Remarks by Associated Press VP & Director of Photography, Santiago Lyon at APME conference in Indianapolis, Oct 30, 2013.
If real estate is all about “Location, location, location”, then journalism has a lot to do with “Access, access and access”.
This is especially true for the protagonist of much of our Washington journalism, a man, The President, who lives in a big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, protected by layer upon layer of physical security.
But once credentialed journalists have had their names and press passes checked, their bags x-rayed and then find themselves inside the White House, there is still the issue of actually seeing Mr. Obama in order to be able to take his picture.
And when we compare this presidency to previous administrations it becomes clear that we enjoy less photographic access to the President than ever before – sort of surprising for someone who campaigned for office on a theme of transparency.
So let’s take a look:
Mr. Obama has a very talented official photographer by the name of Pete Souza, a former photojournalist for the Chicago Tribune, among other publications.
Who is Mr. Souza? He was Ronald Reagan’s official photographer during his second term and started covering Mr. Obama for the Chicago Tribune soon after he came to Washington as a Senator, traveling with him on numerous trips and establishing a relationship that allowed him to be named Director of the White House Photography Office and the President’s official photographer.
On Mr. Obama’s first day in the Oval Office, an historic occasion, media outlets pressed for - but were denied access to the President at his desk.
Instead the White House released an official photo.
This marked a trend that has been in place ever since.
Why is this important?
Because journalism, in this case photojournalism must be free and unfettered.
Independent photographers strive to show things as they actually are, not how the protagonists would like to see them.
Showing the details, making choices of angles, all of these things are the vocabulary of photography.
To allow the White House to control the message by selecting images that put the President in a consistently rosy light is merely serving a public relations exercise.
In May, 2009 the White House started releasing Souza’s photos on Flickr, a photo-sharing website. Their rationale apparently being that they could bypass the traditional media and leverage social media to get their message out.
Intimate but carefully sanitized moments of Obama with his staff, everyone looking cheery and relaxed.
There is to date, no independent visual record of President Obama with his staff in the Oval Office.
The White House has released multiple official photos of Obama alone at his desk.
Yet since he became President, the media have only been allowed into the Oval Office twice to photograph him alone at his desk; once back in 2009 and again in 2010.
When we do get in, we make sure to milk the access for all it’s worth, producing multiple images from a few seconds of access.
Previous administrations allowed photographers in much more frequently.
Both changes in regulations and changes in laws have been signed with no independent media access.
Significant meetings have been closed to the media.
Needless to say none of you would publish a written press release verbatim – so why would we accept a visual press release for distribution?
Our general rule is that we won’t accept White House handouts from places or events where we believe or know access to be possible.
Exceptions would be parts of the White House normally off-limits to the press – the President’s private residence or the Situation Room, for example.
How about budget negotiations? Everyone looks relaxed and friendly in this official image but we later learned from sources that the atmosphere was tense and unfriendly.
Is this propaganda?
We used to have access to these sorts of meetings and more. Much more.
But no longer.
Some recent releases have been tied to issues in the news.
Gun control, even deaths abroad.
We always make a fuss, and regularly refuse these handouts.
ROBBIN ISLAND SLIDE - Sometimes our protests work as in this case.
more often they do no not.
Even important foreign visitors are received in private.
The point here is that we expect and demand access to the leaders of democratic nations where press freedoms are enshrined.
Sadly this administration is riding roughshod over those freedoms and access has become a casualty.
But when we do get in, the choice of images is varied and, perhaps more importantly, the source independent – as it should be wherever possible.