The End!

The End!

Photo credit: Janet Donovan

Good thing we arrived early at the private reception before the premiere screening of  THE END: INSIDE THE LAST DAYS OF THE OBAMA WHITE HO– USE  hosted by CNN honcho Jeff Zucker & CNN Films because shortly after arriving at 701 Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, iPhones were bursting with news that President Obama freed up Chelsea Manning by way of a Presidential pardon. CNN Politics Nightcap by Daniella Diaz and Eric Bradner described it this way:”President Barack Obama this afternoon commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks. Manning, a transgender woman and former US Army soldier, was serving a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, an all-male Army prison in eastern Kansas, despite her request to transfer to a civilian prison. Her prison sentence is now set to expire on May 17.” So now, that’s the end of that!

Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist, CNN President Worldwide Jeff Zucker, CNN Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper and CNN Executive VP for Content and Talent Amy Entelis

On the other ‘end‘  Inside the Last Days of the Obama White House, will premiere in simulcast on CNN/U.S. and CNN International Wednesday, Jan. 18, at 9:00pm.  According to CNN, filming began shortly after Election Day 2016, and concluded with President Obama’s farewell address.  Leading voices in the film include Josh Earnest, White House press secretary; Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor; Cody Keenan, director of speech writing for the White House; Jen Psaki, White House communications director; Angella Reid, chief usher of the White House; and Tina Tchen, assistant to the President and chief of staff for First Lady Michelle Obama.  Each granted exclusive access to key meetings, their work, and their personal thoughts on their final days inside the White House.  The rare interviews capture the nostalgia of the people who have worked closest to the Obamas during their White House tenure.

“Basically, we went to the White House about a year ago with the idea for this film. We talked to them about our vision for it. It took many, many months to figure out the logistics and the coordination of such an idea, because we would literally be putting a film crew into the White House for days and days at a time,” Entelis told Hollywood on the Potomac. “That had never really happened before. We had to negotiate this very, very special access. Sometime this summer we came to an agreement on how it could work, what kinds of things we wanted to film, who we wanted to follow. Through a series of back and forth, we determined a group of people that we could follow. In doing so, we would tell the story of the people around the President and how they felt about the past six or eight years, depending on how long they’ve been with him – how they were preparing to move on and transition to their lives – how they look back at what they accomplished. That was the nature of the film.”

Q:  Did they give you any restrictions, parameters you had to follow? Guidelines?

A:  “You know, we couldn’t just run roughshod over the White House, obviously. It’s a very important place that does very important business. We had to be mindful of what was going on at different times, but we followed people to meetings, we followed people at meals. We had separate sit down interviews with people so no, there were no restrictions except for there was some access some days that we couldn’t have depending on what was going on. There were no restrictions other than logistics of when we could come in and not come in. We had to keep a very small footprint in the White House though. It’s tight quarters and they had to continue to do their work, so most days we had three people in it. Everybody who was there had a job in terms of shooting the film, or doing sound or doing lighting or doing interviews. Basically it was extremely small footprint. Just a few people in the White House. That actually is very advantageous to filmmaking, because I think over time a relationship builds between the characters and the filmmakers and hopefully is something that gets expressed. You’ll see it in the film that the characters are comfortable. I think it was a tribute to the people around Obama. I’m not sure, I can’t speak for sure about whether or not anyone else had pitched this idea. They think of all the different things they did this year and you saw all the many, many things that both the President and the First Lady did in this sort of final year with the media. I think this one really focused on the people around Obama and the First Lady that made their team come together and accomplish what they accomplished. I can’t really speak for them and say what made them do it, but I think the appeal to the fact that those people were sort of unsung heroes in a way, or just unknown. Their stories were not as well known as everyone else’s. It was a really unique way to approach the transition. To hear the stories of the people around the President.”

Courtney Sexton, executive producer, was very close to the film.  She told us how they were able to make the film in such a short amount of time. “Typically when we make these films, they can take two plus years – you’re in production, the film is done, you send the film off to post and they cut it. In this case, we’d been cutting in real time so everyday as the filmmaking was done, the footage was getting shipped off back to the edit in New York. It was in cutting with multiple editors in real time. As to what Amy said, this is a very unusual process and hopefully what you see tonight, they’ve done a remarkable job in the amount of time they had. They did a remarkable job in general, but given the time frame, it was [amazing]. I wasn’t personally in the White House. How we make our films is that we have filmmakers and teams come from the outside so that has a point of view that is very much the filmmakers, not necessarily CNN’s. While I was executive producer on the outside with the cuts and doing the day-to-day, the filmmakers were actually in the White House.”

