Internships are not paid, but we do offer college credit and an environment conductive to practical instruction and learning. The program begins in early May and extends through the end of August. The dates are flexible to accommodate other internship opportunities you may have.

Please contact Andrew Fimka at Andrew.Fimka@StoryPartnersDC.com for more information and to schedule an interview.

Strategic Communications Intern

Interns should be prepared to enter a professional office and work hard every day. Duties include, but are not limited to: preparing a wide selection of written and creative materials, monitoring news coverage (traditional and digital) for client issues, facilitating a variety of social media engagement and analysis, maintaining reporter databases, and conducting research into strategic communications best practices.

Story Partners will arrange periodic excursions for interns to further their understanding of the different aspects of public affairs in Washington, D.C. For example, these excursions will include touring the Capitol and talking with Congressional Press Secretaries, meeting with notable political pundits and touring a news studio, and hearing from professional recruiters about how to prepare your resume following graduation.

Applicants with a background in communications and media will be given preference.

Creative Services Intern

Interns should be prepared to enter a professional office and work hard every day. Duties include, but are not limited to: preparing a wide selection of illustrative and digital content, monitoring and updating various web and social media properties, creating multimedia presentations, assisting in video editing, and conducting research into creative services best practices.

Story Partners will arrange periodic excursions for interns to further their understanding of the different aspects of public affairs in Washington, D.C. For example, these excursions will include touring the Capitol and talking with Congressional Press Secretaries, meeting with notable political pundits and touring a news studio, and hearing from professional recruiters about how to prepare your resume following graduation.

Applicants with a background in design and creative services will be given preference.

About Story Partners

In an era where modern technologies shape global communications, next-generation tactics are essential to your communications strategy. Story Partners, LLC, a 21st century public affairs firm, applies innovative and customized digital strategies in addition to traditional ones, to frame, narrate, and amplify your story. We successfully maneuver the clutter of today’s crowded media environment to deliver measurable results effectively and efficiently.

Can’t see the video? Watch it here.

Gloria Story Dittus Getting the Band Back Together 

Washington, D.C. – Story Partners, one of the nation’s most dynamic and rapidly growing public affairs firms, is pleased to announce that Trudi Boyd has been named Senior Vice President of its Washington, D.C. office.

A veteran communications strategist, Boyd joins Story Partners with more than 25 years’ experience defining corporate communications, issues and reputation management, public affairs, marketing and crisis communications for major corporations and trade associations alike. In her role, Boyd will leverage her expertise in public affairs and public relations to develop winning communication strategies for the firm’s new and existing clients.

“We are getting the band back together! I worked with Trudi for over ten years at Dittus Communications and she joins other Dittus Communications alumni now with Story Partners: Debra Cabral and Amos Snead,” said Gloria Story Dittus, Chairman, Story Partners. “Trudi has a long history of successful public affairs and will be a great asset to the Story Partners team and will make an immediate impact on behalf of our clients,” Dittus added.

“I am thrilled to be joining Story Partners and this outstanding team of both seasoned professionals and talented young communicators,” said Trudi Boyd, Senior Vice President, Story Partners. “The firm has a vibrant culture rooted in amplifying every client’s story regardless of the challenge or cluttered communications environment. They deliver stellar results with unmatched client service.”

Boyd has worked with several major corporations and trade associations to develop and execute communications programs, including GE Foundation, the Animal Health Institute, Kraft Foods, International Dairy Foods Association, PhRMA, Pernod Ricard USA, the Sweetener Users Association, Biotechnology Industry Organization, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, The Medicines Company and the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition.

Prior to joining Story Partners, Boyd served as general manager of Allison+Partners Washington, D.C. office. Her previous experience also includes serving as a managing director Health and Life Sciences practice at FTI Consulting. She began her career in Washington on Capitol Hill serving as chief of staff and communications director for former U.S. Congressman Larry Combest of Texas. Prior to working in Washington, D.C., Trudi was a journalist in Texas and news director and anchor at a CBS affiliate.

Boyd earned a B.A. in journalism from Texas Tech University. In 2009, she was honored with the Outstanding Alumni award from the College of Mass Communications. Boyd resides in Alexandria, VA with her husband Fran Boyd and they have two daughters, Katherine and Madison.

“Snead is the man behind the website behind Washington, FamousDC, a hub for the Capitol Hill and K Street chatter that this town runs on. He’s also a principal at Story Partners, a public-affairs firm whose clients stretch across the tech, financial-services, health care, and energy sectors. Clients include the Application Developers Alliance—the group that represents app makers—AdvaMed, and the Coalition for Credit Union Access. Snead’s Hill ties get him behind closed doors with lawmakers. You probably read it here first: He helped his family run a Fourth of July fireworks stand in Cherokee County in northeast Alabama. The stand’s name? Famous Amos Fireworks.

