours before me to survey the school where the meeting would take place.  The initial intention of the DC assignment desk was to carry back the tape of the meeting, as well as any interviews we could grab, and feed it to New York once we were back in DC.  The Today Show, citing efficiency, hired a satellite truck operator from among 30 Rock’s ranks who would meet me on-site.  I had never had a coverage assignment before where technicians from different bureaus were under my direction.

We shot the school board meeting live, with my cameraman shooting cuts as well as the school board’s deliberations on stage.  We spotted Deb Christie in the audience with her fiance, and grabbed some reaction shots from her as the board voted on the course of action for her son.  The board voted unanimously to let Zachary come back to school, not forcing him to attend a reform school for his actions, and also to lighten the punishment for 1st graders and kindergarten students who have committed Level 3 offenses (possession of a harmful object counts here).  The policy, which used to be zero-tolerance for all age groups, was reformed for these youngest of students to also include intent of use – Zachary had no idea his utensil could be perceived as a weapon.

Taking in this news, and dropping tape with my live truck operator to feed, I reported back to the Today Show producer and Network Desk in NY to make sure Rehema had the facts to include in her script.  Think of me as the reporter on site!  We also grabbed interviews with Deb Christie and her fiance, Lee, as they were leaving the meeting – several cameramen (mostly from Delaware local stations) stormed the couple alongside us, but we got a good shot and got what we wanted.  When the meeting was over, to get some ‘official sound,’ we talked to several of the school board members.

This is Rehema’s piece as it aired the next morning.  I will admit, having been up extremely late the night before, I missed it, but it turned out wonderfully.  All of the coverage from the school board meeting, including the reporting that Rehema gives, the interviews with Deb Christie and school board members (the bulk of the piece’s news), was my contribution.  Take a look:

The Human Rights Campaign / Gay Rights in DC

This was the weekend when gay rights would march on Washington and be heard - first, on Saturday, President Obama would appear at a fundraising dinner for the Human Rights Campaign, and recommit to his campaign promises to the LGBT community; second, on Sunday, tens of thousands would march to the Capitol, where they would voice their adament impatience with their slow-moving cause in Washington.

I was booth producer at the White House for both days, Mike Viqueira was my correspondent, and there was really an enormous amount of coverage to draw from for this piece below that aired on Sunday evening – a recap of the weekend:

On Saturday, my unilateral crew and I were instructed to keep watch outside the White House gates for protestors in Lafayette Park – protestors who would urge Obama to act more quickly on his promises to the gay community.  By the time Travel Pool was called for the Human Rights Campaign dinner, there were no protestors in sight.  It turned out they had all diverted their route towards the Washington Convention Center, where the dinner would take place.  My unilateral cameraman and I were sprung from the grounds, and we headed to the Center to shoot some very late-night b-roll.  (None of it wound up being used, however, because WRC – the NBC local affiliate – had shot some of the protestors during the day).

On Sunday, I had to use all of my White House cameramen to cover all of the gay rights marchers around the White House.  One cameraman and his producer were outside the White House gates, and I had both a unilateral crew to shoot the crowds from inside the grounds, and I also had my North Lawn live shot cameraman angle his camera to see over the fence.  Combined, we all grabbed a slew of elements that got used in the piece shown above.

The FreedomWorks anti-Obama rally

On Saturday, September 12th, President Obama traveled to Minneapolis to give a speech at a health care rally, giving a big push for his vision of health care reform that had been debated fiercely in the Congress.  Meanwhile, thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of conservatives traveled to Washington, DC to protest what they called ‘Obamacare,’ the threat of bigger and bigger government, and a Socialist agenda that they saw as reaching a glaring peak.  The organization FreedomWorks was responsible for holding the rally, and former House Majority leader Dick Armey was the conservative voice at its helm.

