In the White House, some reporters become the news

CNN correspondent Ed Henry mulled pre-game strategy and the element of surprise. He wrote that when “the pressure was on,” he decided to gamble and call an audible “like any good quarterback.” Later he would recount how he rose to the occasion in a “pressure-packed environment.”

Henry had asked a relatively mundane question at a presidential news conference. But, for all his preening and prattling, you might have thought he’d won the Super Bowl or landed the space shuttle. With one wing on fire.

Henry’s news conference run-in with President Obama last week over AIG bonuses proved a win-win. (Or maybe a spin-win.) CNN’s “senior” White House correspondent got to show he could play the tough guy, by asking why it took the president days to express outrage over the exorbitant payouts. Obama got to play the thoughtful leader, avoiding a direct answer while snapping at Henry that, “I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

The only potential losers were the rest of us, numbed by years of these over-hyped White House sideshows, full of sound and fury and signifying . . . a lot less than they might.

A review of the recent history of White House news conferences teaches us several lessons: The Henry-Obama kerfuffle pales in comparison to previous showdowns; reporters who succumb to the trend of posting their every thought online look silly and self-serving; and the media would generate more real information by working together to build stories rather than by nurturing their personal “brands.”

Baby-boomers will recall that President Nixon and CBS correspondent Dan Rather set the standard for fierce combat. The president challenged the aggressive reporter: “Are you running for something?” and the newsman shot back, “No, Mr. President. Are you?”

ABC’s Sam Donaldson did famous battle with President Reagan over Iran-Contra. Brit Hume of ABC so irked President Clinton that he ended one Q & A after a single query. NBC’s David Gregory accused President George W. Bush’s press secretary, Scott McClellan, of dodging questions. McClellan, in turn, painted Gregory as a grandstander.

Those confrontations got plenty of media bounce, and the correspondents parlayed their won’t-back-down reputations into snazzy and well-paying anchor and talk-show assignments.

But most of that was in the pre-blog era, and those veterans (healthy egos all) didn’t have the opportunity to wallow in the moment quite like Henry did last week, when he blogged about the incident at CNN.com.

It took 12 paragraphs for Henry to build to something close to a crescendo. “The pressure was on now because the president had called on me,” he wrote. “Someone handed me a microphone, millions were watching . . .”

I half expected Henry to add, “The nation held its collective breath.” He spared us that much.

Noting that other public officials had spoken out sooner against the AIG bonuses, Henry asked: “Why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage. . . . Why did it take so long?”

Obama responded, “It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.” Then he turned briskly to the next question.

To be fair, the question of who-said-what-when about the AIG bonuses had been Topic A all week in Washington.

In Obama’s response, supporters found a victory for reason and substance, while critics heard evasion and a lack of real empathy for the public’s anger.

Clearly, the president preferred to turn the focus back to his economic plans. But I don’t know that it was “very revealing,” as Henry insisted on the CNN program “Anderson Cooper 360” later that night.

I called Donaldson and read him the CNN correspondent’s musings. “To write about this as if he ought to be awarded the congressional Medal of Honor,” chuckled the old ABC warrior, “well, I guess that is part of the new game.”

Ann Compton, who has covered nine presidents over nearly 35 years at ABC, said “reporters who are on the beat for awhile learn that they don’t want to be the story. They do not consider it a personal victory if they become a headline. They want the answer to be a headline and to focus on the person being interviewed.”

But CNN had company in salivating over this teeny-tiny drama. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann guest Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, said Henry had been “owned,” like the victim of a Kobe Bryant “reverse 360 windmill tomahawk jam.” On Fox, Dennis Miller declared Obama the loser, saying he appeared thin-skinned and at sea when he couldn’t read from a teleprompter.

Such is our lot, political coverage where the clock and scoreboard never stop running.

The most substantive reporting will continue far from the briefing room lights, as reporters examine how a president’s pronouncements play out in the world. Who gains from the economic stimulus? Do more American troops really stabilize Afghanistan? Can Chrysler and Fiat join together to make good cars, and profits?

Technology brings us more information, but not always more clarity. Both the Clinton administration and the cable networks thought they made an advance when the White House agreed to televise morning briefings.

Instead, reporters performed for the cameras and press deputies became more scripted. The briefings have become more “transparent” and less informative.

The media will always struggle to get candor from presidents, determined to dwell on their message and to shift away from unpleasant ground. It could help considerably if reporters focused less on their own agendas and more on the subject at hand.

“One thing we collectively don’t do very well is listen to the answers a president gives our colleagues and really follow up on each other,” Peter Baker of the New York Times recently told Politico.com. “It’s easy for a president to remember the first, stock answer to a range of questions. But to go deeper, we should try more often to keep pushing on a topic by asking him to elaborate or explain what he’s just said or point out contradictions.”

Indeed. But that would require some reporters to play for the team, instead of dreaming about their next close-up.

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james.rainey@latimes.com