This spring, student journalist Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon dove into the White House press pool with camera in hand.
He had less than a week to make his mark. A third-year history major at the University of Chicago, he’d been invited by New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills—a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a 40-year veteran of the White House press pool—to shadow him on the job.
“I’m not someone who gets overwhelmed easily, but the offer left me speechless,” said Rodwell-Simon.
An avid photographer himself, Rodwell-Simon had just become managing editor of the Chicago Maroon student newspaper. Over four days during spring break in Washington D.C., he got his own press pass that allowed him to attend White House briefings, board meetings and Senate hearings, shooting photos at official events alongside the pool.
Rodwell-Simon had to quickly learn the ins and outs of working in a place where meetings and events are constantly taking place and news can break at any moment.
“I immediately felt like I had a lot more responsibility to use the access that I was given prudently, to uphold the sort of standards that are expected of every other press member when they are on Capitol Hill,” he said.
He landed the opportunity as a Katharine Graham Fellow with the College’s Parrhesia Program for Public Thought and Discourse program. Nora Titone, a senior director at Parrhesia, said the College fellowship challenges students to invite “nationally renowned figures who are exemplars” of the program’s spirit of free expression to visit campus for programming, panels and seminars.
Rodwell-Simon said Mills was “immediately at the top of my list.”
“In covering every president since the Ronald Reagan administration, he has so much knowledge about the way journalism and photojournalism has evolved over that time,” he said.
Mills had already been invited to campus for a joint Parrhesia and Institute of Politics event in May. Titone put Rodwell-Simon in contact with the photojournalist with a pitch to collaborate and feature his work. While working on a plan for an online exhibition before bringing him to campus for several in-person events—including on his Pulitzer-winning photograph of President Donald Trump immediately after he was shot in 2024—Mills extended an invitation to Rodwell-Simon to join him covering various events across Washington, D.C.
Rodwell-Simon said he was “incredibly excited and honored” by the offer. After Mills and the New York Times helped him get his weeklong press credentials, the student journalist kicked off his time in the capital with a chance to witness an impromptu briefing with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt the moment he entered the White House grounds. He also attended several other meetings, from a Trump Kennedy Center board meeting to a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Hill and Oval Office events with both Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
While he had few opportunities to interact directly with ranking government officials, Rodwell-Simon was in constant contact with members of the White House press office who helped him get access with press credentials. Members of the press also shared insights on the profession and how to cover each moment, something that helped him find his footing and made him more comfortable to capture these events.
Outside of the importance of the position, Rodwell-Simon also had to learn the limits of his access—where he could go and what he could do in some of the most well-known locations in the world, each synonymous with U.S. history. Throughout it all, he tried to stay grounded.
“I tried to stay focused on the fact that I was there as a reporter and treated it like any other attempt of trying to get a photograph of a subject,” said Rodwell-Simon. “There is certainly a gravity of being in a space with those who hold the highest positions in government.”
Rodwell-Simon learned as much as he could from the journalists around him, taking advice on everything from different ways to capture the best shot to the newest technologies for photojournalists.
“The main takeaway I had from the experience is just how much experience and reputation matters,” he said. “Every journalist or photojournalist is trying to get information and construct the best reporting they can to deliver the most relevant information to their readers. Those skills take time to develop and require trust from both your subjects and the readers.”
He intends to make that lesson matter most as he guides the Chicago Maroon throughout his upcoming last year in the College. As for the exhibition he is assembling of Mills’ work and his future visits to campus, Rodwell-Simon has one goal in mind while in the curation process.
“What I’m interested in is what it felt like for him behind the camera, capturing these images while essentially being part of every president’s inner circle since the 1980s," he said. “Sometimes when you take a photo, you sort of know the impact that it could have and sometimes you don’t. Those are the stories that I am interested in telling.”
Mills will be a guest on campus beginning with the May 6 event “Witness in the White House: How New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills frames the first draft of history” at the Quadrangle Club with a dinner for 70 undergraduates co-hosted by the Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse, student writers for the Maroon and The Gate student magazine.
He’ll also hold an event open to the public hosted by the Institute of Politics and Parrhesia entitled “The Man who Shot the President being shot: Photographing 7 presidencies with Doug Mills” on May 7 at Ida Noyes Hall before concluding the week with the photography workshop “Breaking Down the Shot: A Photography Workshop with Doug Mills of the New York Times” hosted by Parrhesia and held for undergraduate students at the Smart Museum on May 8.
