Media Whine
CBS News’ Dean Reynolds slam Barack Obama for not kissing enough ass, pounds the table in old-man solidarity with McCain:
The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans. Nor is there much sympathy for those of us who report for a newscast that airs in the early evening hours. Our shows place a premium on live reporting from the scene of campaign events. But this campaign can often be found in the air and flying around at the time the “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” is broadcast. I suspect there is a feeling within the Obama campaign that the broadcast networks are less influential in the age of the internet and thus needn’t be accomodated as in the days of yore. Even if it’s true, they are only hurting themselves by dissing audiences that run in the tens of millions every night.
The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who’ve been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.
The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama’s, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.
It’s remarkable how much press affection for McCain seems to be just grounded in this. He feeds me tasty barbecue, so I should hold him to a different standard than other politicians! Sure he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but his campaign plane is clean!
64 Responses to “Media Whine”
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October 9th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Poor Dean. Did someone hurt his widdle feelings? Kind of a warning to Obama though since Bob Schaeffer is going to be moderating the final (hurray!) debate.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Hey Dean: News flash.
To the extent that your viewers are the ones who are keeping you in business, we expect you do do your f***ing job. We don’t give a sh*t if you don’t feel like you’re on a Sedona ranch vacation.
And probably if we looked into your story, it’d be mostly horse-sh*t. I bet all the plans get texted or twittered out or whatnot, but you want them to personally deliver a blackboard to your hotel room with cleanly chalked plans for the next 24 hours.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:23 am
It’s remarkable how much press affection for McCain seems to be just grounded in this.
Why? I mean, it’s remarkable to people who haven’t been paying attention, but time and again, these guys have demonstrated that it is all about their personal comfort. (In economic policy, foreign policy, etc.)
So I guess I would sad that it is less remarkable, and more pathetic, hopeless, sad, etc.
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October 9th, 2008 at 8:24 am
This screed was embarrassing. Perhaps Obama doesn’t print up his schedule because of threat? Perhaps he doesn’t print ‘em up because a reporter could just look at his Blackberry? Reynolds sounds so incredibly ancient. Imagine that this guy is furious because the O crew will not allow him to stand in front of some venue at 6:04 every weekday. OTOH, would it kill to O to treat this pampered millionaires a little better?
October 9th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Well, it’s part of the game. What good organization, good management, and good PR gets you (should get you) is knowing how to pamper the right people.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Let me be the token concern troll for the day. You scratch the back of the folks you want to treat you nicely, if you’ll pardon the mangled grammar. McCain did this in 2000 and it worked well (though not well enough). He’s not doing it now and it’s hurting him.
I have no idea of Reynolds is right about any of this, but if there’s some truth to it, the it might be worth the Obama campaign’s worthwhile to do something about it. This is not rocket science. The better they treat journalists, the better journalists will treat them.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Sometimes, certain columns make it painfully obvious how ridiculously bad some journalists are at their job. This is a perfect example, and of course, anything written by David Broder since 2001.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Network news is less influential for a reason: it’s almost completely uninformative. When you aspire to be Roland Headley rather than Edward R. Murrow, you’ve got to take your lumps.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I’m with nobi here: this is not terribly difficult to get right. Kissing reporters’ ass doesn’t cost much (at least if you do it with nice bound schedules), so why not do it?
October 9th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Ugh, why did I click the link. This is one of those cases where the full column is worse than the snippet. For bonus noxiousness, take a gander at the racist froth in the comments. Turns out that Obama’s plane smells bad because that’s just the way black people smell. Couldn’t have seen that one coming.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:09 am
As sort of a response to nobi above:
I suspect this piece may have more to do with the fact that Obama’s operation just doesn’t leak. “No-drama Obama.” For comparison, think back to the constant stories during the primaries about in-fighting in Hillaryland and the sniping between current and former advisors about the direction(s) of/directionless McCain campaign.
