The Press Strikes Out

Kevn Drum notes the press may have done itself in, taking off on this piece by Ezra Klein. From Klein:

New York's Michael Bloomberg and ABC News have offered to host the first if the (possible) presidential townhalls. Both campaigns responded with a swift smackdown. The McCain camp says, "the town hall meetings will be open to press but not sponsored or moderated by the press.” Ooh. That sends chills up my spine. The Obama camp goes even further: "any additional appearances will be open to all networks for broadcast on TV or internet like the presidential commission debates rather than sponsored by a single network or news organization." It'll be on the YouTube! And won't be moderated by Charlie Gibson!

This is possibly the first time in memory that the media's actually suffered for doing a bad job, They pissed off both candidates with their shoddy debate moderation during the primary campaign, and so now they're being shunted aside from the bigger prize: The townhalls in the general. It's sort of beautiful.

Drum notes:

It is sort of beautiful. On the other hand, I'm going to wait and see how these things turn out before I cheer too loudly. As bad as the press performance was — especially in last year's MSNBC Hillary pile-on and this year's ABC flag lapel pin lollapalooza — it's possible that allowing the candidates to turn these townhalls into 90-minute commercials could end up pretty badly too. After all, recent debates aside, the most common reason for shutting out the press isn't a principled aversion to trivial questions, it's a highly practical aversion to being forced to answer difficult questions. The decline of the White House press room may be partly the press's fault, but it's even more the fault of presidential communications shops that have gotten astronomically more sophisticated about shutting down the media and limiting presidential exposure to highly controlled, camera-friendly events over the past few decades. This isn't a trend we should be celebrating.

There are some interesting comments to Klein's post about how the media coverage has shaped up so far, particularly on who is getting the most favorable coverage. As one commenter points out, the press seems to be generally pro-Obama, at least when they actually report anything about his campaign and his policy proposals, but can't wait to pile on the oppo stories. McCain seems to me to be getting better treatment. And at Drum's post, there aren't many commenters who are sympathetic to the press. Check out this one.

The media is going to be treated like the skunk at the picnic, and there will be no regrets from the public. They've trivialized themselves so badly that there is nothing they can do about it. The rare relevant "hard question" is no longer expected.