This is a personal diary account of Africa.com CEO and executive editor Teresa Clarke’s experiences as part of the Official Press Corp travelling with U.S. President Barack Obama on his historic state visit to Africa.
June 26, 2013 : Take off
Africa.com is a small player relative to the large media companies who form the majority of the White House Traveling Press Corps: CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, New York Times, Reuters, AP, etc. We are extremely privileged to have the opportunity to “run with the big dogs” in covering the President of the United States, (or POTUS as we have now become accustomed to calling him), and his family on their historic visit to Africa.
Of course, the hope was that we would be among the handful of journalists flying aboard AirForce One. As the newest kids on the block, that didn’t happen. But we are still excited about flying out of Andrews Air Force Base on a U.S. government charter specifically for White House press.
The logistics were not made for the traveler’s convenience. I started to get the idea of how physically grueling this trip would be when I dropped my bags at the White House nine hours before our departure. Since cars were not allowed to enter the parking area where the trucks were being loaded, I had to be dropped off some distance away on Constitution Avenue, and walk about 50 yards dragging my suitcases, in the 90 degree, high humidity summer heat that Washington D.C. has mastered so well.
Most of the bags being dropped contained sophisticated, electronic communications equipment; maybe one in ten bags contained clothes. I was asked to wait until my bags were “swept,” meaning that members of the Secret Service open and inspect each bag. As I sat in the sun on a bench opposite the White House lawns waiting for my bag to be checked, I naively wondered if I should get some sort of claim check. I had just turned over all of our expensive camera and computer equipment to these people, but then I realized that the White House and the Secret Service don’t lose things. I hope.
Five hours later, I hailed a cab to take me to Andrews Air Force Base where we would be departing from. I reminded myself of a scene from the movie Arthur, where Liza Minnelli, playing a New York City working class girl, is invited to a party by her beau, played by Dudley Moore. The event is at his sumptuous home in the Hamptons, the playground for the rich and famous. In the film, all of the guests arrive at the party in private cars, either their own or dark chauffeured sedans. Liza arrives in a garish, bright yellow New York City taxicab, with a medallion on top, the meter running on the front dashboard.
Much like New York’s elite in the movie, the White House Press Corps is a closely knit crowd of Washington insiders who routinely drive themselves to Andrews, a 30-minute ride outside of Washington D.C. in suburban Maryland. Or depending on the budgets of their employers and their rank within the media house, they use the same dark sedans as seen in the movie Arthur. And like Liza in the movie there I was entering Andrews Air Force Base behind private cars and black sedans, in my D.C. taxicab with the meter running on the dashboard. Oh well.
My taxi checked in and was referred to the parking lot where we were put into a “hold” until our escort, a young, bright eyed, but stern Air Force officer explained that she would lead us in a caravan to the passenger terminal. In what was one of the worst greenhouse gas producing situations I have witnessed in years, scores of cars sat idling in the parking lot, holding their single passengers in air-conditioned comfort, until such time as the escort departed.
After a 20-minute wait and 10-minute drive, we arrived at the passenger terminal. Once inside, we found about 75 people waiting for the flight. The crowd clustered themselves by media house. There was a lot of laughter and camaraderie that comes from many intense times spent together over a long period. Everyone seemed to know everyone, and it felt like we were joining a fraternity with a long history. Or at a minimum, it felt like walking into the bar on the iconic TV series, Cheers, “where people are all the same…where everybody knows your name.”
Many say that Africa.com’s film Africa Straight Up is a super primer on Africa today, so we decided to burn DVDs and share the film with the White House Press Corps so they could watch it on the long flight over. Passing out the DVDs turned out to be a great icebreaker that allowed me to meet all of the members of the group on friendly terms. Plus they were all happy to receive a small gift that would help them in their work.
The sense of camaraderie extended to the flight crew, as we boarded the 767 owned by Delta. This crowd knows each other well, they travel the world together, and it shows. Of course the requisite safety announcements were made, but there was no sense of policing about safety belts or turning your phones off like one would find on a commercial flight.
The flight crew had decorated the plane in honor of the occasion with African fabrics on some of the dividers between sections of the plane, and they had hung a map of Africa in one strategic area.
The sense of a “party bus” continued after take off, with groups congregated in the aisles for informal chats. This highly informed lot challenged one another on policy issues and questioned such matters as how the White House should, or should not, modify its travel plans as Nelson Mandela lies in critical condition in a South African hospital.
The seasoned crowd knew better than to eat too much of the food offered or to stay awake watching movies. Most went to sleep within the first hour of the flight, as they knew that sleep would be in short supply over the next few days.
Thus began the trip of a lifetime, as a member of the White House Press Corps.
Next stop: Dakar, Senegal, in eight and a half hours.
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