25 September 2008

Candidates Less Available to Press as Election Day Draws Closer

Journalists discuss how presidential nominees interact with news media

Marvin Kalb with Senator Hillary Clinton at a convention in Washington in 2004

By Eric Green
Staff Writer

Washington — U.S. presidential and vice presidential candidates usually reduce their interactions with reporters as Election Day approaches, several journalists tell America.gov.

Michael Scherer, a Time magazine reporter covering the 2008 presidential election, said the “natural evolution of a presidential campaign is that during the [presidential] primaries, the candidates are more open to the press.” But “right before the general election” — this year on November 4 — the candidates run “pre-programmed operations with very limited access to the press,” Scherer said.

“It’s very typical that candidates will only do in the final weeks local [press] interviews” while avoiding the national press, he said. That is what is happening now with Republican presidential nominee John McCain, his vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, according to Scherer.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has proved the exception, granting numerous interviews to local and national news media.

Scherer said that for the first time in almost six weeks, McCain took questions September 23 from reporters. Journalists found the lack of interaction a “little jarring” because McCain was exceptionally open during the presidential primaries, “holding press availabilities after every public event.”

The change came, said Scherer, because McCain and his campaign “recognized that he needed to control his message better” after the primaries and a perception in the campaign that his openness to journalists allowed the press “to throw him off message by dictating what the conversation was about.”

Scherer described Obama, who never allowed the press “free rein,” as a more controlled candidate than McCain.

Marvin Kalb, former chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS News and NBC News, said “it is generally the candidate with higher poll numbers who stays away from the media [with] the one with lower numbers seeking greater exposure. This is not new.

“Candidates often say they will hold weekly news conferences, only to change their minds once they get into office and problems multiply,” said Kalb, now senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University in Massachusetts.

FAIR REPORTERS GET ACCESS TO CANDIDATES

Dotty Lynch, a political consultant for CBS News, said “clamping down on [press] access — especially during a general election — has been the norm” during U.S. presidential elections.

President Bush speaks with reporters in 2006 outside the White House.

Lynch, who also teaches in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, said, “The stakes are so high that candidates are afraid of making a mistake and thus try for as many scripted events as possible.”

She cited a 2004 book by journalist Walter Shapiro (One-Car Caravan: On The Road With The 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In), who wrote that in the early part of a presidential campaign, candidates are more accessible to the press.

Part of McCain's attractiveness to the press when he ran for president in 2000 was his “accessibility, but that has changed dramatically in 2008,” Lynch said.

Obama has talked about the need for more “transparency but he too is running a rather conventional campaign” and might avoid the press if he is elected to the White House, she said.

Lynch added that some of the blame for the candidates’ lack of access “has to be put on the media and the rise of ‘gotcha’ journalism. There has been a breakdown of trust between public officials and the media,” although “some news organizations and reporters can break through this.”

She cited John Harwood of the CNBC network and The New York Times as a reporter who is “seen as serious and fair.” Lynch said McCain and Obama each felt that Harwood would treat them fairly. As a result, both nominees gave Harwood one-on-one interviews on September 21 about the U.S. economic crisis.

DEMOCRACY NOT SERVED BY CANDIDATES AVOIDING THE PRESS

Steven Thomma, chief political correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, said that during the 2000 campaign, Republican presidential candidates McCain and George W. Bush were “much more accessible” to the press than candidates in the 2008 race.

Thomma said he interviewed Bush six times during the campaign, “but much more importantly” Bush took questions from the “traveling press almost every day.”

Over the last several presidential campaign cycles, candidates have become much more “shielded from the press,” Thomma said, adding that presidential candidates have become “obsessed with message control.” He cited Palin, who has granted only three television interviews since her nomination, as the “ultimate case” of this mindset.

“It is a huge disservice to democracy, the candidates and to the public” for the candidates to avoid the press, Thomma said. “It is a short-term strategy that doesn’t see the importance” of a candidate “being able to communicate well their own ideas.

“Politicians have a responsibility to talk to the press,” Thomma said. “That’s why they put” the right of freedom of the press in the U.S. Constitution. It’s in there precisely so we could question political leaders.”

For additional information see Press Freedom and “Newspaperman Ben Bradlee Says Good Reporters Dig for Truth.”