Media can’t get ahead of the Obama story and/or shape the narrative. It’s the Obama campaign–not individuals within it–that is shaping the narrative. Imagine that: in this too, as we’ve seen in just about everything else, this campaign refuses to be beholden to the day’s newscycle but focuses on the long-term goal of not just winning the election but preparing to govern once it does. McCain is obsessed with controlling and winning the newscycle; the media’s oxygen is the newscycle. No wonder he has done so much television and the press traditionally has been so favorable toward him. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Even/especially his dysfunctional campaign, bad though it makes him look, earns him secret gratitude from the media.
Obama’s campaign is operating on another plane, one that doesn’t feed the media in the usual helpful or hurtful ways. But it’s conflict that creates a narrative; and since to all appearances there’s no conflict within the Obama campaign, the press is left to grouse about the inconveniences they are forced to endure as a result of covering a campaign more intent on winning an election than making sure the scented candles are lit in advance on the press’s plane.
In other words, it all comes down, again, to that distinction between strategy and tactics and who knows the difference between them.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I’ve seen this story mentioned on a number of different blogs, but no one has focused on the closing lines of Reynolds’ post:
Reynolds just making it clear that if Obama is elected he should expect payback from inconvenienced press corps.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Reynolds’s column is unreadable.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:21 am
From Margaret Carlson’s book on the Bush Gore election:
“That makes food on the plane crucial. Like the army, the press travels on its stomach and in this regard, Gore was no match for Bush. Gore wanted the snaks to be environmentally and nutritionally correct, but somehow granola bars ended up giving way to Fruit Roll-Ups and the sandwiches came wrapped and looked long past their sell-by date. On a lucky day, someone would remember to buy supermarket doughnuts, By Contrast, a typical day of food on Air Bush . . . consisted of five meals with access to a sixth, if you count grazing at a cocktail buffet. Breakfast one was French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and fruit, followed by a midmorning breakfast of spinach-and-tomato omelets. Lunch one was grilled chicken and beef with mashed potatoes, and lunch two was mushrooms stuffed with crab, shrimp kebabs, and pizza. There were Dove Bars and designer water on demand, and a bathroom stocked like Martha Stewar’s guest suite. Dinner at seven (traveling with Bush was like being a retiree in Boca Raton, the early bird special followed by bed at nine) featured lobster ravioli, grilled vegetables, and fruit cobbler with ice cream.”
Yup. We’ve endured seven years of hell, needless war, the acceptance of torture, huge deficits, and an coming economic debacle because the press didn’t get it’s dove bars.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Lavishing the shitty press with yummy noshes and accommodations worked for Bush-Cheney too.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:26 am
He ends the post by saying “what goes around comes around”? Wow, that is such breathtaking arrogance I don’t even know what to say. Do these people actually have any filter when they write? The guy is supposed to be an actual reporter, right? Don’t they have editors anymore in actual reporterland?
I guess that article in NY Magazine about the tainting of McCain brand was wrong after all. The press still is in love with McCain, if only for the awesomeness of his campaign plane.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:28 am
He’s trying to be serious, yet he uses the word “dissing”….
My head is shaking…..
Get up off your lazy asses and do some work for yourself!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:31 am
This is nothing new. The press coprs, which had loved candidate Bill Clinton, began to turn on President Clinton when the White House press room was relocated and reconfigured, and the snacks fell off in quality and quantity. Sad, really….the press corps has clearly revealed what it is, now it’s just haggling over price.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:31 am
In 10 years these dinosaurs will be retired or dead, so we’ll see about “what comes around goes around”….
The heady days of the pampered court stenographer are almost over.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Let me get this straight, he has a problem with the Obama campaign’s treatment of the press, but the McCain campaign publicly derides the press, won’t grant general access to Sarah Palin, won’t allow the press to move about the crowd at rallies and interview supporters, and actually has the mob at its rallies boo the MSM, but Obama is the one with a problem with the press? Because his plane smells and their in the air during the evening news???
