Chicagoan Janice Kearney made history when she was appointed the first-ever personal diarist to the president, for Bill Clinton. For several years during his second term and into his transition from office, Kearney followed the 42nd president on a daily basis. Kearney also travelled around the country asking fellow African-Americans about their impressions of Clinton.

She chronicles those interviews in her book Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton, From Hope to Harlem. In 2006, she spoke with former Eight Forty-Eight producer Sylvia Ewing about her work, and the impressions that black Americans have of the former president.