USIA - For Foreign Reporters, Washington is Surprisingly Open, 97-04-17

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FOR FOREIGN REPORTERS, WASHINGTON IS SURPRISINGLY OPEN

(Article from April 16 edition of The Hill) (2500)

By Catherine Eisele
The Hill newspaper

(Permission obtained covering republication/translation of the text by USIS/press outside the U.S. On title page, credit author Catherine Eisele, The Hill newspaper and carry copyright (c) 1997 by the Capitol Hill Publishing Corporation, a division of News Communication, Inc. All rights reserved.)

(begin article)

For Foreign Reporters, Washington is Surprisingly Open -- And Confusing

By Catherine Eisele
The Hill newspaper

The Swiss track banking, the Saudis oil, and the South Africans are interested in abortion, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), and campaign finance reform.

The hundreds of foreign journalists who cover Congress make up their own United Nations on Capitol Hill, and the concerns of their readers and viewers reflect the wide-ranging reach of American influence abroad.

No one keeps exact count of foreign nationals who write about America from the nation's capital, but the U.S. Information Agency's Foreign Press Center lists between 600 and 800 journalists. Not all of them cover Congress, but since many countries post only one or two correspondents to the United States -- the Canadians, British, Japanese, German and the Middle-Eastern countries boast the largest number -- it's a safe bet most are at least monitoring C-SPAN, if not wandering the halls of the Capitol and the congressional office buildings.

The Senate and House Press galleries don't distinguish by nationality, but some of the galleries do not credential government-sponsored news organizations. The Egyptians and Saudis don't have passes, for example, to the Senate Periodical Press Gallery, under a law that excludes trade newsletters, lobbying groups and others not dedicated solely to news.

According to five foreign journalists, a typical week in Washington demonstrates how open American government can be -- and how tiring it is to cover it. As they scurry around the city by day, because of time differences in their home countries, they'll be filing their news long after most of their colleagues and the rest of the city have gone to bed.

NEUE ZUERCHER ZEITUNG

Lately, he's been monitoring Senator Alfonse D'Amato's (R-N.Y.) charges that Swiss banks laundered billions of dollars in Nazi gold taken from Holocaust victims, a story that Cleis calls "very important" to his readers. "There are people who very much hate Mr. D'Amato, of course," he says, "Most Swiss think he exaggerates and it's not his business. I see it differently. I think it is his business and he's doing a good job. We have to think about the past."

Although Neue Zuercher Zeitung has had a writer in Washington for the last 100 of its 217 years, it's sometimes a struggle to be recognized by government agencies beyond Capitol Hill. Cleis says the Treasury Department doesn't routinely notify foreign reporters of press conferences, a complaint echoed by many foreign journalists about Cabinet departments.

THE SAUDI PRESS AGENCY

The Saudi journalists' office reflects heightened concern about security: A guard opens the door before a guest knocks, alerted to the visit by hallway cameras, and a machine scans envelopes and packages.

Although government-sponsored, the Saudi Press Agency functions autonomously, says Al-Sowayel, and will eventually finance itself. It has already spun off a separate television bureau, and subscribers -- newspapers, magazines and government offices -- want as much news as possible about U.S.-Saudi relations, oil and energy policy, arms sales, and the Middle East. The agency, which is staffed in shifts, 24 hours a day, hires mostly American reporters but the editors are Saudi, and the stories appear in Arabic.

As the Kingdom of Saud doesn't rule by legislative body, explanations are sometimes needed, but Al-Sowayel notes many Saudi citizens are sophisticated enough to read in several languages, so they don't have much trouble following Congress.

But she herself sometimes does: "Every day starts out exciting and then ends up in the trash," she moans. The sheer volume of activity in Washington is overwhelming, "and every day is a test of nerves." She says her readers like stories about police and sports in Washington. "I think it humanizes the place for them."

An elegant woman with a hearty laugh, Al-Sowayel came to the U.S. for education, wrote her doctoral dissertation at Georgetown on the history of oil, and says she still finds enough to learn in Washington that she isn't ready to leave. But would a male editor be doing her job in Saudi Arabia? "No way!" she laughs, "there are too many other great opportunities, they wouldn't have to!"

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS (SOUTH AFRICA)

And, like most American reporters, he finds Gingrich to be a fascinating figure: "We have Speakers in South Africa," he explains, "and when (American politicians) are colorful, when they're powerful, people like to know, and it's my duty to make sure they're interested."

Campaign finance reform is another area he watches closely. "It may be farfetched now, but South Africa will have it in the future. This year, in our elections, there were problems with people giving money to the African National Congress. The question now is: What did they get in return? It's the same question being asked here: What are people getting for their contributions?"

Affirmative action, the death penalty, race relations and foreign aid are other areas he's tracking. "South Africa receives a lot of development and aid money, so whatever decisions are taken will affect us," Mkhondo says.

And while getting information from the White House and State Department is sometimes difficult, for Mkhondo, Congress is an open book.

"Congress-people are amazing for access. I can call (Rep.) Mel Watt, (D- N.C.) and he answers the phone. I can just call Maxine Waters' (D-Calif.) office and speak to her." He praises members who give home numbers to the press, contrasting this with the remoteness of the executive branch and even the new openness of his own country.

"In South Africa, every weekend, each ministry puts out a bulletin with the name of the person on duty and their numbers. And people use cell phones," so reporters usually get questions answered on the first call.