“Previously: Assistant vice president for Dittus Communications (now FTI Consulting), 2008-10 | Press secretary for House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, 2006-07 | Communications director for Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, 2005-06 | Press assistant for House Energy and Commerce Committee, 2003-05″

See the full list here.

Washington, D.C. – (November 29, 2012) Story Partners, one of the nation’s most dynamic and rapidly growing public affairs firms, is pleased to announce that senior director Lauren Pratapas has been honored by PR News, a public affairs industry leading publication, as a Rising Star Under the Age of 30.

“Lauren is a tremendous asset to the team at Story Partners,” said Amos Snead, Principal with Story Partners. “Our firm seeks out rising talent and Lauren is a shining example of the next generation of public affairs leaders with strong media and Capitol Hill experience.”

“I am truly honored to be recognized by PR News,” said Pratapas. “I have been fortunate to have been taught by brilliant mentors throughout my career, from Wolf Blitzer at CNN to Gloria Story Dittus and Debra Cabral at Story Partners. The Story Partners team is focused on delivering results for our clients and it is great that our team is receiving recognition from within the public relations industry.”

Prior to joining the Story Partners team, Pratapas served as the Director of New Media for Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy in the United States House of Representatives, where she modernized the digital media operation and her work on the first of its kind project “WhipCast” was recently honored with multiple awards by the American Association of Political Consultants.

Previously, she spent two years at CNN, where she contributed to Wolf Blitzer’s award-winning Situation Room coverage, engaged in daily coverage of Capitol Hill, and helped shape network coverage of President Obama’s historic inauguration and other national and international news.

In addition to her professional career, Lauren served as Social Director on the board for the Republican Communications Association and on the board of the Republican Women on the Hill.

About Story Partners

Story Partners, LLC, a 21st century public affairs firm, successfully maneuvers through the clutter of today’s crowded media environment, anticipating the next challenge to deliver measurable results for clients. Our team provides unsurpassed strategic and tactical guidance on critical issues confronting business and industry. Story Partners has vast experience in public affairs campaigns, crisis communications, executive positioning, coalition and third-party development and grassroots campaigns. By utilizing innovative new media and social networking strategies, we will change the dynamics of how your issue is framed, your allies are developed and how your story is told.

For more information about Story Partners, visit: www.StoryPartnersDC.com or (202-706-7800) or info@StoryPartnersDC.com

The election has been decided and now it is time to look ahead to 2013.

At Story Partners, we understand you have a story that deserves to be told – a result that needs to be realized.  But in today’s fast-moving media environment, how do you cut through the clutter?

We have the team, the knowledge, and the experience to drive the debate and amplify your story in both the online and offline worlds.

Whether it’s defining a message, dominating a market, or successfully positioning an executive team, Story Partners has a team of veteran communicators with a history of influencing outcomes.

Based in Washington, D.C., we have a national network of proven political and communications operatives and we are well-positioned to meet client needs at the federal, state and local levels, and to help you tell your story.

We are Story Partners.

And we’d like to tell YOUR story.

Lauren Pratapas even got the cupcakes on the New York Times Instagram #NYTelection contest.

Will the first 100 days include grand legislative accomplishments or more partisan gridlock?

Luckily some of the leading media outlets and think-tanks are convening conversations around these topics the few days following Election Day.

Here is where to get the Story after Election Day:

National Journal: 2012 Day After Conference
November 7, 2012, 7:30 AM-1:30 PM
Ronald Reagan Building, Atrium Ballroom
National Journal will draw from its robust editorial talent for an intensive look at the results of the 2012 elections and their likely impact on Congress, the executive branch, K Street and the most important policy issues of the day.

UPDATE: National Journal’s Taylor West emailed that the National Journal event has already sold out for live attendees, but it will be live-streamed the day of the event. 

Brookings Institution: Post-Election Day Analysis- What happened and what comes next?
November 7, 2012, 10:00- 11:30 AM
Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium
The Campaign 2012 project at Brookings will host a final forum analyzing the election’s outcomes and how these results will affect the policy agenda of the next administration and Congress.

NAM, BRT and BIPAC to Host Post-Election Briefing
November 7, 2012, 9 AM – Noon
Ritz Carlton
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Business Roundtable (BRT) and the Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) will host a media teleconference offering analysis and insight from the business community about the 2012 election results. This election will have far-reaching effects on the future of business in America, including the path forward on taxes, regulations, energy policy and the impending fiscal cliff.

UPDATE: This event is currently over capacity.

NAM, BRT and BIPAC to Host Media Teleconference on Election Results
November 7, 2012, 12:15 – 1:15 PM
Conference Call
RSVP: mlavoie@nam.org / (202) 637-3085
Following the Post-Election Briefing, NAM, BRT and BIPAC will host a media briefing.

