Peter Maer
Presidents come and go. And so do most reporters assigned to them. But one constant in the White House press room for exactly 25 years has been the voice of CBS Radio reporter Peter Maer.
"When I walk in at shortly before 6 a.m., I do look up at the place and say that it is a thrill to come in here every day," says Maer, who's covered every president since Jimmy Carter.
Maer anchors a CBS booth filled with the most combined experience of White House coverage possibly ever with fellow long-time radio journalist Mark Knoller and CBS TV's Bill Plante. Between the three, they have over 75 years of White House time.
"I never thought I'd cover an impeachment. I never thought I'd cover the son of a president, the modern day version of the Adams, And I never thought I'd cover a black president," says Maer, 62. "And I'm still going strong."
News has always been in his blood, even as a kid growing up across the Mississippi from St. Louis in Granite City, Ill. "I wanted to be a newspaper reporter when I was eight," he says, but instead got his first radio gig in his native city during high school. He quickly moved up the ladder, even getting a job as a jock on KSHE in St. Louis when it was the hot rock station in the 1970s.
Maer got his big news break when he was assigned to cover Jimmy Carter's presidential transition after the 1976 election and he flew into Washington with Carter for the Inauguration in 1977.
He's seen a lot of changes on the beat.
When he arrived, typewriters and dial telephones were the standard tools, not iPads and cellular phones. He jokes of listening to two young White House reporters talking about how reporters did their jobs before cell phones. "We all traveled with rolls of dimes," he said. For what, they asked. "Pay phones," said Maer. And when he recently pulled out a transistor radio during a trip, a young presidential aide asked him what it was.
He won't talk about the president he is covering at the time, but Maer said that he does have some past favorites: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush, mostly because they all liked radio and radio reporters. "Reagan had a love for radio because of his own personal experience" as a radio host and Hollywood star, says Maer. Recalling Clinton's autobiography, he says that Clinton "used to love to go during campaigns to the local stations in Arkansas and record commercials and pick up political information while he was in those local areas," he adds. And Bush simply understood the role of the media and radio.
And while many former reporters on the beat complain about burnout, Maer explains what keeps him going: "Love of politics, love of history, love of just the institution and really just the challenge of doing something." One big challenge is just trying to make sense of a big story for a short radio spot. "Trying to bring the [federal] budget down to a 35 second radio piece is just fun to me even after all these years," he says, adding: "I ask myself basically every morning ... what would the people back in Granite City, Ill. want to know about this? Let's not talk about budget assumptions and continuing resolutions and all of that stuff. What hits home to the guy driving his car?"
- Charlie Sheen and the Wages of Fame
- NBC's Andrea Mitchell Is TV's Iron Woman
- 25 Years at the White House: 'I'm Peter Maer Of CBS'
- Charlie Sheen the Tabloid Gift That Keeps on Giving
- Debby Ryan: Parting is Such Suite Sorrow
- 'Two and a Half' Headaches: Sheen Camp Wants to Return Early
- Host Your Own Oscars Party
- Few Penalties For Stars Behaving Badly
- Boy, Do We Like to Watch
- Aretha, Gaga and Barbra: Grammy Night, 2011!
- MTV Goes For the Gutter With 'Skins'
- Shaking It up With Bella and Zendaya!
- CES 2011 Report - Consumer Electronics Show
- Time to Gear up for 3-D TV?
- 'Spidey' Producers Building a Brand
- Tolan: Let Critics Choose the Emmys
- Experts Key to Oprah Winfrey Formula
- Gift Ideas From the Stars
- Moonlighting Pays for Broadway Thespians
- Anderson Cooper Set for New Television Talk Show
- Reality Bug Bites TV Stars of the '80s
- Discovery Channel Aims Higher: Enlightened Reality TV
- If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise
- Katrina Kicks Off Tragedy Calendar
- Mad Men
- 8 Kids with 6 Moms? NFL Star Is Shameful
- Inside Nigel Lythgoe's Plans for American Idol
- Will Emmy Finally Gleam for Ann-Margret?
- DeGeneres Leaving 'American Idol': Jennifer Lopez May Be Joining
- '25 Years at the White House: 'I'm Peter Maer Of CBS'' - Great Show Set in Not-So-Great Era
- CNN's Larry King to Sign Off: Host Announces His Departure
- C-SPAN Now Reaches 100 Million Homes
- TV Networks Should Rethink Summer Strategy
- Fat Times For Weight-Loss TV Shows
- Grading Network Television Fall Schedules
- 'Lost' Found 'Net Niche: Stoked TV-Centric Blogosphere Fires
- Betty White - What We Can Learn From the Golden Girl
- Why News Is Aimed At Your Emotions
- Police Work and Reality TV: Not a Good Fit
- Media Overreaches As 'Lost' and Other TV Series Finish Up
- Television - Can TV News Be Saved?
- Television - Network News Doing Less with Less
- Television - Chattin' It up With iCarly's Miranda Cosgrove
- Television - Recurring Reality's Faux Sheen
- America Through the Reality Lens
- Television - TV Vets Assess Sitcoms
- Decade of Rapid Change
- TV's Best for 2009: Can't Pick Just 10
- Behind the Scenes at the Food Network
Copyright © 2011 U.S. News & World Report