07/22/96 GILDED SNAKE PIT

GILDED SNAKE PIT

FEEDING THE BEAST
The White House Versus the Press
By Kenneth T. Walsh
Random House -- 305 pp -- $25

The White House beat produces a peculiar breed of journalist. To the public and the rest of the press, covering 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue looks like a cruise on Glamour Street, a pinnacle of the profession. Those there know better. In many respects, the beat is a gilded snake pit--hundreds of reporters crammed into a press room or kept in pens whenever the President travels. Walled off from officials, they fight for hours, sometimes days, for news scraps.
Such degradations take their toll. Indeed, the executive branch's press regulars are a surly, snarling bunch. Just ask Kenneth T. Walsh. The senior correspondent for U.S. News & World Report has covered the Presidency since 1986. He has written a chatty but thoughtful memoir of what the job really feels like. And despite its subject, Feeding the Beast: The White House Versus the Press is a pleasant beach read.
Walsh makes some trenchant points: He shows how the hostility that the Clintons and their top aides exhibited toward the press following the 1992 campaign has colored coverage ever since. President Clinton's problems with Whitewater, Filegate, and the character issue can be attributed to basic errors that ``amount to case studies on how not to handle the press,'' he writes. But Walsh also has some harsh words for his colleagues, charging that cynicism and shrillness crowd out quality journalism. It's a useful corrective for anyone who has ever fantasized about being a White House correspondent.
BY DOUGLAS A. HARBRECHT