--- title: President Obama Ends Year With All-Woman Press Conference description: The President made a statement without his actions canonical: https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-19T21:30:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:09.581Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Obama Ends Year With All-Woman Press Conference og:description: The President made a statement without his actions og:url: https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26b4b926cc87f171/6987703935ba6f7c46c06218/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4548 og:image:height: 2558 og:image:alt: President Barack Obama speaks during his speech to members of the media during his last news conference of the year in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Dec. 19, 2014 in Washington. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Obama Ends Year With All-Woman Press Conference twitter:description: The President made a statement without his actions twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26b4b926cc87f171/6987703935ba6f7c46c06218/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Barack Obama Holds First Ever All-Women Press Conference > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: SONY CEO Responds to Obama on CNN [Watch (HLS stream): SONY CEO Responds to Obama on CNN](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0VCWPCCA.m3u8) (0:14)  _Published 2014-12-19. SONY CEO Responds to Obama on CNN_ by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Dec 19, 2014 9:30 PM UTC  President Barack Obama speaks during his speech to members of the media during his last news conference of the year in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Dec. 19, 2014 in Washington. President Barack Obama speaks during his speech to members of the media during his last news conference of the year in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Dec. 19, 2014 in Washington. Alex Wong—Getty Images by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Dec 19, 2014 9:30 PM UTC President Barack Obama’s traditional end-of-year press conference Friday was historic for reasons that had nothing to do with the substance of the president’s comments. All eight of the reporters who questioned Obama were women—and nearly all were print reporters—an apparent first for a formal White House news conference, a venue traditionally dominated by male television correspondents. “The fact is, there are many women from a variety of news organizations who day-in and day-out do the hard work of covering the President of the United States,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, after the event. “As the questioner list started to come together, we realized that we had a unique opportunity to highlight that fact at the President’s closely watched, end of the year news conference.” The departure was noticed throughout the room, as Obama passed over male reporters in the front row and called on their female colleagues. “This seems unprecedented for a solo White House press conference,” said Towson University Presidency Scholar Martha Joynt Kumar, who tracks interactions between the president and the press corps, noting she does not recall a similar occasion in any previous administration. “It certainly is for Obama.” The list of those called on: * Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico * Cheryl Bolen, Bloomberg BNA * Julie Pace, Associated Press * Lesley Clark, McClatchy * Roberta Rampton, Reuters * Colleen M. Nelson, Wall Street Journal * Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post * April Ryan, American Urban Radio Before the George H.W. Bush White House, it would have been hard to find eight women to ask questions of the president, as there weren’t that many on the beat. Kumar noted that 10 women out of 21 reporters in the first three rows of the briefing room were women, the latest indication that the White House press corps is growing more diverse. The White House informed the television networks they were unlikely to get questions at the new conference because each had asked the president questions at least twice since the midterm elections. “It’s amazing for that to happen as that room is filled with a majority men,” said Ryan, who shouted out a question to the president and was acknowledged over questions shouted by male reporters. “I’ve been in one other historic press conference and got a question in the East Room and he called on a number of black reporters and it was amazing to be there. it was saying that maybe this room and this building is trying to reflect society and reflect America.” In that press conference, on Sept 10, 2010, Obama called on four black reporters out of 12 questioners. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/"},"headline":"Barack Obama Holds First Ever All-Women Press Conference","datePublished":"2014-12-19T21:30:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:09.581Z","description":"The President made a statement without his actions","url":"https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/","keywords":["White House","women","Barack Obama","Media"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26b4b926cc87f171/6987703935ba6f7c46c06218/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26b4b926cc87f171/6987703935ba6f7c46c06218/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Barack Obama speaks during his speech to members of the media during his last news conference of the year in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Dec. 19, 2014 in Washington.","caption":"President Barack Obama speaks during his speech to members of the media during his last news conference of the year in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Dec. 19, 2014 in Washington.","creditText":"Alex Wong—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/","name":"Barack Obama Holds First Ever All-Women Press Conference"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"SONY CEO Responds to Obama on CNN","description":"SONY CEO Responds to Obama on CNN","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/0VCWPCCA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-12-19T21:01:21.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0VCWPCCA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/","duration":"PT14S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3642594/barack-obama-holds-first-ever-all-women-press-conference/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```