What a hack!!!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Pft! Obama can hang up a tire swing, give Dean some barbecue, scratch him behind the ears.
Soon, after all, the old man will be dead. We should make him comfortable in his declining years.
.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Reynolds is a WATB, but you run an electoral campaign with the WATB press corps you have, not the one you want. If there’s any truth to what Reynolds is saying — and I’m guessing there’s a little — then it seems like Obama’s campaign should try to be a little more accommodating. Not because infants like Reynolds deserve it, but because it’s smart.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I think Reynolds buried the lede. Actually, he put the lede in parentheses – McCain only does one appearance a day while Obama does two or three.
First off, of course it’s easier to run things smoothly when you’re only doing one event a day.
Second, I would think a campaign reporter might see the problem with a losing candidate doing 1/2 to 1/3 of the appearances of the winning candidate. It might even be worth – gasp! – a story. But hey, he’s probably distracted by the smelly plane.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:47 am
What’s so hard about flying on the press plane and using local affiliates for technical backup?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:52 am
“And another thing….Obama’s plane has no shelf level for me to place my Hermes Select typewriter! Whatta gyp!”
October 9th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Am I the only one who remembers the article about how swanky and expensive Obama’s plane was, and how humble and Real-Amurkan the McCain transportation was?
With both of these articles, I have to wonder if the writers are simply imbeciles or if they’re actively tainting our discourse for the sake of a totalitarian, authoritarian political movement that gives them cookies and milk.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am
“With both of these articles, I have to wonder if the writers are simply imbeciles or if they’re actively tainting our discourse for the sake of a totalitarian, authoritarian political movement that gives them cookies and milk.”
Yes. SATSQ.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:07 am
why should the candidates fly reporters around the country and literally cater to them in the first place?
October 9th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Ship him off to Iraq. Then he’ll see how smelly and cramped planes can be. I don’t want to sound like one of those crazy, vile left-wing bloggers, but this man is an absurd and grandiose douche. My lord, his children must be face-palming themselves right now. If my dad publicly outed himself as a whiny little turd who complained about his job all the time I would feel a deep, humiliating sense of shame and I’d probably have to change my last name.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Dollars to donuts says the Obama plane smells because inebriated hacks like Reynolds are puking and pissing in the aisles.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Sounds like a weird melange of ‘battered-wife’ and ’stockholm syndrome’…
October 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Dean, Dean, Dean, you don’t need a McSame schedule. Just assume frail old Gramps appearances these days will consist of either traveling around with the Palin campaign and playing second fiddle, or not appearing at all. This now seems to be the case most weekends and for two or three days before any of those strenuous debates
October 9th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Wow. Mr. McCain gives you “actual books you can hold in your hand,” plus Mr. Obama’s plane smells bad. You’d never think reporters are there to do a job or anything.
“In politics,” Mr. Reynolds concludes, “everything that goes around comes around.” I guess that means that when the remaining 38 or so Republican Senators start demanding Mr. Obama’s impeachment on or around January 20, 2009, they’ll get the most sympathetic coverage the “liberal” media can muster. That’ll teach Mr. Obama to skimp on the reporters’ Kenya AA coffee!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Banter!
They want banter!
Reynolds of course is not only whiny and petulant, but desperately misleading. If the Obama campaign treated the press nicer, would they be nicer to him?
No. He’s a Democrat.
Trying to come up with an answer why they repeat McCain campaign slanders and perpetuate McCain mythology based on pique is pathetic misdirection. That’s not why they’re doing this.
Barack Obama went into this campaign knowing, as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards did, that the MSM is the enemy.
It’s an approach that has worked, and continues to work.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Unbelieveable. Reynolds is bitching because a presidential candidate won’t bend his schedule to accommodate the media, and that only a candidate that panders to the national media is worthy of his respect. Journalists have become as big a bunch of whiners as GOOPers. Unfortunately for Deanie-poo the national polls pretty much blow away his notion that Obama’s refusal to tailor his schedule to get his mug on the evening news every night is a mistake. And folks still take tools like this seriously…
October 9th, 2008 at 10:54 am
“The better they treat journalists, the better journalists will treat them.”
