


			 THE WHITE HOUSE

		  Office of the Press Secretary
		     (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                          April 8, 1994     


			  PRESS BRIEFING
				BY
	       DIRECTOR OF MEDIA AFFAIRS JEFF ELLER
	    AND KSTP TV GENERAL MANAGER HAROLD CRUMP 
		  AND NEWS DIRECTOR DEAN BUNTING
	     
		  
			    IDS Tower
		      Minneapolis, Minnesota
	     
		   

2:25 P.M. CDT
	     
	     
	     MR. ELLER:  This is a briefing on tonight's town 
hall meeting and the process that went into it.  Tonight the 
President will participate in a 90-minute town hall meeting at 
the television studios of KSTP.  There will be a studio audience.  
In addition, there will be studio audiences connected by 
satellite from KSFY in Sioux Falls, WSIN in Milwaukee, and WDIV 
in Detroit.  Coordinates have already been released; standard 
excerpt rules with a mandatory credit.
	     
	     In setting up this town hall meeting today the 
picking of the audience was left at the discretion of the 
participating stations.  The White House did its usual call to 
the stations in terms of the audience and said, it is your show; 
you pick the audience and you select the questions.  The 
President will show up, hopefully, early enough to not cause a 
delay in the program.  And accept all questions.  No prior 
restrictions on questions imposed by the White House.
	     
	     As last night and as in Charlotte, the White House 
offered to the participating stations letters from people who had 
written to the President and First Lady on health care.  It was 
at the discretion of the stations whether or not they chose to 
put those people in the audience, and whether or not those people 
were to ask a question. 
	     
	     Because of some questions about that, we have asked 
the participating stations tonight that, while they are free to 
have the people who wrote letters to the White House in the 
audience, we would prefer that they not ask questions.  
	     
	     To my right is Harold Crump, the general manager of 
KSTP; and Dean Bunting, the news director of KSTP, should there 
be any questions about how the audiences are selected tonight. 
	     
	     That's really it.  Questions, comments?
	     
	     Q    I have a question.  Mr. Bunting, would you 
relate your mechanism for selecting people?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I'd be happy to.  We were contacted by 
Jeff a week ago Tuesday and offered the presidential town hall 
meeting, which we accepted.  And as Jeff has told you, he told us 
at that time that it was our show, that we were free to do the 
choosing of the audience any way we saw fit; that we could decide 
the questions in any way we saw fit.  So what we did is set up a 
phone number; people could call over a 25-hour period, starting 
last Thursday night -- a week ago Thursday night.  We got over 
4,100 calls to that phone number, and we requested that when 
people called in, they would give us a question that they would 
ask the President.
	     
	     On that basis, this week for about two days 
straight, we chose the audience for tonight's broadcast, trying 
to be as diverse as we could be, trying to be as balanced as we 
could be in selecting questions.  There was a -- I think it's 
fair to say there was a suggestion that the President could 
choose questions from the audience, but we decided as journalists 
that we would like to choose questions ahead of time, at least in 
the different cities.  So in Detroit, Milwaukee, Sioux Falls, and 
here in the Twin Cities, we had some preselected questions.  And 
if time permits, toward the end of the broadcast we will open up 
the field in the Twin Cities and let the President point around 
to ask questions.
	     
	     Q    Does the selection of a person by a question 
require that person to then ask that question when he comes up?  
In other words, are you really selecting the questions as well as 
the people?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  That's the suggestion, but whatever 
people say when they get in front of a microphone is going to be 
up to them.
	     
	     Q    Do you have any problem as a news director, or 
with either last night's or tonight's or in Charlotte's or any 
other with the White House requesting that you include certain 
people and perhaps the implication, if there is one, that they be 
a questioner?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Well, I would have a problem with 
that.  We were asked if we would allow someone in the audience, 
and I don't think we would necessarily have a problem with having 
someone in the audience.  But we would like to leave it up to 
ourselves as to who asked  the questions.

	     Q    Do the questions all relate to health care?

