Yesterday, David Corn of Mother Jones accused the McCain Campaign of screening questions during live conference calls in order to ensure that friendly questions were asked. It seems that this type of behavior is going to become the norm for the Maverick Press Darling.
Today in Pittsburgh, McCain held a 10 minute full press conference to discuss FISA, Iran, and his pledge to balance the budget. However, the Washington Post reports what was really going on:
And where was the national press corps?
Sitting on the runway 27 miles away, having been ferried to McCain's charter plane, totally unaware that a press availability was about to take place until one of the handful of "pool reporters" sent an e-mail alert.Sitting on the runway 27 miles away, having been ferried to McCain's charter plane, totally unaware that a press availability was about to take place until one of the handful of "pool reporters" sent an e-mail alert.
Why is this important, one may ask? Because the McCain Campaign is limiting access only to journalists who will not pose unfriendly questions to his campaign. The interesting thing about it, though, is that the campaign is openly discussing its strategy. According to Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign's communications director, such actions are giong to become more routine:
"He took a couple of questions at the end of the tour from the pool. This will happen occasionally," responded Jill Hazelbaker[.]
With the media already exhibiting its intense man-crush on the Republican nominee, a restriction of access to the national corps is only going to further exacerbate the problem. Talking Points Memo recently addressed issues that have become apparent in bias for McCain within the Associated Press:
Yesterday we flagged the AP's Jennifer Loven's 'analysis' piece flogging the McCain/RNC spin on Obama's run to the center. Well, as every crack communication operation knows, message repetition is the key to success. And so today we have another 'analysis' piece, this time by the AP's Steven Hurst. And it's practically the same piece. Hurst and Loven actually both use the identical quote from RNC spinmeister Alex Conant.
The McCain camp is shrugging this off as though it were no big deal, saying that they will meet with the entire press corps later:
National reporters still get some access; in fact, the campaign promises some time with the candidate later today as the campaign bus rambles from West Virginia to Portsmouth, Ohio.
But what's the consequence? If the McCain camp only lets trusted reporters speak to them on issues of their choosing in the morning, then he will have set the national media's narrative for the rest of the day. The Press Corps will be doing whatever to catch up, and, will in essence, basically repeat whatever statements are being given in the earlier conferences in order to get the story out as quickly as possible.
This manipulation of the press is is a huge deal, which probably comes as a reaction to recent reporting on the Obama-Iraq non-flipflop. As TPM analyzed above, the AP is doing it's part to portray Obama as noncommittal and inexperienced. The articles are not well researched, and both base opinions primarily on talking points from the same McCain adviser. When research is done on the positions, reporters write accurate articles, like the same issue's reporting by the NY Times:
At which point [Obama] returned to Iraq, an issue where he has wavered very little from the stance he took many months ago. He favors a phased-in 16-month withdrawal. The McCain campaign has labored hard to suggest that he is inconsistent on this issue.
In order for this upcoming election to receive fair coverage, the McCain camp's tactics need to be brought to light immediately. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to convince the MSM to hold McCain accountable to accuracy. So please, contact the McCain camp and tell them these tactics will not be tolerated. Also, contact the likes of NBC, CBS, ABC, and even the APto urge them not to fall for this trap.
Update: Geez, it takes an awful lot to hit the rec list around here...Thanks to everyone for the tips and lets make sure this issue get out there because it is going to be huge later on