WASHINGTON – The wind whipped our hair and tangled our press passes around our necks. Tripods shook and the grass on the South Lawn of the White House swayed. The rotors of Marine One spun faster than our cameras could click and behind the helicopter, framed perfectly, the Washington Monument stood proudly in the distance.
Before we knew it, the president of the United States had landed.
The Marine One helicopter rotors came to a standstill. A Marine came out of the forward door, followed by a Secret Service agent from the aft door. Behind him were President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, who smiled and waved before making their way across the lawn and into the White House.
It was quick, a bit of a blur, but an experience not to be forgotten.
Six Medill Washington Program reporters – Tammy Thueringer, Sean Kennedy, Taryn Galbreath, Michelle Kim, Emily Nelson and I – were there on Thursday thanks to Jeff Mason, Reuters’ White House correspondent and Medill BSJ and MSJ alum.
Moments after the Obamas went inside, we were ushered off the lawn, and Jeff gave us a tour of the press briefing room, pointing out “still country” where the photographers sit and explaining how access to the White House press pool is granted.
Other members of the media were nice enough to flip on all of the studio lights for us so we could get our fill of snapping selfies and standing at the lectern that press secretary Jay Carney uses for his near-daily briefings.
Before that, the six of us, plus Jeff, his uncle and a colleague crammed inside the tiny Reuters workspace – with its own door, it is key real estate – to ask a million questions about what it’s like to cover the president every single day as part of the pool. Long story short, it’s pretty cool.
Speaking of pools – just beneath the White House pressroom is an indoor pool built in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used it for therapy swims to treat his polio. President John F. Kennedy used to take afternoon dips in it. Then President Richard Nixon covered it up and built the media briefing room above it. In 2007, it was converted into a place to house miles of cables and wires.
Today, we scrawled our names with Sharpies onto the blue tiles of the pool that still peek out behind electrical equipment. Our names are joined by the likes of first lady Laura Bush and Bono.
Being a reporter in Washington is always cool.
We get to rub shoulders with high-ranking members of Congress. We get to knock elbows with journalists we’ve long admired at crowded press tables on a daily basis.
Now, we get to add watching the president hop off a helicopter and adding our John Hancock to the White House ghost pool to that list.