The New Republic: "Bunker Hillary - Clinton's strategy for crushing the media"

[Tejanocrat]

"Bunker Hillary" by Michael Crowley in The New Republic:

Reporters who have covered the hyper-vigilant campaign say that no detail or editorial spin is too minor to draw a rebuke. Even seasoned political journalists describe reporting on Hillary as a torturous experience. Though few dare offer specifics for the record ... privately, they recount excruciating battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep suspicion. ... Hillary's aides don't hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works. ... Clinton aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top editors. "They're frightening!" says one reporter who has covered Clinton. "They don't see {reporting} as a healthy part of the process. They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game."

Despite all the grumbling, however, the press has showered Hillary with strikingly positive coverage. ... It's enough to make you suspect that breeding fear and paranoia within the press corps is itself part of the Clinton campaign's strategy. And, if that sounds familiar, it may be because the Clinton machine, say reporters and pro-Hillary Democrats, is emulating nothing less than the model of the Bush White House, which has treated the press with thinly veiled contempt and minimal cooperation. "The Bush administration changed the rules," as one scribe puts it--and the Clintonites like the way they look. (To be sure, no one accuses the Clinton team of outright lying to the press, as the Bushies have done, or of crossing other ethical lines. ... But, as the murmur of discontent among the fourth estate grows--and Hillary's coverage has taken a sharper tone since a widely panned debate performance late last month--even some Hillary supporters fear that the strategy may produce a dangerous backlash.The defining quality of that machine is, simply, impenetrability. Reporting any story the Clintonites haven't specifically encouraged can be like wading through mud. "Their rule is never to volunteer information--ever," says one reporter who has experienced this. (Process stories are particularly verboten.) Another is a willingness to offer access to Clinton only under strictly controlled circumstances--as when she agreed to appear on the major TV networks the day her candidacy launched on the condition that the interviews be short and unedited, allowing precious little time for unrelated queries. ...

Sometimes, Hillary even gets in the act. According to Gerth and Van Natta, Kornblut was just back from a planned vacation she took after her story appeared when she ran into Hillary in a hotel. Referring to Kornblut's casual attire, Hillary cracked, "Anne, I thought you left Barbados"--revealing an ominous awareness of the reporter's movements. "That's their imprimatur," says the Democratic strategist with presidential experience. "When there's a story they don't like, they seize on it and turn it back on the reporter, and make it about the reporter." (As First Lady, Hillary called for a public "frontal assault" against The Washington Post's lead Whitewater reporter, Susan Schmidt, according to the Post's Howard Kurtz, though the plan was never enacted.)

[DURHAM D]

1. Go get 'em Hillary -

Don't talk to anyone who has ever written a false accusation or snarly comment about you - freeze the little fuckers out.

If they take out a pencil shove it in their eye. Give them back their own medicine.

[illinoisprogressive]

2. I've heard rumors that this is what the Campaign is doing. what I cannot understand

is why the press doesn't stand up to them. afterall, the clintons need the press more than the press needs the clintons.
With Hillary running she needs to have the exposure by the press and Bill needs the press and the spotlight like he needs air.
so, all the press has to do is stand up to them and have a backbone.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Just Like Planted Shills In The Audience, This Is A BushRove Tactic

The Bush/Clinton axis is quite disturbing.

[zbdent]

4. Hillary's strategy to crush the media:

If a reporter asks a pointed question, he or she is relegated to the back of the room and never called upon again ... wait, that's George W. Bush ...

If a person makes a statement that is less than flattering about the candidate, that person is blackballed from his or her profession ... oh, wait ... Bush again ...

If a TV or radio personality makes a joke about ... um ... oh, hell ...

Gee, I can't think of anything that Bush hasn't done that would be "new" for her to do ...

[Tejanocrat]

5. LOL!

[hijinx87]

6. the MSM is upset with hillary, and people are actually willing to take the MSM's side?

gimme.a.freaking.break. :eyes:


so she doesn't trust the MSM, and has an apparently
effective strategy for managing the jerks. and this
is a problem HOW?!?!?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. I Guess She's Supposed To Shuck And Smile While The MSM Reams Her

Thank God she doesn't roll that way...

[hijinx87]

8. exactly.

the little MSM weasels whine all the time. what surprises
me is that some of us here at DU have become so jaded and
cynical that they would actually prefer to side with the
hatchet men in the MSM than a democratic senator, whoever
he or she is.

this is deeply disappointing.