The press generally has established their own equivalent of the police departments' "blue line" when it comes to criticism of the press' own conduct. In this case, Diaz is nominally responding to criticism that the national political press is unfair and often unprofessional and even downright goofy in their coverage of Hillary Clinton. And his conclusion is the standard press response: it's all her fault. He writes:
In my experience, the public figures who consistently get positive media attention practice what I call "the three A's" - accessible, accurate and articulate. Of those, accessibility accounts for 80 percent of the equation.This might almost qualify as a press self-criticism, though it's more notable for its blindness to the normal function of the press corps that any TV viewer can see on the Sunday morning talks shows or in the stock campaign coverage in the major newspapers.
The issue of press treatment of public figures comes to the fore because of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's claims that she has been treated unduly harshly by the media in the Democratic presidential primary.
I won't attempt to get into chapter and verse of all her grievances against the news media, real and perceived, but I will make this observation: She hasn't done herself any favors with her rationing of accessibility. If you want to challenge the narrative that you're inauthentic and a control freak, well, a good start would be to make yourself more available to journalists' questions.
The Chronicle's own Carolyn Lochhead is one of the most faithful reciters of the conventional press scripts I've encountered. But here's what Diaz argues:
As a journalist of 30 years, I have come to recognize many truisms about my profession. One is that the reporters who cover politics tend to be the fairest and least ideological in the newsroom. They don't define good and bad by party label or from a left-right prism; they tend to judge individuals by who returns their calls and gives them honest answers and good quotes. The other truism is that while most journalists I know are extremely sensitive to being manipulated - the bogus photo opportunity, the shameless spin, the half-truth study - they are less on guard about being co-opted. Accessibility is the ultimate tool of co-option. The public figures who recognize this have a distinct advantage over those who try to outclever themselves.I'll try to be charitable here. Since 30 years takes us back to 1978, the picture Diaz gives of the press here may well have been pretty accurate 30 years ago. But it doesn't fit the picture of press dysfunction of the last 17 years or so that we can summarize with three words: "Whitewater", and "Judith Miller".
After Bush's Mission Accomplished moment in his flight suit and manly codpiece which reporters and pundits drooled over in a truly embarassing, not to mention shamelessly unprofessional, way - is it supposed to be a joke when Diaz says that journalists are "extremely sensitive to being maniuplated" by a "bogus photo opportunity"?
But Diaz says that accessiblity is 80% of the secret to getting good press. This raises a couple of issues, one of them factual. Did Diaz just not read that report earlier this year of Hillary Clinton making herself accessible to the reporters travelling with her? Anne Kornblut reported on this "acessibility" moment in Clinton Joins the Girls on the Bus Washington Post Online 01/02/08:
In a noble attempt to warm up reporters on caucus eve, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made a surprise jaunt onto the press bus on Wednesday morning, bearing coffee and bagels. "It's been a long campaign," she said, standing at the front of the bus. "I don't know about you, but for me, it's been a great experience." Dumbfounded by the appearance (her first and only on board the bus since she started campaigning almost exactly a year earlier), the traveling press corps watched in silence as she handed off the goods to Phil Singer, her spokesman, making a rare appearance on the press bus himself. Clinton then turned and left.What did these supposedly cream-of-the-crop reporters do with their "accessibility" moment? They sat in silence. As Glenn Greenwald wrote in Hillary and the mean kids on the bus Salon 01/03/08:
For all the talk about the complex ideological, economic and other factors that shape our horrendous political press coverage, it is always important to remember that so much of it -- as Romano's accurate comments highlight -- is attributable to the adolescent, self-absorbed, herd-like behavior of the reporters who travel around with these candidates. Those whom they like personally -- the ones who flatter them or otherwise trigger their desire to be liked -- receive reverent coverage, while those to whom they're personally hostile receive the opposite.He makes an important point. The intrepid and earnest reporters that John Diaz conjures for us would presumably be falling all over each other to make the most of this "accessibility" opportunity. But instead ... they sat in silence!
Just contrast the frosty, petulant reception they gave Hillary when she entered their bus with the way White House press reporters at the President's news conferences, for years, cackle at his every attempt at humor and light up with glee when he deigns to engage them in his insulting frat-boy repartee. But in contrast to George the Popular Jock to whom they're grateful for any attention, Hillary is the overly competitive, know-it-all girl at the front of the class with all the answers, and so instead of acting like professionals and just treating like her like a candidate running for President, and taking the opportunity to ask questions when she entered the bus, they instead band together like they're in eighth grade and give the mean, unpopular girl the cold shoulder.
Is it any wonder that Hillary never boards the press bus? Personally, I'd rather be in Siberia than be in Iowa around all of that.