Participants:

• Greg Casey, President and CEO, BIPAC
• Governor John Engler, President, BRT
• Jay Timmons, President and CEO, NAM

CQ Roll Call and the Public Affairs Council: Election Impact Conference
November 8, 2012, 8 AM- 4 PM
Ronald Reagan Building
CQ Roll Call and the Public Affairs Council will host the nation’s largest and most in-depth post-election conference, only two days after the election.  Hear analysis going beyond and reaching deeper than the news headlines, and ask the experts how the politics of 2012 will unfold in Congress and in the White House.

National Press Club: In Retrospect: How close were the polls?
November 8, 2012, 10 AM
National Press Club, Bloomberg Room
What did the polls get right ahead of the election, and where did they go wrong? Two days after the election, a panel of polling experts will sit down at the National Press Club’s Journalism Institute to talk about polling in the presidential race.

The Northwestern Alumni Association of DC:“Road to the White House” Panel Discussion
November 8, 2012, 6:00-9:00pm
The National Press Club
After the results are in, join new Medill Dean Bradley Hamm and fellow alumni and friends for a panel discussion with political experts and professional journalists. Explore what the election’s outcome means for the winning candidate, our political parties, and our country.

NOTE: The event is sold out, but livestreaming is available here.

Bipartisan Policy Center Post-Election Analysis
November 9, 2012, 9 – 10 AM
Bipartisan Policy Center
1225 Eye Street, NW
Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20005
This year’s election cycle is shaping up to have close competitions in nearly every race with many elections hinging on who shows up to vote on November 6, 2012. Join the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) just days after the 2012 elections as we and our panel of polling experts and politicos examine the first statistics on voter turnout at the polls across the country, what demographics and populations showed up to cast their ballots and how, and to what degree, those votes impacted the elections.

Featuring:

• Secretary Dan Glickman, Senior Fellow, BPC, Former Secretary of Agriculture
• Ronald Browstein, Atlantic Media Company, Editorial Director, National Journal Group
• Curtis Gans, Executive Director, Center for the Study of the American Electorate
• Kristen Soltis, Vice President, The Winston Group
• David Wasserman, House Editor, Cook Political Reporter
• John Fortier, BPC Democracy Project

The Williams Institute: Post-Election Wrap Up in D.C.
November 14, 2012, 6:00-8:30 PM
Paul Hastings, 875 15^th St., NW
The Williams Institute will host a reception and panel discussion on post-election topics including state policy developments on same-sex marriage and advancement of LGBT-related policies at the federal level, moderated by Peter Wallsten of The Washington Post.

Want your event listed? Please email Lauren.Pratapas@StoryPartnersDC.com

Washington, D.C. – Story Partners, one of the nation’s most dynamic and rapidly growing public affairs firms, is pleased to announce three new senior members to their team. Harvey Valentine, Kate Connors, and Caleb Smith joined as Senior Vice President, Vice President and Digital Director respectively.

“We have assembled an experienced team of seasoned veterans who have a long history of influencing outcomes and we are excited to have these new members join as we continue to provide unsurpassed service and results on behalf of our clients,” said Gloria Story Dittus, Chairman, Story Partners. “These additions to our team reflect the growth we have seen in the energy, financial services, and healthcare sectors.”

Harvey Valentine first came to Washington as a staff member for U.S. Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-NY), the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, for whom he ultimately served as Press Secretary. He then served as Communications Director for U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), the senior Republican on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. He most recently served as Senior Vice President at the Hawthorn Group, a public affairs firm in Alexandria, VA. Prior to joining Hawthorn, he served as Communications Director for U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), then chairman of the Senate Subcommittees on Education and Energy, and before that as Communications Director for the Republican Governors Association, assisting gubernatorial campaigns across the country.

Kate Connors most recently served as director of communications for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the leading trade association for the biopharmaceutical industry. In that role she oversaw communications regarding Food and Drug Administration regulation, intellectual property policy, sales and marketing practices and oversight, and the economic impact of the sector, as well as PhRMA’s social media presence. In that time, she worked toward successful passage of the America Invents Act, which updated America’s patent system, and the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. Prior to PhRMA, she worked at Qorvis Communications.

Caleb Smith is a digital media strategist with a diverse background in campaign management and political communications. With his background in website design and development, Smith understands how digital communications plays a vital role in advocacy efforts. Caleb’s strength lies in the ability to build and execute online campaigns that are vital in today’s digital world.

Story Partners hosts informal receptions and events during the course of the year, but events like Wednesday’s are particularly relevant during an election year when everyone is interested in the politics and what goes on behind the curtain.

