What are they going to do to the briefing room?

August 1, 2006

The White House press briefing room is almost nothing like the one on The West Wing. I’ve only been in it twice (for a grand total of a couple of minutes), but I can attest that it’s a bit of a mess. It’s small, there are wires all over the place, there are lights that appear to be hanging by a thread, chairs are broken, etc.

So when the White House announced that it was renovating the room, it seemed like a good idea. That is, until you consider what they’re going to do to the place.

For a decade, the daily White House news briefing has been televised. Now it is becoming television.

Earlier this year, Fox News talk show host Tony Snow was hired as press secretary. Next up: a renovation of the briefing room, likely with a video wall that could display everything from “flags waving in the breeze [to] detailed charts and graphs,” according to a senior White House official working on the project. For TV viewers, the video feed could be the sole on-screen image, or could share the space with the speaker.

White House officials say they are weighing how — and how often — to use the video capability. But the new technology could help transform White House briefings — midday exchanges with reporters in a utilitarian setting — into more interesting viewing.

I guess it depends on what one means by “interesting.”

The Bush gang loves imagery. They study camera angles and lighting, poll test banner phrases, even orchestrate placement on items such as the “Mission Accomplished” sign.

With this in mind, the press briefings could become something of a sideshow. If a press secretary wanted to be able to reference video material to accentuate a briefing, fine. But that’s not really what this White House is all about.

stage

If you have a hunch that the press briefings will look a lot less like the picture on the left, and a lot more like the one on the right, we’re on the same page.

“The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone’s eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandyhaired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like ‘My Saviour!’ she extended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a prayer.”

And now Mr. Snow will take some questions.

  • Er, excuse me, Dr. WHO about sums it up. Just kidding. 1984 is the perfect book to quote here.

    One Nation–Under Surveillance

  • With all the fancy new gimmickry, the White House can package top-notch video news releases and dispense with reporters altogether. Networks can run it with out editing or analysis. It’s not like we’re getting “news” from them now, so who’s going to notice?

  • Pffsssh! This giant-video-backdrop is amateurish stuff. Next presser, Bush should use green-screen and motion-capture technology to appear in Iraq or Lebanon, administering a beat-down to an Enemy of Freedom and Democracy — and when a reporter dares to interrupt him, he should say, “Sorry, no time for questions, Jack!”

  • Maybe this is why the cast of American Idol was summoned to the White House, to offer advice on gimmicky stagecraft– how to ‘work’ the camera, how to hold a microphone, how to dismiss the British, etc. After all, it’s pretty much the same business model. Control the image, stay on script, pretend you’re something you’re not.

    Really though, this isn’t all that big a deal and should be expected. New technology is something the government should adopt from time to time. The original Air Force One was a biplane with wings made out of oiled paper and was flown by a monkey pilot. It’s true, really is. What’s worrisome is how the technology will be used to manipulate information and to further spread the propaganda of our flourishing Corpocracy. Of course that’s to be expected, even if they had announced the President (or his mouthpiece) was going to conduct press briefings using a basketball coach’s clipboard.

    It won’t be long before reporters will have their questions dodged by Virtual Bush, a fully-realized 3d recreation of El Prez. It’ll use state-of-the-art graphics technology but the artificial intelligence will have to be run on a Commadore 64 or perhaps an Apple 2GS, in order to accurately mimick Bush’s personality and intellect. Think of all the brush The Clearer could clear then!

  • Our era will be remembered as the most disgusting yet in human history, beneath contempt.

  • A while back, there was a story about how the press, given the chance to watch an important political proceeding on CSpan (maybe a supreme court judge confirmation hearing?) and the movie King Kong, chose to watch the movie. Maybe the press will come in every day and the WH will play SpongeBob episodes and the press will forget all their questions. They’ll make sure not to give Helen Thomas the remote.

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