	     MR. BUNTING:  Yes, they do.  Yes.  But, again, it's 
really up to the people when they step to the microphone.  The 
topic -- the town meeting tonight is called "Health Care in the 
Heartland."  
	     
	     Q    Could you identify -- I understand that there 
is one person who wrote a letter from the White House who is in 
the audience tonight?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Yes.
	     
	     Q    Could you identify that person?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I learned yesterday afternoon that 
there was a person who had written a letter to the White House 
from this area.  And that person will be in the audience, but 
that person is not --
	     
	     Q    I'm just wondering the identity of the person.
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I'm sure I can.  I don't have that 
right now.  I've been producing a broadcast, and to tell you the 
truth I didn't really pay a lot of attention to that person.
	     
	     Q       like to know if that person should ask a 
question in the open session at the end, we'd like to know.
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Sure.  If that person asks a question 
at the end, it's one person out of 101 in the studio audience.
	     
	     Q    Can I ask you a question about the general 
tenor of the questions that you received?  Were people positive 
towards the President's plan; were they negative; did they have 
very specific questions about narrow visions of the plan?  Could 
you just talk in general terms about --
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I think it's fair to say that there 
are questions on both sides of the issue -- people who are 
adamantly opposed to the President's proposed health care plan; 
people who support the President's health care plan; people who 
want to know about costs; and people who want to know -- it's 
very diverse.  The age groups of the audience that we've gotten 
are children to senior citizens. 
	     
	     Q    Was it overall more positive, more negative; 
was it split down the middle?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Good question.  I think it's fair to 
say it's balanced.
	     
	     Q    Why did you decide to restrict it to health 
care alone?  And was there any other consideration to take other 
questions on other topics?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  The request from the White House was 
for a town hall meeting on health care.  So we decided that we 
would do it that way.  And, again, with the questions submitted 
we have called 100 people back and said you've been selected for 
the studio audience tonight.  Again, they will have a health care 
question that they have submitted to us.  Whether they ask that 
is going to be up to them.
	     
	     Q    I understand that perhaps the person you 
mentioned about being in the audience, that although you may not 
have made a final selection at the time, that that person and the 
people -- one person each at the three affiliates were actually 
contacted and were given the impression, if not the commitment, 
that they could expect to be on the list of questioners.  Is that 
correct?  If not, can you give me --
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I have no knowledge to that effect, to 
tell you the truth.  Honestly, I have been for a week and a half 
working to produce the broadcast and working with the stations 
affiliated.  The first I had heard about anyone possibly being in 
-- four people was -- I heard four today and I heard one 
yesterday that there was a request that maybe they could be in 
the audience. 
	     
	     Q    And their understanding that they were then 
going to be called upon by each of the stations, which then adds 
up to four questions during a program and not one -- four people 
selected by the --
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I do not know what, if anything, was 
said to those people.
	     
	     Q    Your station did not give your listener or your 
audience participant any such contact or any assurances that they 
might be called upon as well as being invited to sit in the 
audience?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  We said that you're going to be in the 
audience with your question, and it depends on how long the 
President is talking.
	     
	     Are you -- you're referring to our general audience, 
the 100 people in the audience or the one person?
	     
	     Q    The person that was chosen on the basis of the 
compelling story they had written to the White House, yes.  Was 
that person by your station given some feeling that they would be 
called upon to --
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Not at all.  Not at all.
	     
	     Q    How about the other stations?  Do all the other 
stations, as far as you know, use the same guidelines for 
selecting the audience?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I'm not exactly sure what the other 
stations did to select their studio audiences.  I can tell you 
that the studio audience in Detroit is similar in size to ours of 
about 100 people.  In Milwaukee, I believe the audience is about 
50 or 60; and in Sioux Falls, I've heard somewhere around 35. 
	     
	     Q    The reason is because some of the other 
stations, like in Omaha last night, drew their audience from 
interest groups, basically from a Rolodex of people they knew 
were interested in the subject.  You don't know whether that 
happened with any other stations involved?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I do not know in the other cities.  I 
can tell you that our breakdown in our audience here in the twin 
cities is going to be about 80 percent of people from the general 
populous and 20 percent from health care providers.
	     
