Last week, Reuters White House Correspondent Jeff Mason was elected president of the White House Correspondents’ Association for the 2016-2017 season. Jeff will become the fifth Reuters correspondent to serve as president of the WHCA and will preside over the annual WHCA dinner in the spring of 2017. Jeff, who has covered the White House for Reuters since 2009, was the lead correspondent for President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and has been posted in Washington since 2008, when he covered the historic race between Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. In a Reuters Best: Journalist Spotlight Q&A, Jeff offers an inside look at covering the White House and his thoughts on his own presidential election.
Q. How do you feel about winning the WHCA president seat, and what does it mean to you and to Reuters to be elected to this position?
A. I felt very honored to win the WHCA presidency. It was a flattering vote of confidence from my peers who cover the beat. I’m also humbled to follow in the footsteps of four other Reuters colleagues, including Steve Holland and Caren Bohan, who have held the position previously. Having the opportunity to serve will be helpful for raising Reuters’ profile in Washington and within the White House, which is a good thing. It also shows that an organization like Reuters has the clout to represent our media peers at a high level.
Q. What got you interested in running?
A. After writing about President Obama for more than seven years, I was eager for the chance to be more involved in the intricacies of the (sometimes tricky) relationship between the press corps and the White House. The WHCA board is the best vehicle for doing that.
I had to run a true campaign to win a seat on the board. It was interesting being on the other side of that process after covering elections as a journalist for several years. I reached out to every member of the association (there are more than 200), made phone calls, wrote emails, did lunches – all to get a feel for what my “constituents” needed and wanted. Just like campaigns for public office, people like to be asked for their vote and their ideas, so I did a lot of that. Luckily, it paid off.
Q. What does the position entail?
A. The WHCA board has nine members and their primary responsibilities are to represent the press corps with the White House in disputes and push for greater access to the president of the United States and his/her advisers. The board also administers a sizable scholarship program and plans the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I’ll be involved in all of those initiatives in my first two years of service, and when I assume the presidency in 2016-2017, it will be my job to lead the board and to preside over the dinner. The 2017 dinner will be the first for the new U.S. president who succeeds Obama, so that will be exciting.
Q. What do you find most fulfilling about covering your beat?
A. Breaking news is the most fulfilling part of this beat and any that I’ve covered. It’s a challenge to do that at the White House, but it’s gratifying. Otherwise the greatest part about covering this beat is getting to watch history unfold in front of you. The Reuters team follows the president wherever he goes. We are a permanent member of the “pool” that accompanies him on trips large and small, which means being in the motorcade for a dinner out in Washington, D.C. (we end up spending a lot of time in a van in that case), or being in the room for meetings with foreign leaders in the Oval Office. We travel with him abroad and to other U.S. states. The biggest domestic and international stories in the world often have some kind of White House angle to them as well, so getting a hand in writing and reporting about many of those issues is a thrill.
Q. Do you have a favorite presidential encounter?
A. Perhaps my favorite encounter occurred the day after President Obama was inaugurated in January 2009. I was the late staffer in our team that night and was sitting in the Reuters “booth” or office, which is where we have desks behind the press room in the West Wing. A press aide came down and asked me and the other wire reporters to come with her to see Robert Gibbs, who was press secretary at the time. Rather than briefing us on something, as I anticipated, Gibbs led us into a room in the White House residence where Obama and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts were waiting. They had determined that, out of “an abundance of caution,” Obama needed to take the oath of office a second time because they had both stumbled over it a little bit the day before. That was history in the making, and only a handful of people got to witness it.
Q. Do you ride on Air Force One when travelling with the president? What’s the most interesting place you’ve visited with the president?
A. We do ride on Air Force One, and that never gets old. There is a press cabin at the back of the plane where the press pool sits. Unfortunately, we don’t get to roam around, but senior officials and sometimes the president himself will come back to visit with us on trips. That kind of access is extremely valuable and helpful for reporting. It’s also very unique – only members of the pool, like Reuters, get to be there.
One of the most interesting places I’ve visited with Obama was Afghanistan. I went on his first “secret trip” there in 2009. We weren’t allowed to tell family members or colleagues that the trip was happening, and Air Force One was still in its hangar when we arrived at Andrews Air Force Base so as not to alert others unnecessarily that a flight was about to take place. We were allowed to report that Obama was going there only after we had arrived at President Karzai’s palace in Kabul, after landing at Bagram Air Base and flying on helicopters into the capital.
Q. What makes you passionate about journalism?
A. I’m passionate about telling stories, and working as a journalist gives us all the opportunity to do that. I’m very grateful for that privilege.
Q. Anything else you’d like to share?
A. Thanks to everyone for their nice notes after my election. I appreciate the support!
To read the latest from Jeff Mason, click here.
