By Brigitte L. Nacos
After last week’s Republican primary in South Carolina, Washington Post media
columnist Howard
Kurtz wrote about the relationship between presidential candidates and the
reporters that cover them. As for the darling of the press corps, Senator John
McCain, Kurtz noted, “McCain's ability to charm the press wasn't responsible
for his big win in Saturday's South Carolina primary, but it didn't hurt.” It is
impossible to establish whether the mostly positive portrayal of McCain in the mainstream
media contributed to his win in South Carolina. But the excellent relationship between the
Senator and the “Boys and Girls on the Bus” may have affected the media
characterization of his quite narrow 33-30 victory over Mike Huckabee as “big”
victory or win. As Kurtz put it,
“How candidates treat reporters shouldn't matter in the coverage, but it
does. Journalists tend to reward those who engage them and get testy when they
are stiffed, concluding that
such candidates are overly calculating and wary of unscripted exchanges.”
The point here is that Senator McCain’s popularity among reporters is the
result of his accessibility that began during his presidential run 8 years ago.
In 2000, however, George W. Bush was ultimately most successful in charming and
co-opting those reporters who covered him. The candidate the media described then
was an accessible down-to-earth fun guy and the one you would pick to have a
beer with. In sharp contrast, Al Gore’s media image was that of a brainy, robot-like
stiff who seemed hard pressed to appear relaxed. So much for reporters and
candidates’ likeability.
In early January, NBC News anchor Brian Williams said the following during
an appearance at MSNBC,
“I interviewed Lee Cowan, our reporter who covers Obama, while we were out
yesterday and posted the interview on the web. Lee says it's hard to stay
objective covering this guy. Courageous for Lee to say, to be honest. The
e-mail flood started out we caught you guys, we never did trust you. That kind
of thing. I think it is a very interesting dynamic. I saw middle-aged women
just throw their arms around Barack Obama, kiss him hard on the cheek and say,
you know, I'm with you, good luck. And I think he feels it, too” (I did not
find the interview on the NBC site but the above excerpt at mediabistro).
However much newsman and newswomen try to be objected, even-handed, fair and balanced, the personal views, likes and dislikes, etc., enter into everyone’s perceptions of what is important to report and how to present it—most of the time the decisions here are made unwittingly. In that respect, reporter Cohen revealed that she, for one, is aware of these dynamics and probably more likely to avoid biased reporting than those of her colleagues who are unaware or unwilling to admit such difficulties.
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