On Friday morning, President Obama delivered another press conference in the Brady Briefing Room to talk about the contentious negotiations over raising the debt limit. Presidential pressers in the briefing room offer a completely different dynamic from a more formal East Room press conference. They’re more crowded, with a looser, on-our-turf atmosphere. Here’s a glimpse of some of what you didn’t see on TV.

The announcement of Jay Carney as successor to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has ended weeks of speculation, but raises questions about how Carney will take to his new post, and it to him. In exclusive comments to Mediaite, members of the White House Press Corps expressed optimism about Carney’s tenure, and identified possible challenges for the new Press Secretary, including his own status as a former journalist, his relative distance from the Obama administration’s inner circle, and his boyish good looks.

It was a more innocent time. Dave Weigel was still writing for The Washington Post, and BP was still just an awful name for a brand of honey. On April 19, 2010, CNN’s Ed Henry sat down for a (much lighter) follow-up to our Inside the White House Press Corps interview. After bravely tackling subjects like Star Wars, tattoos, porn star names, and the then-imminent Lost finale, Ed’s interview promptly vanished into thin air.

Luckily, the video has resurfaced, allowing a nostalgic look back at a bygone era.

Since the abrupt retirement of Helen Thomas earlier this week, the White house Press Corps is now without its unofficial Dean. Since Helen was the most senior of all White House correspondents, her departure has left Audio-Video News’ Connie Lawn and World Net Daily‘s Les Kinsolving as the 1st and 2nd most senior members of the corps, respectively. While neither has designs on the deanship, they each had a lot to say about Helen’s departure, and the current state of the White House briefings.

Throughout this year, Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher has been turning the tables on White House reporters, putting them in the hot seat for his Inside the White House Press Corps interview series. We thought it was time he got a taste of his own medicine, so we enlisted a White House correspondent we’ll call Reporter X to fire a fresh batch of questions at him.

Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn, who also writes a column for Politics Daily, is a well-known author and journalist who broke early news on the Valerie Plame affair, and provided memorable coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. In the most action-packed Inside the White House Press Corps ever, Corn talks about covering the White House, his Twitter dominance, and tells us what he misses about the Bush White House, all while fending off chaotic distractions.

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein made history last year by becoming the first blogger to ask a question at a presidential news conference. Since then, he has burnished a fine journalistic reputation with hard work and honest reporting. In this installment of Inside the White House Press Corps, Sam talks about that first presser, the Nico Pitney-Dana Milbank dustup, covering the White House, and really delivers the goods on embarrassing TV habits.

>Progressive talk radio host and frequent cable news guest Bill Press is, like me, a member in good standing of the “back five,” the scrappy White House reporters who wait patiently for Robert Gibbs to finish with the first two rows while hoping the clock doesn’t run out. His show is syndicated by Dial Global, and can be heard online or via podcast.

MSNBC anchor David Shuster, while not technically on the “White House beat,” has lots of experience covering the White House both from within and without. In the balance of our interview, he offers insights into the process that differ significantly from what we’ve heard in other Inside the White House Press Corps interviews. As promised, here is my full interview with Shuster, in which he discusses covering the White House, lazy reporters, interviewing space aliens, plus the first two parts.

Chuck Todd, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and host of MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown,” is immensely quotable, as it turns out.  Today, we go Inside the White House Press Corps for the rest of our interview, in which Chuck holds forth on the job of the White House reporter, the role of the Press Secretary, and the idea of media bias. He also tells us what he thinks of Fox’s Family Guy and 24

NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd has undergone a rather remarkable transformation over Twitter. He has gone from predicting its demise to one of the more prolific press corps Tweeters, so much so that my Inside the White House Press Corps interview finds him speaking in hashtags. #itsaTwitterThingYouWouldntUnderstand.

One of the reasons I started the “Inside the White House Press Corps” series was so that people could see a different side of the people who play a large part in guiding the American political narrative. In this preview of my interview with NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd, we see a more animated figure than we’re used to, discussing the “Drudge Effect” (my phrase) in journalism.

Launched a mere 7 weeks ago, Tucker Carlson‘s Daily Caller already has a presence Inside the White House Press Corps, in the person of former Washington Times reporter Jon Ward. A veteran of the Bush administration press corps, Jon brings The DC instant street cred and invaluable experience. In our two-part interview, Jon shares his thoughts about covering the White House, the state of journalism in general, and previews his latest feature.

Part one of my interview with WorldNetDaily correspondent and radio host Les Kinsolving was really just the tip of the iceberg. In parts 2 and three of our interview, Les opens up about some of the touchstones of his extraordinary career, including his experiences as the first Jim Jones whistleblower, his place in the history of the AIDS epidemic, and his quest to see the President’s birth certificate. Amid a host of seeming contradictions, he also talks about being pro-choice and anti-death penalty.

WorldNetDaily correspondent and radio host Lester Kinsolving is, without a doubt, the most colorful member of the White House press corps. His questions are designed to delight WND’s right-wing readers, and if Press Secretary Robert Gibbs doesn’t call on him, Lester will often just shout them out anyway.

CNN Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry exclusively reveals to Mediaite how to stay on top as a reporter, the effects of the blogosphere on his reporting, the usefulness of his Twitter feed, and he attacks the idea of a liberal media bias.

NBC News White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie is on the way up. She was recently named one of 2010′s Faces to Watch in TV by the LA Times, and has just launched a new show, “The Daily Rundown,” on MSNBC (9am EDT), with fellow White House correspondent Chuck Todd.

Savannah gets real with “The Daily Rundown,” on MSNBC (9am EDT), with fellow White House correspondent Chuck Todd.

Savannah gets real with Inside the White House Press Corps, with some surprising observations about Twitter, media bias, and the role of pudits in shaping the news.

Since joining the White House beat on the eve of Barack Obama‘s inauguration, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid has distinguished himself as one of the toughest questioners in the Brady Briefing Room.

In this edition of Inside the White House Press Corps, Chip speaks frankly about the role of the Press Secretary, compares the Obama White House to the Bush administration, and much more.

ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper has already faced the Mediaite 5 Quick Questions juggernaut, but has bravely decided to occupy the hot-seat once again for this edition of Inside the White House Press Corps.

Here, Tapper discusses what it takes to be a good White House reporter, his relationship with Robert Gibbs, the relative merits of the Wonder Pets and much more.

The subject of today’s Inside the White House Press Corps is the New York Daily News’ Ken Bazinet, proprietor of the Mouth of the Potomac blog. He’s the guy in the briefing room who best fits the image of a hard-boiled reporter that we’ve all seen on TV. Here, he offers us his insights on covering the White House, and how Robert Gibbs is growing into the role of Press Secretary.

Today, we go Inside the White House Press Corps to speak with ABC News White House correspondent Yunji de Nies. In our exclusive interview, Yunji talks about covering the President and Rush Limbaugh at the same time, taking cameras out of the briefing room, and makes a confession about her TV viewing habits.

In an attempt to give our readers a view of the inner workings of their most direct link to the President, Mediaite has begun conducting a series of interviews with members of the White House Press Corps.

We think it’s fitting that our first entry is Helen Thomas, the legendary Hearst Newspapers White House correspondent, occupant of the front row center seat, and the toughest questioner you’ll find in that briefing room.