Tristero and Digby at the Hullabaloo blog posted on the same incident in Firing Time 01/03/08, linking also to Hillary on the press bus by Ben Smith Politico 01/02/08:
Hillary stepped onto the parked press bus in Indianola for about 90 seconds to deliver bagels and coffee, and I'm not sure what this says about Clinton and the press — the chill, I think, comes from both sides — but it was a strange moment. She expressed her sympathies that we're away from our families and "significant others," tried a joke at the expense of her press secretary, and paused. Nobody even shouted a question, whether because of the surprise, the assumption that she wouldn't actually answer, or the sheer desire to end the encounter.My point here is not to determine what share of blame Clinton should be allocated for her bad relations with the national press corp. It's to challenge the assumption that Diaz lays out, that 80% of Clinton or other politicians getting good press is "accessibility". Since she was providing 100% accessibility at that moment on the press bus, the fact that our sad excuse for a press corps sat there that a bunch of school kids watching their teacher have a nervous breakdown in front of them must have been 100% due to something other than lack of accessibility.
One reporter compared the awkwardness to running unexpectedly into an ex-girlfriend.
Diaz nominally disapproves of reports being co-opted by "access". But it's a disingenuous argument. For one thing, he then goes on to blame the politicians for their own "bad press" for failing to provide that "acessibility".
But he writes as though the revelations in the Scooter Libby trial about the extent of press passivity and collaboration with administration officials in the matter of blowing Valerie Plame's cover and covering up the crime never happened. Judith Miller's precious access to Cheney-Bush officials was not only an issue for her in that case. It was a major element in why she pimped the fake claims about Iraqi WMDs on the front page of the New York Times. She had "access" to high officials who fed her horse-poo on the WMDs. But then she couldn't "burn" the officials who had lied to her and used to propagandize for a war that never should have happened. Because if she did that, she would lose her "access". Then, the next time administration officials wanted to feed bogus claims to the press, someone else who get to type up the phony claims instead of her.
Who does Diaz think does a good job of providing "accessibility" to the press? Well, who do you think? The great Maverick McCain, of course:
Clinton need look no further than across the partisan line to Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, whose exhaustively freewheeling sessions with reporters on his 2000 campaign bus, the "Straight Talk Express," brought him enormous amounts of goodwill and favorable coverage. Minor gaffes became part of his charm and authenticity. His very accessibility was enough of a rarity in presidential politics to become a story in itself.Sure, the Maverick's courting the press pays dividends for him. But that doesn't explain why Diaz would write, "Minor gaffes became part of his charm and authenticity."
And here is another place where his rote defense of the dysfunctional press is lacking. The problem is not whether the reporters think the Maverick is a cool guy or think Clinton is an annoying bitch. Their job should be to report factually and critically on what they say and do. When you start out with Diaz assumption that even the Maverick's "minor gaffes" are part of his "charm and authenticity", it seems that you've already left the goal of critical and skeptical coverage on the garbage heap. And, of course, it's not the "minor gaffes" that are the real problem. It's the reporters' and pundits' remarkable unwillingness to challenge the Maverick over issues like his relationship to radical cleric John Hagee until a leading Democratic official like Nancy Pelosi makes it a public issue.
And how do those intrepid reporters Diaz conjures for us do their job when the Maverick provides the "accessibility"? CNN reports in No news, just ribs at McCain barbecue 03/04/08:
Instead of appealing for votes on the campaign trail, Sen. John McCain spent the weekend playing host at his rustic Arizona home -- and on Sunday members of the traveling press corps were his guests.Presumably none of his press guests were so rude as to try against to ask "substantive" questions. The CNN reports concludes:
GOP candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona usually takes reporters' questions but was mum this weekend.
It was a news-free zone, and a charm offensive to be sure -- but also a window into the private setting and self-described oasis of the man who may be days away from mathematically clinching the GOP nomination, months after being left for political dead.
McCain greeted reporters as he tended to the grill -- tongs in hand -- on the deck of his ranch house. Clad in a green Maine Maritime Academy baseball hat, white sweat shirt with a photograph of his family on it, faded Levis jeans and New Balance sneakers, the presidential candidate stood over two large, sizzling barbecues, preparing baby back ribs and grilled chicken.
McCain revealed that barbecuing for guests is one of the few ways he relaxes, especially during the grueling campaign, and was eager to share his carefully honed recipe on the gas grill: baby back ribs (bought at Costco), cooked bones down with a dry rub that's a third garlic powder, a third salt and a third pepper.
The trick to not letting it dry out? Keep putting lemon juice on, the senator said.
When a print journalist tried to switch gears to more substantive issues, the candidate who tends to take questions from reporters on the road multiple times a day responded, "No interviews, this is a social event," which also meant no news pictures or video. (my emphasis)
Dessert was served on the deck to Frank Sinatra tunes, one of the senator's favorites, and McCain held court with reporters for a few more minutes, recalling some of the highlights of the 2008 campaign trail but not revealing anything about his future plans.Well, I guess in one way this is consistent behavior. The reporters on Clinton's press bus didn't ask her any questions either during her "accessibility" opportunity.
Tags: establishment press, hillary clinton, john diaz, mainstream media, mainstream press, mccain
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