I didn’t see it live, but several alert readers let me know about an interesting segment on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” yesterday, in which the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, after highlighting John McCain’s dust-up with the NYT’s Elisabeth Bumiller on Friday, chatted with Time’s Ana Marie Cox about media access to the Republican nominee.
KURTZ: You’ve spent a lot of time with McCain. He spends hours and hours answering reporters’ questions…. Is there a downside to his policy of nearly unlimited media access?
COX: Well, you just saw it. It’s true that he can — especially — it’s almost always someone who has not — who hasn’t been with the campaign, you know, through it all that’s going to make a call that makes him look bad. […]
KURTZ: But that suggests that the people who have been traveling with him regularly… become part of the bubble, part of the team?
COX: Become part of the bubble, and also, I mean, I think what happens is that you — if you’ve been covering him for a long time, there’s a sense that, well, he does that all the time, it’s not worth reporting, because he does — he’s a cranky old man. I mean, to be quite frank.
You know, like, and also, I’ve gotten much tougher terseness than Bumiller got just there. And…
KURTZ: But the cameras weren’t rolling.
COX: But the cameras weren’t rolling. And also, we wrote it off to, like, you know, he hadn’t had his fifth cup of Starbucks today.
I’ve heard similar stories many times. McCain gives reporters more access than Obama and Clinton combined, and journalists can’t help but love it. The result, however, is a dynamic in which reporters cut a presidential candidate all kinds of slack. Or, in Kurtz’s words, they become “part of the bubble.”
ABC’s Jake Tapper was part of the same CNN discussion yesterday, and he noted that it’s not a risk-free environment for the McCain campaign. With the open access and chummy relationships in mind, Tapper noted, “80% of the time it’s to McCain’s benefit and 20% it’s not.”
At first blush, that makes sense. It’s mostly to McCain’s benefit, because he’s rewarded for giving reporters what they want, but there’s always that risk that McCain will say something outrageous and get busted for it. Indeed, it’s hard to hide an outrageous comment when you’re constantly surrounded by friendly reporters.
But I’m not sure just how risky it is. In the 2000 campaign, an enamored press corps was willing to cut McCain enormous slack. In October 1999, for example, aboard the campaign bus, McCain referred to the Vietnamese as “gooks.” Not only did reporters not call the candidate on the use of the slur, almost none of them reported on McCain’s ugly word choice. According to one insider I talked to for an article I wrote last year, there was a “gentleman’s agreement” in place — in exchange for access and freewheeling interviews, most campaign correspondents would knowingly look the other way from some of McCain’s more “candid” blunders.
In this sense, the downsides start to disappear. McCain gets all of the benefits (media adulation) and few of the risks (carte blanche to act like an idiot without being called on it).
The question is, is there a similar agreement in place now? The Bumiller incident happened to get caught on video, so it got a lot of play. But most of the time, reporters aren’t literally filming every McCain remark.
Are they still overlooking, on purpose, some of McCain’s more controversial remarks? Cox’s perspective seemed to suggest that they are — his comments are often dismissed because “he’s a cranky old man” or because he “hadn’t had his fifth cup of Starbucks.”
Granted, I’ve never been a campaign reporter traveling with a presidential candidate. Maybe there’s a camaraderie that develops that’s natural, unavoidable, and understandable. Maybe it should lead to friendly barbecues, fawning coverage, and reporters who intentionally decide not to report on a presidential candidate’s controversial remarks.
Or maybe this just isn’t healthy for the process.