No Trespassing   

If the new Congress honors tradition, television journalists will still have a difficult time getting the video they need to cover the Hill.

After being arrested while trying to do a television stand-up on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, correspondent Todd Smith can cite by heart the regulation allowing camera crews on the premises.

"It's General Order 402.1," says Smith, who works for Bonneville International Corporation, which owns stations in Seattle and Salt Lake City. In case he's stopped again, he carries a copy of the order, which permits crews to set up tripods at only eight specific locations.

For those television correspondents who want to record what goes on inside the building, the restrictions are even tighter.

The last term, with its scandals at the House Bank and Post Office, was a frustrating time for television reporters who wanted to include pictures with their stories. Traditionally, Congress has permitted television and still photography only of the events, people and places it wants covered. Everything else remains off limits. Thus, during the long-running House Bank story, there was no authorized videotape of the bank in action. The House leadership allowed only one photo opportunity of the facility, and that was on a day it was closed.

Similarly, there were no authorized pictures of the House Post Office at work – or pictures of the House and Senate barber and beauty shops, the Senate tennis courts or House gym during the uproar over congressional perks. The press had to settle for a photo-op of the door of the House physician's office, where members of Congress receive free prescriptions and other care. It didn't make for good TV.

While members of Congress may have a bona fide argument for banning pictures of themselves in gym shorts or curlers, their excuses for keeping cameras away from other areas are less convincing. A tourist with a camcorder has more freedom videotaping in the halls of Congress than accredited television camera crews.

"It's just ludicrous," says Dan Erlenborn, a producer for NBC News. "We have camera crews that have been through the Kremlin, and yet we're not allowed in the hallways that tourists flood in and out of."

But all of this may change. With at least 110 new members of the House, and at least 13 new members of the Senate, broadcasters are hoping that the 103rd Congress will offer a chance for better access inside the Capitol and congressional office buildings.

Television access to Congress has been slow in coming. As one congressional staffer explains, "Lots of people here believe that Congress functions best at the lowest level of visibility." Although in recent years the networks have been devoting less coverage to Washington in general and Congress in particular (see "New York to Washington: Drop Dead," October 1992), the legislative branch has consistently given broadcast journalists good reason to go elsewhere.

The House authorized the presence of news cameras in congressional hearings in 1970; the Senate has never granted the same blanket access. Hearings in both houses generally were closed to the press for all practical purposes until after the Watergate investigation in 1973. Today news organizations have greater access, but it is still at the discretion of committee chairs who decide when and how hearings are covered – including the placement of cameras.

It was not until 1979 that the House allowed television coverage of its floor proceedings. It owns and operates the cameras, however, and rarely provides cutaways or reaction shots. News cameras are not allowed in the chamber except for special ceremonies.

In 1982, when Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) tried to institute television coverage of the Senate, the vote was blocked by the threat of a filibuster. Democrat Russell Long of Louisiana argued that television coverage would be "a grave mistake" because it would encourage members to give more frequent and longer speeches. The Senate finally acceded to television in 1986 but, like the House, it controls its own cameras.

Not only are the broadcast media hampered from shooting hearings and other proceedings, they have limited access to covering staffs, perks and privileges.

Take the congressional mailing operations. House incumbents sent out more than $30 million of free mail before last year's election, a 42 percent increase from the previous year. But all requests to take pictures of the mail, or the office where it is prepared, were denied. When Julie Kirtz of Hearst Broadcasting asked to take pictures of the so-called folding room in one of the House office buildings, the House Doorkeeper's Office responded: "We do not allow photographs of the workplace because of the equipment and the safety of the workers."

Television cameras, of course, have covered open-heart surgery with no negative effects, but congressional officials still argue they are dangerous.

Camera crews cannot film in the Capitol's hallways without permission, even where tourists with home video cameras can photograph at will. "The tourist is walking and shooting in a few seconds," explains Tina Tate, superintendent of the House Radio-Television Gallery, which serves as the go-between for the House and the broadcast media. "If [news photographers] do it, [they're] going to stop traffic because people are going to stop and watch. The building doesn't lend itself to total access."

The argument that the press might impede traffic is the one most often offered. Those who hold press credentials from the House and Senate Radio-Television Galleries are usually able to obtain permission to shoot the same shots that tourists can, but it seldom comes quickly. Nearly every television reporter who covers Congress has a horror story.

