All Medill Washington reporters share a common reference point by which to compare everything they encounter in D.C. It’s a little city called Chicago. You may know it for the mobsters in its past, the corrupt politicians in its prisons or the ice frozen to its sidewalks. Survival in a city like Chicago takes little more than a good sense of humor, a nose to sniff out bullshit and a great big ugly coat. Polite gestures and formalities only get in the way. In Washington, however, ignoring the rules your grandmother taught you will shut doors in your face.
I have seen those doors close quite literally.
I arrived at the Northwest gate on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. hours before the “White House Summit on Community Colleges.” It was my third week in Washington and the first event I had covered at the White House. I stood in a crowd of reporters outside the gate, glancing around to see if I fit in and refusing to relinquish my grip on a piece of paper. No matter how young I looked, that paper had all I needed to prove my legitimacy. It was an email from the White House Press Office, approving my background check and providing me with a short line of numbers and letters to present to security.
But the first woman I saw made me quickly rethink my decision to wear khaki pants and a tweed jacket. She wore a striking red suit, tailored to fit her authoritative shoulders and made from a material that complimented her long brown curls. Her outfit alone made me stand back and let her approach security ahead of me. But then she met trouble. She did not have her confirmation code and she was not on the list. I’ll admit, I was kind of relieved to be less intimidated by the lady in red. As she started to raise her voice with the guards and insist that she had only stepped out for lunch, I breezed past her and into the press gallery.
Thirty minutes later, Second Lady Jill Biden called a special donor up on stage. That donor was Melinda Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Microsoft founder’s philanthropic giant, who had just contributed $34.8 million to community colleges. Gates stepped on stage. She was the woman in the red suit. I guess she finally won that fight with the security guards.
I started to think, if Melinda Gates isn’t given credibility, how can any of us lowly reporters expect to earn it? Rules here are important. If you forget a code, ask the wrong question or show up late to an event, you will be punished.
In Chicago, Midwestern humility would have made the lady in red feel a little overdressed. But she would have certainly been let in the building. As a reporter, I know that I must mind the rules. But as a writer, I’ve had to fight to keep my bold Chicago voice because Washington will try to deafen it with political jargon.
Chicago may have as many shades of gray as there are variations in exhaust-covered snow. But this is Washington. There are stark lines that block access to information and rules that tell you what you can do with what you get. Now go run along little Chicagoan and find that original angle, I dare you to try.