We took advantage of being in a room full of journalists to get a feel for their reaction to the media’s relationship to the new administration – or lack thereof.  The worried factor was prevalent. “Based on the past week events, I’m pretty worried,” CNN’s  S.E. Cupp told us. “There are things about the Trump Administration about which I’m quite sanguine and hopeful, but when it comes to his understanding of the role of the press, he’s not evidenced a real appreciation for what our institution does and what we should be doing and when he actively attacks reporters and looks to punish them for critical but true reports, that scares me more and it scares me more when Republicans defend that kind of behavior and insist that the press needs to be deferential to the President – forget the fact that that is a huge flip from the past eight years and their attitude on the press. It’s also just flat-out wrong – the role of the press is to be the watchdogs of the State. That’s what we do here at CNN. I think we happen to do it very, very well. I’m nervous about how that’s going to play out and how we in the media are going to respond. Are we going to take this moment seriously and band together, because we won’t get through it unless we do? Or, are we going to capitulate and really lose a lot of what the First Amendment protects?” 

Q: Being such a competitive industry, we wondered if the media would band together or simply protect their own turf. “It’s probable,” said Cupp.  “I was reminded, back in 2009, when the Obama Administration would not give Fox News, the White House Fox News reporter, an interview. All the other pool reporters from the other networks from the other networks said, ‘No, no, no. It’s all of us or none of us.’  Where’s that spirit anymore?  When Jim Acosta was attacked, I didn’t see anyone in that room doing it. It was awful, and I would say that about anyone from any network, not just my own. No one stood up and said, ‘Well, I’m going to ask his question then.’ Or, ‘If he can’t speak, we’re not going to speak.’ I think you’re right. It’s probably too competitive a market, and especially with this President-Elect, access is so important to everyone, banding together does not seem likely, but I wish that we would.”

S.E. Cupp and Lauren Pratapas, CNN DC P.R. Director

Q: As for the possible displacement of the press briefing room in the East Wing?  “I don’t cover the White House, but of course I’d rather be in the White House, if that were my job, not to mention  tradition and convenience.”  Everyone was startled about that possibility.  “Well of course, but again, that’s what Trump over the course of this election has shown over and over again – a real distaste for the press, and really a lack of understanding for what we do. I remember he, I think he announced that he was donating some money that he had raised to vets, he said, ‘You know, and the media didn’t even congratulate me or thank me.’ I thought, ‘If you think that’s what our job is, it’s going to be a rough four years. It’s not the media’s job to congratulate or thank him.’ It’s the media’s job to hold him accountable. He doesn’t get that, so I’m not surprised someone from his camp would suggest, ‘Maybe I’ll just get rid of you all together,’  But to people in the media, that’s a pretty chilling statement.”

Political commentator and Talk Show Host Bill Press (C) with Jay Carney, former WH Press Secretary (R)

Same questions and same answers on potential displacement of the White House Briefing Room:

Bill Press: “I think it’s outrageous. I think it will not happen; or if it does happen it’ll happen over our dead bodies. I’m a member of the White House Press Corp. You can’t do your job across the street. You’re a White House reporter, you’ve got to be in The White House. Don’t let anybody tell you the Old Executive Building is the White House. No, it’s not. It’s a different building. It’s across the street. You’re not allowed to walk back and forth without an escort. You can not do your job from the Old Executive Office Building. The other thing is, this idea that they have to do this because Donald Trump is so popular … b*t. He’s no more popular than Barack Obama was. Barack Obama, if you have a news conference, you hold it in the East Room of The White House, not in the some other room. That’s the largest room in The White House. They can easily handle anybody that wants to come to the news conferences.”

Jay Carney: “My experience as both a reporter covering two White Houses and then being on the other side as a press secretary, is that the presence of the White House Press Corp in the West Wing is really important. I think it’s the physical proximity is meaningful, especially for the regulars who can just walk in the lower press, and walk into the upper press and up to the press office, and walk to the other offices to get quick answers that they need: To get them in person. To just assemble out there. The fact that the independent reporters who cover the President are literally steps away from The Oval Office every day, I think that’s meaningful. As problematic as I think the nature of covering The White House has become with some of the theatricality of the briefings that we’ve seen, none of that is ideal, but I haven’t seen a better alternative yet. I think it’s really important for democracy to maintain that tradition.”

The panel after the premiere.  Photo credit: Sam Feist

Ann Compton: “I was stunned that the story suggested that the whole White House press operation would be shut down when one unidentified transition person said, ‘They’re the enemy. We want them out of here.’ The fact is, a president needs the press there. The Republican president, Richard Nixon, set up the space. Two Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, improved the place. They wanted to have the press that close. I think the other transition thinks that the press was not only an enemy, but a cancer that close to the Oval Office is absolutely wrong, and I’m praying it won’t happen. It is terrifying, for the briefings. We do know how over-crowded it gets.  Right after 9/11, the briefing room could not hold all the people who came to the morning briefings or the noon briefings, all the White House press conferences, so space is a weapon. If we have occasion for a big day, you want to move over to the south court auditorium, which is a stoic, government auditorium, not real fancy, but it’ll hold twice as many. On a limited basis, the press secretary is going to want to be able to find the press quickly and efficiently and establish [rapport], so I think the reports of change are [mute].”

The End.

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