At the White House, NBC was Travel Pool that Saturday, and with the President’s trip occurring, pool coverage duties required an Out-of-Town component, which would travel with the President to Minnesota.  By this time, the torch of White House correspondent had been passed along to a new bearer: Michael Viqueira, and the Out-of-Town pool kept Mike up-to-date on what the President was saying at the rally, so that he could write his script and cover the White House’s perspective in Weekend Nightly that evening.

For me, however, though I was the White House producer that weekend, this particular Saturday I would have little involvement within the White House gates.  With the President out of the city, I, as In-town Travel Pool producer, was freed up to cover the immense anti-Obama rally that was building up on the National Mall.  Admittedly, the sheer size of the gathering caught our assignment desk by surprise, and it was becoming apparent that a general assignment correspondent would have to be called in on his/her day off to cover the FreedomWorks perspective on this news-filled Saturday.  Thus, I found myself reunited with Washington correspondent Tom Costello as the field producer who would be responsible for gathering the bulk of elements Tom would use in his piece (see post: FDA on acetaminophen).

With the coverage plan that was crafted, both Mike and Tom would be showered with an embarrassment of riches – we had a robocam atop the Postal Building clock tower that showed the multitudes of people attending the rally, we had WRC – DC’s local NBC affiliate – on-site gathering tape elements with their own camera crew, and we had a freelance cameraman take residence on the Capitol West Front to shoot all of the remarks by conservative leaders to the rally-goers, including Dick Armey.

Then there was my White House unilateral crew and me, which the desk assigned to go outside the White House gate and shoot several things for Tom Costello’s spot: a wide variety of b-roll of the rally, and lots and lots of MOS interviews with a demographically diverse set of rally-goers.  Our role that day seemed superfluous, with all the other facets of coverage that I had aforementioned, but it turned out that the material we gathered was so good, Costello’s spot was comprised almost entirely of the elements my crew and I shot that day.  Strength was found especially in the MOS interviews that we conducted: you will notice in the clip of Tom’s spot below, which led the Nightly broadcast that evening, that there are about 4-5 MOS interviews that were used.  That is a rare thing in any network spot.

The experience was intense, to say the least, being there amidst the conservative (and definitely angry) crowd that afternoon.  My crew was called many hateful slurs, and ABC’s crew, who was with us on the Mall at one point, was shouted down as the ‘All Barack Channel.’  Signs read of some pretty hateful things as well, including signs that said, ‘Bury Obamacare with Kennedy.’  We waded through these crowds and tried to stay as objective and diplomatic as possible (more out of fear that we’d be hurt).

In the end, though, my crew and I shot tape elements that were compelling, diverse in variety, and smacking of all kinds of intolerance.  It was very good stuff.  So much so that our footage was used on MSNBC for the rest of the following week, and soundbites from our MOS interviews were chosen over and over for Nightly News spots coming out of the White House.  You can take a look at a segment from Countdown with Keith Olbermann below, which featured a significant batch of the material we shot that day:

MSNBC: Spot News – Sarah Palin drops out

I was DC’s senior producer for MSNBC on a day that was supposed to be a walk in the park.  It was the day before Independence Day, and MSNBC was on a condensed schedule, set to go off the air at 3pm – there would be no MSNBC primetime.  It had been 8 days since the unfortunate death of Michael Jackson (and Farrah Fawcett), and nearly all of MSNBC’s broadcast this July 3rd was being run out of Burbank, California, with Chris Jansing as the anchor on-site, for Michael Jackson memorial coverage.

For most of the day, DC wasn’t even paged by the control room.  I was under the radar, and loving every minute of it… until Gov. Sarah Palin decided to make news in Alaska.  I could start to feel growing commotion on the Nightly News editorial call in the afternoon: Sarah Palin was going to convene a press conference for local media in the back yard of her Wasilla home, set to give a big announcement that would remain a mystery until its delivery.  The press conference was set to start at (coincidentally) 3pm.