“What we have yet to see in this election, is that one game-changing moment that has defined the past few Presidential races,” said Dittus. “So we wanted to bring all of you together to have a discussion with some of the nation’s leading pollsters, the folks who follow this on a minute-by-minute basis.”

Here’s what we learned:

• “Because of early voting states….Mitt Romney, he doesn’t have 47 days to catch up. He may have two weeks.” 

– Fred Yang, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group

• “The game changer moment is now the responsibility of the Romney campaign…the debates are going to matter.” 

- David Winston, The Winston Group 

• “For the first time in a long time, the Democrats are wining or drawing to a tie on traditionally Republican issues like foreign policy, terrorism, and taxes.” 

– Jefrey Pollock, Global Strategy Group 

For those of you who joined us, we thank you so much coming and for those of you who missed it, we hope to see you next time, but for now, here are some highlights from the evening.

Enjoy the final sprint.

Full Transcript of the event is below:

Gloria

Thank you all for coming out.  We do these informal receptions and events during the course of the year and particularly during an election year when everyone is interested in the politics and what goes on behind the curtain, or behind the camera.  We’re really fortunate tonight to have some very good friends. Betsy Fischer who is a good New Orleans girl and y’all know how much I love New Orleans.  When I met Betsy I knew I was going to love her just for that alone.  Betsy, as you know, is the producer for Meet the Press. Rick DiBella with CNN and his colleague Mark Preston and Rick Klein with ABC News.

So I thought we could talk a little bit, and I don’t know Amos if you want to jump in on this, these guys are great, they have wonderful shows, we’ve got a really interesting election coming up, and one of the questions that gets bandied about is, are the super pacs going to have a huge impact on the election this year? So I think if you all could talk a little bit about what your thoughts on that are, and if we have a couple other questions maybe we can open it up.

DiBella

I would say that from an advertising perspective we’re in favor of super pacs [laughter]. They spend a lot of money on our air and we like big bonuses at the end of the year.

Klein

I would say look, yes they’ll have an impact, but it’s not like one side is going to be vastly underfunded or outspent.  They’re going to be out there and saturating the airwaves and both sides will reach a point where both voters will ultimately tune out most of it.  One fascinating thing to me about the super pacs is that we’re actually learning a lot about who’s behind these campaigns. You know, they’re spending ungodly sums and they did in the primaries in really record-smashing numbers but really, in previous cycles we really didn’t know who was behind them and I think just in terms of transparency it’s nice to know who’s out there trying to purchase an election, in essence.  So I do think they’re going to have a lot of impact but I don’t think—there isn’t any sign to me that there’s going to be one side that is going to benefit in a disproportionate way. I think both sides are going to have well-funded super pacs that are going to be out there providing a lot of air cover for them and may ultimately be working on the argument that convinces enough voters in enough places.

Betsy

Yeah and you’ll see, you know, it’s a mechanism for having some of the negative parts of a campaign air to super pacs for the campaigns themselves that want to do that.  I think as we see story lines emerge some of them will come out of various opposition research that goes into some of these super pacs that normally as the media we would follow up on. I think that will be the biggest impact I can say.

Mark

You know we always talk about the (positive?) superpac, many of you are very well aware of and can provide the air cover, there are ungodly sums of money that are spent.  The problem with the super pac though is that the candidate can’t always control the message while there isn’t “coordination” we all know there is “some sort of coordination” that goes on.  The fact that the candidate can’t control that message could eventually be a problem. It might be a minor blip in the road it might be a speed bump it might be something but, while they’re good for the candidate, especially if your deputy campaign, former deputy campaign manager happens to be running the most effective ones, right, in (Carl forty?) but they can’t control the message. On the presidential level maybe that won’t be the biggest problem, but when you start seeing them play in some of the Senate races that could be a little bit of a problem so they are good for the candidate but they’re also bad for the candidate. If you talk to yourselves, or if you talk to other election types, you know, campaign strategists, they’ll tell you, ‘Just give us the money’, the campaign would rather be able to have this unlimited money to control their own message.

Betsy

Sometimes we see that Vice Presidents can’t even control their own message. [laughter]

Amos

We’re always curious how these programs are put together, what kind mechanics, when do you pick the guests, how does that week…going into the weekend.

Gloria

And maybe if you could share a little bit about each of your programs, you know, that might be helpful

Betsy

We usually air Meet the Press, and our shows are very much the same, we have a lot of balls up in the air all week long so we’re trying to figure out early in the week, ‘Is this really going to be relevant on Sunday’, we don’t want to have a rehash Sunday, we want to take a story and move it over to the next level.  So you’re trying to line up people early in the week, see what’s available,  but you know we all have competitors [laughter] and the same guests, so you know, we don’t want to lock someone in too early and then need to cancel because that’s never pleasant,  it always comes back to bite you. So never want to try to do that.  It’s usually mid-week, Wednesday or Thursday, when we have a better sense of what’s coming up for that Sunday, unless there’s major breaking news, in which case on the weekend we juggle things around.  And guests are very, I mean obviously if there’s breaking news happening, guests are very sensitive to that, and if you have to cancel.  They just don’t like it if you trade up for better guests.

