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TEAM Obama veered off message yesterday, kicking off the campaign bus reporters from three newspapers deemed unfriendly to the campaign - The New York Post, The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times.
This is bipartisanship?
The move is utterly at odds with a central part of Obama's message: the idea that he's a different kind of candidate - one who won't demonize opponents or critics, but will instead work hard to bring people together.
Let's hope this isn't a harbinger of what would happen in an Obama administration.
A spokesperson claimed the decision was one the campaign had to make to appeal to swing voters. In fact, those reporters were bumped to make room for others from Jet and Essence, two glossy magazines targeted at African-Americans, and for a documentary unit chronicling the last days of the Obama campaign. None meet the standard of appealing to a "swing voter."
Worse, the campaign bumped news reporters for lifestyle magazines.
This month's Jet cover features a barely clothed Toni Braxton with promises of an interview about her personal trials. In the latest Essence, you can read "an intimate interview [where] . . . megastar Beyoncé dishes on her new album, Jay-Z and life in the spotlight."
All three papers endorsed McCain - was the Obama move retaliation? It seems unlikely. More likely, the campaign wanted to make room for fawning coverage - and who better to get rid of than papers that cover you critically?
But even choosing to deal only with outlets that treat you favorably is a bad precedent.
Longtime Washington Post correspondent Lou Cannon covered the Nixon, Ford and Reagan White Houses as well as presidential campaigns starting in 1968. He says this move is reminiscent of Richard Nixon.
But even Nixon didn't kick The Washington Post (which had broken the Watergate scandal) off the campaign plane. Says Cannon, "I never had that experience - and I covered people who didn't care for me, but you were treated more or less professionally. They would have their pals, but I never had any problem on any campaign plane, even with Nixon."
After he was re-elected, though, the Nixon people retaliated - first by cutting off access to The Washington Post's Dorothy McCardle, then barring the paper from press pools.
Cannon points out that Nixon's paranoia over the press was rooted in his internal demons, something he doesn't see in Obama.
Indeed, Nixon's staff was following the boss' lead. With Obama, my hunch is that the reverse is true - this was a (bad) staff-level decision.
But it's Obama who has to fix it.
On the trail recently, Obama has been invoking the Clinton administration - a period that has many lessons on press relations.
Like Obama's campaign, the Clinton team had ruthless message-discipline. But when they sought to continue it in the White House, the media savaged them.
The Clintonites' stupid mistakes in their first few months were partly to blame, but it didn't help that the media resented the way they were being treated.
John McCain reportedly booted Time's Joe Klein and The New York Times' Maureen Dowd from his campaign plane for their critical coverage, and the McCain camp was blasted for it.
The Obama camp deserves the same treatment for its bad behavior.
[email protected]
This is bipartisanship?
The move is utterly at odds with a central part of Obama's message: the idea that he's a different kind of candidate - one who won't demonize opponents or critics, but will instead work hard to bring people together.
Let's hope this isn't a harbinger of what would happen in an Obama administration.
A spokesperson claimed the decision was one the campaign had to make to appeal to swing voters. In fact, those reporters were bumped to make room for others from Jet and Essence, two glossy magazines targeted at African-Americans, and for a documentary unit chronicling the last days of the Obama campaign. None meet the standard of appealing to a "swing voter."
Worse, the campaign bumped news reporters for lifestyle magazines.
This month's Jet cover features a barely clothed Toni Braxton with promises of an interview about her personal trials. In the latest Essence, you can read "an intimate interview [where] . . . megastar Beyoncé dishes on her new album, Jay-Z and life in the spotlight."
All three papers endorsed McCain - was the Obama move retaliation? It seems unlikely. More likely, the campaign wanted to make room for fawning coverage - and who better to get rid of than papers that cover you critically?
But even choosing to deal only with outlets that treat you favorably is a bad precedent.
Longtime Washington Post correspondent Lou Cannon covered the Nixon, Ford and Reagan White Houses as well as presidential campaigns starting in 1968. He says this move is reminiscent of Richard Nixon.
But even Nixon didn't kick The Washington Post (which had broken the Watergate scandal) off the campaign plane. Says Cannon, "I never had that experience - and I covered people who didn't care for me, but you were treated more or less professionally. They would have their pals, but I never had any problem on any campaign plane, even with Nixon."
After he was re-elected, though, the Nixon people retaliated - first by cutting off access to The Washington Post's Dorothy McCardle, then barring the paper from press pools.
Cannon points out that Nixon's paranoia over the press was rooted in his internal demons, something he doesn't see in Obama.
Indeed, Nixon's staff was following the boss' lead. With Obama, my hunch is that the reverse is true - this was a (bad) staff-level decision.
But it's Obama who has to fix it.
On the trail recently, Obama has been invoking the Clinton administration - a period that has many lessons on press relations.
Like Obama's campaign, the Clinton team had ruthless message-discipline. But when they sought to continue it in the White House, the media savaged them.
The Clintonites' stupid mistakes in their first few months were partly to blame, but it didn't help that the media resented the way they were being treated.
John McCain reportedly booted Time's Joe Klein and The New York Times' Maureen Dowd from his campaign plane for their critical coverage, and the McCain camp was blasted for it.
The Obama camp deserves the same treatment for its bad behavior.
[email protected]