Horseshit. George Bush and the members of his administration treated the press like shit for eight years, but you never saw a more compliant bunch of lap dogs at presidential press conferences in your life. Even with the nation mired in a messy foreign war and the economy tanking, people like Chris Matthews were all too eager to slobber over themselves telling us what a great guy and resolute leader the idiot savant was. The media has their own agenda (profit, profit, profit, profit, profit, and, oh yeah, reporting some shit), and “making nice” with them won’t help a bit. If you can’t see that after 8 years of Bush, you must not be paying attention.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I agree with qjk (#5) and nobo yuno (#5). Ideally, should reporters need to be coddled to receive objective treatment? No, but that’s not the real world of political coverage. Although many reporters operate according to the philosophy that they should be balanced, they’re all too human as we are reminded every election and nearly every major news story.
It took the Dems years to catch up with the GOP in terms of PR in the era of cable and the internet (and some Dems still haven’t mastered the pop art of sound bites and talking points). But there’s another level of PR in need of improvement — press relations. They may be “professional” journalists, but they’re people, too. Politics isn’t pretty, but doing what you can to positively influence the perspective of the people who still have substantial influence over public opinion isn’t ugly (assuming nothing unethical), it’s smart.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Re Dean Reynold’s comment “The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama’s, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time.”
————
That’s Dean’s psychosomatic reaction to being cooped up in a plane with Negroes.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Here’s the calculation that Obama made early on and continues to make: he decided he’d rather be on the local news every day than on the national news. i guarantee you that reporters and camera crews in places like St. Louis and Charlotte are getting plenty of advance notice that Obama is coming to their town for an event if they’d like to get some pretty pictures.
When you’re running a 50-state strategy, local news is far, far more important than the national news. Not that I expect Beltway Boyz like Reynolds to understand that.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Oh, and why does the White Man has to sit in the back of the plane? Obama should sit in the back, dammit. Dean Reynolds should sit in FIRST CLASS.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Even if it’s true, they are only hurting themselves by dissing audiences that run in the tens of millions every night.
Yup — tens of millions of old white people, who aren’t going to vote for Obama anyway.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Of course schmoozing works.
The point is, it’s supposed to be part of the internal script. Because when it’s not it makes you look, well, like a whiny bitch who believes what they does is worthless and alienating but AT LEAST it can be pleasant. I mean, I’ve earned that, right?
October 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
If you can manipulate the press by printing a schedule and keeping their plane clean, go for it! That sounds like a very cheap way to buy votes. McCain must still be polling several points ahead of where he would be if he hadn’t so successfully sucked up to the press until this campaign.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Shorter Reynolds:
Dear fucking lord … it’s just unbelievable that so-called “professional journalists” act more childish than the average toddler, and that Reynolds admitted as much.
No wonder our country is so fucked up …
October 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I see “what goes around comes around” not as arrogance, but as threat. Perhaps Dean Reynolds is treated like an idiot because he is an idiot. Notice how in his paen to McCain he doesn’t mention:
McCain blowing off Larry King
McCain blowing off David Letterman
Sarah Palin blowing off everyone except Fox
McCain whining to Tom Brokaw about MSNBC
Press people subjected to insults at McCain campaign events
Snarky attacks on the media
Fundamental misprepresentations of media in McCain campaign commercials
And that took about a minute.