In terms of Meet the Press, we’re 63 years old, the longest running television program in the world, good trivia question [laughter]. We tape the show on Sunday mornings 9 – 10  so it’s on the air, it goes to a lot of our markets live at 9.

DiBella

Just to add to what Betsy said, I think the real trick for our show is, I do State of the Union with Candy Crowley, we have to think of ourselves as news future producers.  We have to figure out what is it that was driving the week and what’s going to happen the following week, and position our show to make news, that’s how we rate our success. This past week we had Joe Lieberman on our show and he announced that he would be holding hearings with Mark Sullivan the following week, so that put us in a position where we were ahead of the curve on that story and the big newsmaker on it.  We want to be relevant to what happens but also drive the next week and what’s going to happen.  It’s easy to look in the rear view mirror, it’s much harder to try to figure out what the next story is.

Klein

Yeah I echo that entirely.  Especially in a 24 hr news environment, 63 years ago there weren’t that many other public affairs interviews to do so you could really set the agenda. The challenge is much greater now, to be ahead of the news, to be on top of what’s going on, to be not just analyzing and talking about what just happened.  We think about an ideal show, this week,  as ‘What are people going to be talking about on Monday morning, Tuesday’, sort of shapes the whole week, so in terms of booking, the best advice I can give is call Betsy, call Rick, find out what’s on their shows and then call us.

DiBella

I also oversee reliable sources and that’s a different animal altogether.  If it’s a current story it’s almost not worth our pushing that story because there’s commentary on it…

Mark

Yeah and I mean this stuff is basic. I mean there’s a reason you all have jobs here in Washington, right? I mean there’s a reason why you’re successful in what you do.  A lot of what we’re telling you is pretty basic.  A lot of the program overall can be very boring, we all know that, the idea is, how do you make it compelling. Everyone is trying to make it compelling. And for those of you out there who have clients trying to make pitches or what have you, like, think about your pitch this way, very simply, if it’s something you would want to watch on tv, or you want to read in a story or you think is good enough, then make the pitch. If you think it’s boring, it’s kind of old, or whatever, then don’t make the pitch. Time is very precious. There’s no need for you guys to burn a good bridge, with somebody if you get Betsy on the phone, or you’re on the phone with Rick and you say, hey, I got this pitch, you know, and then it’s like, what was that person thinking, but, you know, if it’s good, it’s good, and you should make a pitch.

Amos

A question—this is a little odd, behind the audience

Unseen speaker

So, my question is, how does a candidate, i.e. Romney or… position themselves on who should go and who shouldn’t, i.e. Obama on the View.  How does a candidate position themselves on what they should do and what they shouldn’t do?

Betsy

If we could get into their heads [laughter] and be a fly on the wall in those conversations because it’s not happening in front of us

Gloria

But how do they make the decision that Obama’s going to do ABC news for an announcement like that?

Betsy

That’s a great question

Mark

But I mean we know what he was thinking, right, it was very tongue in cheek, we know what he was doing. We know that, quite frankly, Mitt Romney goes on Fox all the time, on certain shows, there’s a reason why he does that. I will tell you this though—wait ‘til about mid September…Because by about mid September their money is drying up and they have to start doing interviews.  And when you start seeing candidates who have not been appearing on certain networks, they’ll start appearing on those networks.

Betsy

And they also want debate prep, so they use it as a way to get ready for debates, people tell me that, they will start to come out more because they need to be keeping sharp on the issues. Going through the prep for a Sunday show is very similar to doing a debate prep

DiBella

It’s also a way to test drive the message too.

Klein

Well I think it’s always complicated but I think they know who the audience is and they know who they’re trying to reach. There’s a certain demographic, there’s a certain interviewing style, there’s a certain airing you’re going to get from a particular person or show or network then you tend to do that. A lot of booking in this town has to come to that realization. Ultimately, these are rational actors, who are pretty smart, or think they’re smart, and they’re going to make the decisions that are best for them based on that moment in time—who do they want to reach, how do they want to reach, how do they want to convey a particular message. One thing I’d add to that is, there’s sort of an informal, formal rotation when it comes to some of the larger bookings—the President, the Vice President, they’re pretty good about making sure they don’t exclude someone entirely.  They want to make sure they’re not seen as favoring just one network at the expense of all the others

DiBella

But then and again, Romney’s done Fox news…16 times

Mark

But we know he’s going to come by mid September

Gloria

But that was a primary strategy, that was a primary strategy

Mark

I mean he’s still doing it now, he was at Liberty last weekend, there’s a reason, he didn’t go to Liberty because he thought it would be fun to go hang out at Liberty, but again, mid-September, maybe a little bit later, they’ll start to come out, and they’ll do your show, if you have a show on public access, or some people in your backyard because in the end, Betsy’s right, they need that debate prep, and quite frankly, their money’s drying up.

