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It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News producer Max McClellan. Oops. Make that Emmy-Winning producer Max McClellan.

Matthew Felling: You won your first Emmy. I feel like I should ask you if you’re going to Disney World. How's it feel?

Max McClellan: It's feels terrific - and lucky. In my case, I was lucky to be working with Lara Logan and Jeff Newton, who shot some extraordinary material in Ramadi and then let me join them to help put it together.

Matthew Felling: As a producer for Lara Logan, what does your job entail?

Max McClellan: I work with Lara to develop stories around the world for the CBS Evening News. She spends a lot of her time in Baghdad, of course, but when she's not there, she still keeps extremely busy. Aside from Iraq, we've done stories in India, Darfur, South Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Syria in the last year. People often ask me if she's indefatigable. Yep.

Matthew Felling: Tell me about the story that won the award.

Max McClellan: This was a two-part series that aired on the Evening News in May 2006. Lara and her Associate Producer from 60 Minutes, Jeff Newton, spent several weeks living and working alongside US Marines in Ramadi, Iraq. At the time, Ramadi was the operational center of Al Qaeda in Iraq and one of the bloodiest frontlines in the war on terror. These Marines were involved in heavy, daily, street by street battles with the insurgents. Lara and Jeff were with them every step of the way and captured an up-close view of the war that had rarely been seen. For me, the material they shot and the interviews they did were extraordinary, not only because it gave our audience a glimpse of the intense fighting going on, but also because it showed the bravery and humanity with which these soldiers conducted themselves every day.

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In the aftermath of the White House pressroom drama that saw press secretary Scott McClellan and reporters re-enacting scenes from grade school playgrounds of their pasts, there has been a lot of talk about the relationship between the media and the administration. Even before this latest incident over Vice President Cheney’s accidental shooting, former White House press secretary Mike McCurry was publicly questioning the value of televising the daily briefing (even though it was he who instituted that practice).

Covering the White House has to be one of the more frustrating jobs for a reporter because, let’s face it, information doesn’t exactly flood out of any administration and it barely trickles out of the current one. The gig ensures plenty of air-time and bylines but most often, it’s more a chronicle of events than anything else. Still, this morning’s Katharine Seelye article in The New York Times offers up one of the more, um, unique explanations of why the press briefings sometimes become so confrontational:

Renana Brooks, a clinical psychologist practicing in Washington who said she had counseled several White House correspondents, said the last few years had given rise to "White House reporter syndrome," in which competitive high achievers feel restricted and controlled and become emotionally isolated from others who are not steeped in the same experience.

She said the syndrome was evident in the Cheney case, which she described as an inconsequential event that produced an outsize feeding frenzy. She said some reporters used the occasion to compensate for not having pressed harder before the Iraq war.

"It's like any post-traumatic stress," she said, "like when someone dies and you think you could have saved them."

“White House reporter syndrome?” The doctor is in.

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