Covering The White House Through the Eyes of a Cameraman

video

by Tommy Christopher | 7:22 am, October 21st, 2010

» 3 comments

An important part of Mediaite’s coverage of the White House press corps has been taking you behind the scenes to find out what makes the Grillers of Gibbs tick, but what about the men and women behind the cameras? In the most recent installment of his Political Punch web series, ABC News’ Jake Tapper put cameraman Chris Carlson front and center to pull back the curtain on what it’s like to go to work every day in a piece of living history.

The result is a brief, yet illuminating, slice of White House working life.

Covering the White House as a correspondent can be a tedious affair, doubly so for camera and technical personnel, so Carlson’s enthusiasm is a testament to how special the job really is. He also makes a really great observation about the daily tug of war that is the White House briefing, noting that we all “tweak (our) ears to hear the slightest change in White House rhetoric.”

This is also the reason why, often to the frustration of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, we end up asking the same questions in so many different ways, hoping to shake something loose from tightly-wound messaging.

Chris Carlson, Jake Tapper, Political Punch, Robert Gibbs, White House, White House Press Corps

Big Eddie

More behind the scene coverage . Gibbs in WH kitchen : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxucW81iqy4
fabianwest

One other note on this: This whole video was shot, edited and tracked on the iPhone 4. It never saw an edit room or a tracking booth.
http://Race4Congress.com Magister

@fabianwest: Interesting bit of sidenote and a good use of technology.

@Tommy & Everyone Else: I indirectly follow @newmediajim via a Twitter list. He’s an NBC camera operator, though he seems more general assignment and isn’t WH exclusive, but he’s also handy with TwitPics and behind the scene clips.

Oh, and though it’s only slightly related, Ana Marie Cox and Jason Linkins’ “Annotated White House Flickr Feeds” can be a lot of fun.