Amos

Any questions? Yes—Casey

Casey

So for some of those exclusives, where you’re doing the gay rights announcement things like that, how does he then choose who gets to have that in-depth interview? Is that part of the rotation as well? If the President is going to announce something and do an in-depth story ? Those audiences—you could say they’re all the same at that point—how does he choose—is it based on the topic?

Betsy

From what I read they just determined that that would be the best venue for them

DiBella

They plan to do it on the View…

Betsy

You believe that?

Klein

You know all of the networks, all of the major anchors inside the networks and all of the cables, everyone has kind of a permanent ask-in with someone as big as the President, you know, yes, you know, Robin Roberts, she’s been wanting to interview the President for some time.  They decided it would be good for this, based on whatever their calculations were about the venue and the audience and the interviewing style and all that. That was kind-of a one-off kind of thing, they had something specific they wanted to talk about.

Amos

Another question, Neda?

Neda

So, obviously last week was the administration using your show to push out big messages whether on purpose or not, you can leave that to argument. I’m just wondering, generally speaking, yourselves, if it was just you as viewers, would you be more interested in watching the big administration, the big Presidential, Vice Presidential people talking, or would you rather, on the other hand, Senate, all the Washington people, all the people who probably make up most of this crowd, all the people who know the ins and outs of this town and how policy works? Is that more interesting to start unpacking that on your shows, or is that too difficult to translate on a broader scale?

Betsy

Well, I think our shows are versatile enough that we can do a little bit of both.  The programs are structured where there’s a round table segment usually, and that’s where we’ll get into more analysis, and drill down some more on the topics. But, when you put a program together, you have to program to a wide audience, you know for me, I put on C-Span every day but, that wouldn’t be as successful to large-scale viewers. So you have to sort of think broader when putting something on the air, not the nitty gritty…

Mark

The hardest thing to do, I think, is because we all are kind of, we all live in Washington, we’re all in the game, we’re all C-Span junkies, right, you can sit there and watch ridiculous speeches all day and be like, wow, that was kind of interesting, said something about something, but, the bottom line is, the struggle every day, the struggle especially for these two shows is, how you take something, and open the window into Washington, and let people walk away and feel like they learned something. It’s a struggle, and I think we deal with it every day, you guys do it, it’s a big time struggle because guess what, people out in Des Moines, other than their caucuses, they don’t really care about the minutia that we kind of get a drive off of. C-Span radio exists in Washington, D.C., and not Sirius XM. It doesn’t exist outside terrestrial radio, so I think that’s a struggle that you try to do. We probably fail more often than we succeed, but when we succeed, it’s kind of a nice win.

Klein

ABC News does a lot of things, radio, dot-com, digital platforms, and all that, but when most people think of ABC News they think of television, what’s going on on ABC the television network. ABC gets three hours of programming per day, every 24 hrs, there’s Good Morning America, half an hour at 6:30 for World News, and Nightline for 11:30 at night. In those 3 hours, you know, which you cut down already with commercial times, so maybe it’s 2 and a half hours or 2 hours and 15 minutes when you get down to it, there are celebrity segments, cooking segments, general news, medical news, you name it, you know, so maybe in that whole 3 hours of the day, you’ll spend 5 minutes talking about politics, you know, there’s an hour on Sunday when you can do more of it but even that, that hour gets cut down pretty fast when you start to factor in everything else. The idea of taking a taking a really good Congressional race and picking that apart is a very difficult thing to do in that.  Dick Lugar losing last week was an enormous story in Washington and beyond with big national implications but unless you live in Indiana, you don’t really know who Dick Lugar is.  You have to make it broader, you have to make it broadly applicable, because there are too many members of Congress to relate on everything,  not to mention that most of our viewers hate Congress.  And when we cover Congress, hate us for covering Congress. So you know it’s a hard balance to strike to get everything.

DiBella

I worked for the late Tony Snow.  He would say, our show is designed to explain Washington to America, and America to Washington. Which is not easy to do. Something that Tim Russert and Tony Snow did very well was that they asked questions that would be in the general public’s mind. And that’s the way that we approach our show. You don’t want to assume that our viewers have too much knowledge of what’s going on, we have a point of entry on the story that is personal enough that the viewers understand, and then try to flesh it out.