Reynolds should just vote for McCain and work for McCain (presumably as a senate page). He would have no credibility covering President McCain (heeh) and shouldn’t even get past secret service in re: a President Obama. What a disgraceful little boy.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am
But I know why he’s complaining. The wingnuts are running around screaming that the press is in bed with Obama and doing everything in their power to get Obama elected. Reynolds wants them to know he’s not one of ‘those’ journalists. They might send him nasty emails involving ropes and trees.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I don’t understand why more candidates don’t follow McCain’s lead here. Obviously you don’t have to have the media to your house for a BBQ, but the friendlier you are, the better treatment you’re going to get. It may not be fair, but it’s completely understandable. It’s an easy game to play. It doesn’t require anything substantive and it doesn’t require that you personally like the members of the press corps. Just fake it — you’re a politician, that’s what politicians do.
At least Obama isn’t as bad as Hillary was. Her campaign declared war on the press and then acted surprised when they got bad press. Brilliant.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
CelebCorps members being rolled by GOP coddling: It was ever thus, lads and lasses.
You can take Reynolds’ whinefest, replace “Obama” with “Gore” and “McCain” with “Bush”, and have a pretty close approximation of a Kit Seelye piece circa 2000.
Hell, the reason the press attacked the Clintons so hard on “the Travel Office scandal” was not so much for the stupidities done by the Clintons, but because the Clintons dared point out that Billy Dale, who ran the office under Reagan and Bush I, was socking away money from the Travel Office into his own private bank account (he got off on a technicality, but still was forced to repay $69,000 though without admitting wrongdoing) — and the press just wuuuuved Billy Dale:
October 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
“When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious”
when he’s available???
mccain hasn’t held a press conference in weeks and his VP Pick hasn’t help one yet. wtf is dean reynolds talking about?
October 9th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Memo to Dean: No wonder your news operation is such a money loser. Your high-priced, national milf reporters don’t add any value to the report, simply by descending on the scene like a deus ex machina. Meanwhile, you have this vast network of affiliate stations, all of which have their own, perfectly good local milfs who probably can’t wait to get off the murder, fire, accident, tragedy, Gotcha!, cute puppies, weather and sports beat.
So instead of whining like a douche that Obama doesn’t organize his campaign around the flight schedules of CBS reporters, just make better use of your local affiliates. They’d give more informative reports cheaper with less lead time. Every time you use an affiliate report, give the station a free episode of “Everyone Loves Raymond” or something. Win, win and win.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
heh. Wish I could remember who said it first, but the best reaction was:
“Hey, kudos to McCain. They found a way to get the stench of national political reporter out of the seats!”
October 9th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
“when he’s available???
“mccain hasn’t held a press conference in weeks and his VP Pick hasn’t help one yet. wtf is dean reynolds talking about?”
Press availability is not the same as a press conference. McCain is pretty accessible, and has continued to be accessible in the last few weeks, whereas Palin’s availability is extremely limited.
“It’s remarkable how much press affection for McCain seems to be just grounded in this.”
Yes, it always strikes me as remarkable how much the Beltway media sees itself as working in the same institution as, in a sense working for, the officials they’re covering. The complaints about the campaigns are basically the same complaint that employees make about perks and working conditions.
However, as much as Obama’s refusal to suck up to reporters and make them feel important is admirable, it’s probably a good idea to avoid those things that would make reporters grouchy while they’re writing copy. Stinky airplanes would seem to be one of them. As much as some people would like to imagine Dean Reynolds typing his reports while forced into stress positions, it’s probably not good for the Obama campaign that he be subjected to that.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
The latter half of the Reynolds’ piece is basicly about how the Obama campaign makes it hard for Reynolds to do his job, whereas the McCain campaign makes it relatively easy. So the above comment raises cluelessness to a level where all I can do is to gaze up at in in awe.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Campaign reporters as eunuchs? What catty thing will he do if Obama wins?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
“The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama’s, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time.””
Gross. Does this have something to do with the bathrooms on the plane?
Why can’t Obama’s staff manage to keep the plane clean and fresh-smelling?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Boo f**king hoo.
Shorter Dean Reynolds: journalism is hard! More cocktail weenies to keep my strength up!
Yet more proof the press don’t actually give a damn about doing their jobs.
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