Due to the remote nature of Palin’s residence, no live cabling was allowed (or even possible), so NBC’s local affiliate up in Alaska, KTUU, would have to shoot the announcement to tape, and feed it live via their satellite truck to the larger NBC community.  So, not only were people itching for this news, but they were also itching further at the thought of this quick tape turn around.  MSNBC was itching that FOX and/or CNN might beat them in getting that taped feed on air.  So, by 2:45pm, the EP for MSNBC’s dayside coverage that day was sending emails to the entire team, and making phone calls to senior producers (including me) that MSNBC would be extending its airtime, and stalling, basically, until we knew what the news was and could get it to air.

When about 3:15pm rolled around, the entire broadcast community was hit with a bombshell.  The wires, circulating before any of the local reporters had even left Palin’s home, read: “Palin to drop out as governor, will not run for second term, possible exit from politics for good.”  I could forget about my slow day at that point.  Our dayside coverage was officially extended until 5pm, and now both New York and DC scrambled to get guests on the air (any guest – anyone under the sun – who could be camera-ready  or on the phone) to talk about Palin.  New York had stand-by anchor Alex Witt in front of a camera, and had CNBC Washington correspondent John Harwood on the air, by phone, within minutes.  I did my part and had MSNBC anchor David Shuster join the coverage on the phone as well.  You can view the breaking news coverage, as it happened in the minutes after Palin’s press conference, below.  (You will notice there is no video of Palin giving the announcement that she wouldn’t seek reelection, because it was still so early the KTUU had not fed the material yet).

As the minutes went by, more coverage (and hence, more options to toss to) began to surface.  KTUU had fed the press conference in its entirety, and MSNBC aired it as such; KTUU had its local reporter back in the newsroom, able to contribute to MSNBC’s air; I had gotten off the phone with NBC News Deputy Political Director Mark Murray, who agreed to do a hit by phone, and then would head to the bureau, camera-ready within 15 minutes.  Nightly News would have a crosstalk out of Washington with NBC News Chief White House correspondent and Political Director Chuck Todd, and our assignment desk joined me in the scramble to get more contributors for air.  Below you can view a clip from later on in the afternoon, now with Palin’s full remarks fed in from Alaska, and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent, and frequent political contributor, Andrea Mitchell joining the conversation by phone as well.  (Andrea would, the very next day, be dispatched to Wasilla to cover the story from Alaska, and even get an interview with Governor Palin).

By 4pm, my day got better.  The senior producer in New York for Hardball with Chris Matthews called me up and asked me if a make-shift studio team could be put together by 5pm for a special edition of Hardball, which would air for an indefinite period of time.  David Shuster would anchor the special broadcast, but he would need make-up and a full team of stage hands… soon.  Talking with the desk, we were able to put together (thankfully, with what we had already) enough studio technicians to run a broadcast out of Washington.  I was on the phone with DC’s MSNBC director to get a make-up artist booked, and by 4:30pm we had everyone present and accounted for.  David Shuster was put in our flashcam studio box, fully made-up, with a stage manager, and a technician next door operating the robocam and communicating with a technical production manager in New York (there would be no control room out of DC).  I had three other guest camera locations ready to go by 5pm (one robotic, two that required studio technicians, which the desk was able to provide), and needless to say, we made air!

You can view a segment from the special edition of Hardball below.  (Take note that, in the quad-box set-up, every one of the contributors and camera locations were run out of our Washington bureau, under my oversight).

The special edition aired for 3 hours.  Compared alongside the special broadcasts of CNN and even FOX, MSNBC stayed on Palin the longest (FOX stayed on the air about Palin until 7pm – we lasted until 8pm).  Even though it was the day before Independence Day, and ratings are typically slow, the broad public fascination with Palin caused the ratings to pick up slightly, and MSNBC’s ratings were undoubtedly helped by staying on the subject for the longest.  The spot news operation was a success, and our team in DC was given a huge thank you from the entire MSNBC staff in New York.  The hard work certainly did not go unnoticed!