Gloria

To that point, what issues, policy issues, do you actually see that are going to matter when people go to the ballot come November? Those are going to be the issues that you’re going to want to try to figure out how to put on your Sunday show. And those are going to be the issues that are going to be the pivotal issues, that are really going to matter. So I would love to hear two or three that you think are going to rise to the top

Klein

I just think it’s the economy, and then everything else. It’s hard to put even anything else on the same plane. That’s been history, that’s the state of this country right now. There will be other issues at the margins that may influence some voters but the gay marriage thing last week, I don’t think there were many people who were saying, I want to vote for Obama, they hated Obama for a lot of reasons before, that’s my personal feeling on that.  Maybe there’s some motivating factors for each side, but I just think the economy, jobs, people just want to know ‘Can I get back to work’, that’s by far the biggest to me.

Rick

I think every driving issue will relate to that one.

Gloria

Is immigration an issue at all?

Klein

I mean there are pockets of the country where it matters more than others.  But if your main issue is immigration on one side or the other, you’ve probably already made up your mind. It’s hard for me to imagine now that there are people who say, I’m going to vote for immigration but I’m not sure which of these two.  I mean they’ve got different policies, different points of view.

Mark

You know, back in 2008 in January, I drove across country and went from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to California

Gloria

That’s quite a difference

Mark

Yeah, we cut through the South, there were a lot of fun stories on the road we won’t talk about tonight but you know I went with Allie Belcher who’s this larger than life personality, maybe you know him, seen him on tv, he’s this bald guy, he drives like 150 miles per hour on gear, well he’s like that off-gear too. And what we did is we drove cross-country and I didn’t quite understand the economy ‘til at the end of the trip, which is where I’m going to go with this.  We would get out at truck stops and talk to truckers, at truck stops, just pull out, just start talking to them.  And the common theme from the truckers were guys who couldn’t fill up their gas tanks because they didn’t have enough money. They would fill up their tank half way, because they knew if they filled their tank up half way, it was big 18-wheelers, like three to four hundred dollars to fill up those tanks. They would fill it half way and they could get to where they needed to, get paid, fill it up again, get back home. And that’s a pretty sad thing when you hear it, they’re independent truckers. And then we heard how shipping had gone down by so much and I remember Alley saying to me at the time, you know, look, this is why it’s issue number one. Start talking to truckers, start watching the freight lines, and if you see the freight lines haven’t got as many goods, they are the indicator that things are really going to be bad. Guess what, where are we now, it’s really bad. And I guarantee you, if we went to those truck stops all across Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, all the way to Arizona, across Texas, I guarantee that we would meet those same people and their gas tanks will be half filled right now. And that’s what it all comes down to.  So we’re all lucky, we all have jobs, we’re in a bubble, the housing market has crashed, yeah, houses have lost a little bit of value, haven’t lost that much value. But get outside of this little area that w live in, this fake world of Washington, it’s pretty bad out there.

Brecke:

I have a question.  I work for a freshman Senator, and I with guess the topics going into the election, what do you think about the budget. I know you were saying that the economy, and really honing into this, I just feel like the budget is this whole other animal, and the public is sensing that, what do you think…?

Betsy

Yeah I mean I think we’re seeing that the budget wars come and go and come back and come in and the people I think are a little bit, ‘enough, already’, so, that’s the impression I get from talking to people. I think when things reach another “point of crisis”, you’ve  seen the count-down clock and good stuff…I think the broader part of that is spending and the deficit and I think that plays into the economic future and the kind of stories that we’re doing. I don’t think we will get down in the weeds so to speak on the budget stuff. We’re trying to keep it on a broader perspective.

Mark

Don’t you think it’s going to be an issue though in the post-election? It will be the economy, and Congress will punt, and they’ll punt, and then all of a sudden we’re going to come back and we’re going to say, we’ve got a crisis, we don’t know how these bills are done, this can’t happen, and, like, literally, from November, whenever the election is over, it’s going to go from that right to a…and that’s all we’ll talk about.

Klein

Yeah I think it’ll be driven by the cycle. There will be pockets of time before, but you all know Washington well enough to know that they don’t work unless there’s a deadline, and someone’s head is going to be chopped off, on a date, that’s how this town tends to work. And I think in  terms of the way we cover things, we respond to those things, the count-down clock, those moments of major reflection are going to drive the way we cover those things. There’s a lot that’s going to get lost along the way in terms of the details of these things, but, you know, we cover things that are happening differently too.

Amos

Last question, yeah—

Jennifer

Yeah I’m Jennifer Dunn with Cisco. We’re a technology company and obviously care a lot about social media. I’m curious to know the impact social media is having on how you guys frame your coverage and how it maybe drives the topics that you’re interested in. I mean, are you paying attention to the buzz out there, obviously you use social media channels, but how is it helping influence what you cover?

