Sending a Message
In February 2007, Josh Bolten, then chief of staff to President George W. Bush, sat Ed Chen down in his office for a chat. "You've been kicking our ass for a year," he said, jabbing his forefinger at Chen. Chen was a White House reporter at the time -- the senior correspondent for Bloomberg News -- and had just returned to journalism after 10 months as NRDC's federal communications director. His encounter with Bolten was telling: NRDC's aggressive advocacy had rattled the White House.
For Chen, the chance to wake up each morning and wonder, "What do I want to ask the president of the United States today?" was exceptionally improbable. Born in China, Chen didn't immigrate to the United States until the age of 10. Though he spoke no English, he was determined to be a journalist in his adoptive country. His grandfather was head of China's Central News Agency and always had interesting people around. "I thought journalism was a ticket to see the world," Chen says.
He was right. As a White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and later Bloomberg News, and as the first elected minority president of the White House Correspondents' Association, Chen was a frequent passenger on Air Force One. (How frequent? "I lost count," he admits.) Today he is back at NRDC, working to keep the Obama administration on task.
Chen spent most of his career at the Los Angeles Times. He left in 2006, after 26 years, motivated in part by worries about the decline of print journalism. But he was also keen to work on behalf of his environmental concerns, which began to emerge during the 1970s when he covered the contamination of livestock feed -- and ultimately the food supply of Michigan and surrounding states -- for the Detroit News. "I wanted to see what it was like to be an advocate, to get off the fence, where all journalists must station themselves," he explains.
He was hired by NRDC to be its first federal communications director at a time when the organization was sharply critical of Bush's policies. In his new role, Chen shaped messages to government officials and to the public.
But less than a year later he returned to the White House press corps as a correspondent for Bloomberg News, eager to cover the 2008 presidential election. In his first week back, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino called to ask, "What are you going to say when the president talks about environment and energy? You were the number-one attack dog." Chen took it as "a shot across the bow, but also as real validation." Along with the pointed comments from Bolten, Perino's remark "illustrated how important the work of NRDC is: we were on the radar screen of two of the closest advisers to the president."
After three years with Bloomberg News, Chen returned to NRDC, reprising his role as the organization's federal communications director and crafting messages to a new White House.
Last summer, when attempts to pass comprehensive climate legislation fell apart in the Senate, "the ground shifted under us," Chen says. The Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases fell under attack. Chen gathered with NRDC's climate experts to strategize. President Obama was planning a vacation on Martha's Vineyard, so on the day of his arrival, NRDC placed a two-page ad in the Vineyard Gazette: "Welcome to Martha's Vineyard, Mr. President. Help us stop the attacks on the Clean Air Act."
The ad made the next day's headlines and was mentioned prominently in Politico's Playbook, Washington's most-read daily tip sheet. A few days later, Chen bumped into a senior White House aide. The White House had noticed too, he said. This time the message was appreciated.