	     Q    I gather there's been, since it was announced 
that your station was going to do the town hall, that there have 
been complaints from some local Democrats from the -- some party 
officials about the station ownership having a Republican 
orientation and the station owner having contributed to a bunch 
of Republican candidates.  Since that question's come up locally, 
I thought I'd ask, did that have any impact on who you selected 
and what type of questions you selected, anything of that sort?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I can say no.  But I can also defer to 
Harold Crump.
	     
	     MR. CRUMP:  Let me first correct the misimpression 
that was in the local press.  This gentleman who was identified 
as a Republican is not such; he's an independent, number one.  
Number two, he is the only broadcaster chosen by President 
Clinton to be a member of the superhighway committee, you'll 
recall, of the 27 people that have been put together.  So I think 
what we have here is something known as whiners and poor babies.  
We say poor baby to them, and they whine in the paper for us, and 
we're all happy.
	     
	     Q    Mr. Crump, considering the revenue that's 
involved in a prime time broadcast, was it a tough call to agree 
to do this town meeting?
	     
	     MR. CRUMP:  Yes, it was a very tough call.  It took 
us about one-half of one second.  It's wonderful.  We were so 
pleased to have been chosen.  We assumed that they chose us 
because they thought we could do a good job.  And now we think 
it's out job to prove them to be correct.  And we have gone to 
every extreme to make certain that the audience is totally 
balanced and does not represent any single group.  And they have 
to their credit in the White House given us a totally open hand 
on that.
	     
	     Q    Just another procedural question, please.  In 
terms of the actual people who were chosen tonight who will be in 
order asking questions; at the beginning then, somebody in your 
audience -- what, an emcee, of some type -- stands there with a 
person, as we've seen in other cities, and says, this is Mr. John 
Doe, you have chosen that person in the order?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  We have not yet.  We are getting ready 
to choose people in the audience, and then they will go in a 
certain order, yes.  But the White House has no knowledge of 
this.  This is something that we wanted to do on our own.
	     
	     Q    And what's the basis that you have in selecting 
them in a particular order?
		  
	     MR. BUNTING:  Really there's -- the only basis I 
know is that we're talking about tossing out a tough question 
right at the beginning and going from there.
	     
	     Q    And it's not a free-for-all until the end when 
the President can actually pick them?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Time permitting, yes, it could be a 
free for all.
	     
	     Q    Mr. Bunting, would you explain to us, please, 
why you feel it's more journalistically correct to have you 
select questioners on the basis of what they'll ask than to have 
the President just call on people at random in a room full of 
people?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I think it's just a matter of choice.  
It could have been done either way.  I mean, we feel very 
comfortable that it could have been done one way or the other, 
and that was just the way we decided to do it.  I mean, we did 
consider both ways. 
	     
	     Q    But you turned down a request from the White 
House to have the President do it the other way.
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I mean, there was some talk thrown 
back and forth that sometimes the President prefers to go around 
the room, but we felt -- but it was totally up to us.
	     
	     Q    Wasn't there a specific request, though, to you 
to allow it to be done that way?
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  I think there was maybe something said 
that the President sometimes likes to do it that way.
	     
	     Q    Just for deadline writing this evening, what 
was done last night by the station, which was very helpful, was 
to put out a list of the people who were going to ask questions, 
just so we had the spellings of names and hometowns.  If you 
could consider that, it would be helpful.
	     
	     MR. CRUMP:  We had a request from the local press 
three days ago to give them a total list of the names and 
addresses and the questions, and we refused.  And we refused on 
the grounds that we did not want anyone from the White House 
staff to be able to read the paper and know what the questions 
were in advance and then tell the President.  So at this stage we 
could get something to you, surely, at the end of this thing.  
But that's why it has not been put out ahead of time.
	     
	     Q    I'm not asking for the questions, just the 
names so that we can spell them correctly when we're writing on 
deadline.
	     
	     MR. BUNTING:  Yes, we can do that.
	     
	     THE PRESS:  Thank you. 

			       END2:40 P.M. CDT