Klein

Never heard of it [laughter] Twitter…

Betsy

I use it more as a kind of news feed to see what’s going on and different reporter’s pieces rather than a barometer because I think it can be a little misleading if you see things on Twitter, and they’ll sometimes take off, but it’s a small sub set, so you know, I really love to use my Twitter feed to monitor what’s going on out there and to read other reporters and see what other people are writing about and talking about but it doesn’t necessarily influence coverage per se, just more of how I’m consuming, conduit, yeah.

DiBella

I follow Betsy on Twitter

Mark

[makes joke]

Gloria

Not that they’re competitive at all

Mark

But Rick, it’s a newswire for me too. For us, if something’s moving on Twitter quickly then we jump on it. I will say, a couple of weeks ago I was talking with one of the big investors in Twitter, just happened to be on the phone with him, and the Hillary Rosenthal thing happened, and Hillary’s a friend, right, but I was out in California I didn’t know what happened. I was literally on Twitter and I said ‘This is why Twitter is so successful’, I said, this is going to be the biggest story tomorrow.

Betsy

Yeah that’s a good example, a time when there wasn’t a lot of news on the air so it moved on Twitter very quickly and the next morning when I called Hillary…and then she canceled [laughter], another story

Mark

So it can move the news cycle, there’s no question.

Klein

It’s revolutionized news consumption for me and I think for a lot of people in the media. I almost don’t have to go to websites directly.  Because if you’re following the right people on Twitter then you’re not going to miss something if you’re looking at the news feed. Some of the more successful reporters in engaging social media make it a two-way street and I think that’s another aspect. The numbers are miniscule compared to the number of viewers that we have. A hundred thousand followers is a pretty big number for a correspondent, but that’s barely a rounding number in the Nielson reports. I saw one report recently that said 2% of people get political news information from Twitter, I would argue that’s the right 2% from our perspective.

Amos

They may be all here [laughter]

Klein

If what we’re producing, just from a distribution end, if I’m followed by the quote on quote right 2% and I put something out and these guys see it then a lot more people are going to see it.

Mark

And you know what’s nice about Twitter, and we haven’t talked about Facebook yet, I don’t think any of us really understand how to reach all those people, I mean I guess some people do, I’d like to be better at it, but, the good thing about Twitter is that as competitive as we are, if Rick tweets a story, I’m going to retweet Rick. I’m not going to try to take that and put it out as my own. I’ll just pop it back out there. If Betsy makes news on Meet the Press then I’m going to pop that out. If she puts a  tweet out, she deserves it, they get it, there’s actually more collegiality, you know, on Twitter than one would have expected. Even though, you know, we don’t all like each other [laughter].

Amos

Well thank you everybody for coming, thank you to our special guests, Gloria thank you for having us

[Gloria points to Bob]

Bob

At lunch today I was talking with an Energy and Commerce member, and his opponent is talking about when he gets elected, he’s going to pass a bill that’s going to bounce the federal budget in a year, right, and he’s getting mileage out of it. So I’m wondering if in through your shows and the guests that you have, is there a way to…you know, I’m a lobbyist, but I really consider myself an educator, is there a way to raise the education level a little bit, and how difficult this is to get done, and what the process is like, and I just ask this of all of you, if it’s possible to get that word across to the voters. There’s rhetoric, but then you talk about…how do you get that done? Can you do that?

Mark

You know I assume you’re talking about a house member? Alright well, first off, for us, we tend to just deal with the macro issues and we really focus on the Presidential and a little bit on the House and Senate and that’s more of like a local news issue and what we’re seeing unfortunately in our business is, local newspapers are going away, so you’re not going to have that aggressive local reporter, local tv stations are cut to the bone, and it’s hard, quite frankly, someone who goes out and makes a ridiculous claim is going to get some ink and I guess it’s incumbent on the media to do something about it but it’s impossible for us to do that type…

DiBella

But it’s also well grounded the guy that’s running, to point out that…

Mark

Yeah, it is incumbent upon your friend, your member to call him out

Gloria

And as you know, freshman think they can change the world, so

Klein

I would say, you know, if there’s a broad trend, if there’s a hundred members that are doing that then we’ll do that story on World News certainly, you know, calling out something that’s just patently ridiculous

Mark

I have a perfect example—a few weeks ago when Alan West came out and said there was, what, 59 members of Congress that were members of the Communist party, right, ok, well, that rose to the level for all of us to be kind of like, ok, that’s kind of a ridiculous statement to make

DiBella

…on the show this past Sunday, and he was saying that some of the time bombs that are set to go off after the election, and you know, as Candy said, nothing is getting done now, why don’t you just stay home and uh, we got a lot of feedback from that

Gloria

Well thank you guys so much. We really appreciate you taking your time in your busy schedules. Does anyone have other questions?