Julia Rockler, deputy bureau chief of the Washington Bureau, a news service for local stations, tried to get authorization to shoot a bust of Thomas Jefferson in the Capitol rotunda. "It was for a feature story we were doing on the Lewis and Clark expedition and we couldn't shoot the statue at the Jefferson Memorial since it was covered with scaffolding at the time," she recalls. "Because the Capitol rotunda is under the jurisdiction of both the House and Senate, the gallery had to get permission from the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader. A tourist could have taken the shot in 10 seconds. They finally told us we could shoot it between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. and we couldn't use [a tripod]. Because of our deadline, at that point, it became impossible."

Journalists covering Congress regard the elaborate system of permission as more than just a necessary regulation of traffic in the hallways.

"It's about control," says Nancy Ambrose, a producer for ABC News. "They think that if they put control on our access it's going to help their cause."

In the absence of written guidelines, decisions to grant permission to photograph for television are arbitrary and can change from time to time, depending on the personalities and views of the key congressional staffers. Further, there is no appeal process, and anyone who breaks the rules by shooting without permission risks losing credentials.

The gallery personnel who field most shooting requests wield considerable influence, but they do not set policy. As Superintendent Larry Janezich of the Senate Radio-Television Gallery explains, "Our function is to facilitate, but not promote broadcast coverage." Janezich has worked in the Senate gallery for 22 years, and has been heading it since 1986. Tate, his counterpart at the House Radio-Television Gallery, has been superintendent for 10 of her 20 years on staff. Both are generally well-regarded by, and usually sympathetic to, the press. But they take their orders from Congress.

"The gallery people are caught between two powerful forces," says David Bartlett, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "On the one hand, their job is to facilitate access for the media. On the other hand, they won't be in those jobs very long if they annoy members of Congress."

On the House side, Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) sets the tone for press access. He doesn't allow television cameras or tape recorders at the daily press conference he holds in his office.

When asked the reason for the ban, Foley's press secretary, Jeff Biggs, says it's "tradition" and adds that the speaker's office is a "small room."

Because of his position, Biggs is one of the most influential House staffers in deciding press policy, and most troublesome press requests, such as those to shoot the House Bank, wind up on his desk. Although he says he is open to greater television access, he argues that Congress is already "the most open branch of government."

The Senate has traditionally been more resistant to change than the House. The current majority leader, George Mitchell (D-Maine), is regarded as less open to the idea of television access to other areas than Howard Baker. During last year's crush of stories on perks, the House at least permitted a few tightly controlled photo-ops of empty rooms and closed doors. But on the Senate side, the lid came down even more tightly, and all requests to shoot were denied.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Martha Pope, who was formerly Mitchell's chief of staff, makes many of the decisions about Senate television requests. The Senate Radio-Television Gallery reports to the Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Wendell Ford of Kentucky. But it is the committee's staff director, James King, who deals with most press matters. Pope and King are both considered cautious about press access.

"There's a long historical practice of changing policy very deliberately here," says King. He believes that wider media access could impede Senate business. "When people are working," he explains, "you can't have that kind of disruption and expect them to perform well."

A few members of Congress have publicly called for greater television access. Last year the so-called Gang of Seven, a group of freshmen House Republicans, supported televising congressional perks as part of its call for general reform. "This institution belongs to the people of America," says John Boehner of Ohio. "They should have full access." Fellow gang member Scott Klug, a former Wisconsin television newscaster, agrees: "It's a sense that we continue to hide all this from the public, and the sense that we continue to enjoy things that nobody else does that leads to public outrage."

Six of the gang were reelected, including Boehner and Klug, and many of the 110 incoming freshmen campaigned as reformers, but few broadcast journalists predict a softening in the prevailing attitude toward access.

"It's not an issue I've heard any new members address," says Biggs.

Although more than 20 percent of Congress will be new, the leadership will remain the same. Mitchell and Foley will continue in their posts at the Senate and House, and the same staffers who administered press policies during the last session are expected to keep their jobs. If broadcasters are to achieve better access, they will have to make the case themselves.

One indication of how much change to expect occurred even before the term started. Eleven newly elected senators, four of them women, took a tour of the Capitol in November and were pleased to learn that a women's restroom was under construction near the Senate men's room. Jim Fry, the Washington bureau chief and reporter for Dallas' WFAA, thought the women's room would be a nice symbolic element in a report he was preparing, and asked to film the construction. Permission was denied. l