Mkhondo cites a few drawbacks to the highly managed relations between government and press in this country. Last week, when South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki came to town, Mkhondo was set to follow Mbeki to his meeting with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. But the journalist was stumped by the schedule: press could attend a brief pre-meeting photo-op, and ask questions there. "But what kind of questions can I ask if they haven't met yet?" he complained to the press aide. "That kind of thing doesn't happen in South Africa. They have the meeting, and after, they answer the questions, or they don't."

TURKISH DAILY NEWS

Akinci spends 8 to 10 hours a day canvassing Washington before writing from his home at night. He says he frequently ends up dining "in the Dirksen cafeteria," probably because he's watching the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittees.

Akinci finds interest groups the hardest part of American law-making to explain. "In U.S.-Turkish relations, Turks are always complaining about the Armenian, the Kurdish, the Greek lobbies," reflecting the impact of interest groups who support legislation.

"The political system (at home) is more centered on stars," and power not so widely distributed, he says. Nor is it as responsive to concerns of voters back home. "In Turkey, they ask, 'What is all this stuff about abortion in foreign relations? Why would people devote this much time to these weird topics?'"

Akinci also lauds the ease of access to lawmakers, and says he's sorry that Turkey has lost a few friends in Congress, with the departures of Reps. Greg Laughlin (R-Texas), Jim Bunn (R-Ore.) and Charlie Wilson (D-Texas) in 1996.

He jokes that he's keeping a close eye on Rep. Ben Gilman, (R-N.Y.), chairman of the International Relations Committee, whose recent marriage to a woman of Greek ancestry "sent our antennae up a little higher."

But for now, Akinci will continue to "check into the Senate Gallery, drop my briefcase and spread out from there. It's a beautiful environment for a journalist."

ASAHI SHIMBUN (JAPAN)

Funabashi steps down this month after four years as bureau chief of Asahi Shimbun, one of the largest Tokyo dailies. After two terms in Washington, he still finds Congress "the most interesting animal in town." Memories he'll take back reflect a distinct Japan/China tension. He was most struck "by the diversity of forces which formed an anti-China coalition" during debate over most favored nation status for China.

Congress' strong sentiment against the United Nations puzzled him last year. And he was impressed by support for the visit of Taiwanese Prime Minister Teng-hui Lee to the United States in June 1995. Contrary to White House wishes, Congress was able to pressure the administration to grant Lee a special visa, an event Funabashi dates as the beginning of a new, more aggressive dynamic between China and the United States.

Funabashi says it is sometimes "awkward and difficult for the countries of northeast Asia to have a rapport with Congress." Asian nations "with a long tradition of Mandarin culture -- bureaucratic and hierarchical -- almost automatically assume foreign policy is made government to government. There's a saying in Asia: Bureaucrats rule, whereas politicians reign." Such a perspective has trouble accommodating the influence of local interests on American foreign affairs.

Funabashi is a bit worried by "a lack of interest in foreign policy among the younger generation." He advocates more congressional overseas trips, to give lawmakers a sense of America's impact abroad.

He'll miss many things about Washington, he says, including jazz radio station 105.9 FM, the cuisine of his fellow countryman Hide Yamamoto at the Jockey Club, drinks after work at the National Press Club, and the state of Maine, which he and his wife and their respective mothers often visited.

Funabashi's American sojourn has been good for him: He met and married financial journalist Reiko Kunishita on this trip. He will finish his time in Washington by writing a book on the evolution of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the post-Cold War era, and then he and his new bride will travel to Beijing, for a short teaching stint, before returning to Tokyo as an editor of Asahi Shimbun.

The National Press Building is their nerve center

The economy was booming in 1926 when President Calvin Coolidge laid one of "the cornerstones of liberty" for the 125,000-ton structure at 14th and F Streets. Through financial upheavals in the 1920s and '30s, and again in the 1980s, the National Press Building has remained its own character on the Washington scene.

The eighth-floor Foreign Press Center is a pit-stop for writers from about 90 countries. This branch of the U.S. Information Agency offers research on any topic, especially popular, says Program Officer Bill Graves "with Third- Worlders, who can't always afford to join the National Press Club," and use its more extensive library upstairs. The end of the Cold War has changed things only a little. Director Arthur Green says when the FPC hosted fact- finding trips around the United States in the 1980s, the Russians were prohibited from traveling 25 miles beyond Washington or New York. Now they're free to travel the United States, "but they can't afford the tickets."

The 13th-floor National Press Club, with its wood-paneled mock-ups of famous front-pages, has been a gathering place for members of the Fourth Estate since 1927. In 1908, a group of 32 newspapermen, frustrated with early closing hours of pubs lining 14th Street's "newspaper row," met at the Willard Hotel to create an organization "to promote social enjoyment among the members, to cultivate literary taste, to encourage friendly intercourse among newspapermen ... and to foster the ethical standards of the profession."

Lawmakers, media figures and dignitaries courting Washington routinely appear at the National Press Club's newsmaker forums. In 1959, an all-star international lineup made headlines, when Nikita Krushchev, Winston Churchill, Madame Chiang Kai Shek, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi and Charles deGaulle appeared together at the Press Club podium. Both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan announced their candidacies for the presidency from the 13th floor space.

CBS commentator Eric Sevareid paid tribute to the Press Club, and to the openness of American media, in a farewell speech there. "It's the Westminster Hall, it's Delphi, it's Mecca," he said, "the wailing wall (for) everybody in this country having anything to do with the news business; the only hallowed place I know of that's absolutely bursting with irreverence."

And journalists, with the instinct universal in the profession, still always seem to find their way to the bar.

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