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The Spectacle Blog
Understand, once and for all, that the old media is part of the Democratic Party now. Ignore it. Never send Michele Bachmann onto Hardball again. Never send Sarah to play nice with Katie. We need to develop and create our own work-arounds - Fox, talk radio, NRO, etc. - and use them. Don’t play by their rules: make our own.
What is being advised, in effect, is this: Don’t bother explaining conservative policies to anyone in the news business. Don’t try to locate friends — or at least, non-enemies — in journalism. Retreat to your echo chamber and pretend that the nation’s largest news organizations don’t exist.
Media relations is about relationships. Treating reporters as the enemy is self-defeating. It seems, however, that a generation of Republican operatives have been taught to (a) treat reporters like crap, and (b) whine constantly about bias. How’s that been working for you, Tucker Bounds?
Fred| 11.5.08 @ 2:57AM
Emailer was over-the-top, but what need there is for conservatives to appear on hackwork like Hardball is absolutely beyond me.
Spicy Joker| 11.5.08 @ 3:07AM
Yes, because forming "relationships" with the media sure helped McCain.
Captain America| 11.5.08 @ 3:28AM
David is correct on this. Why is it that Democrats got away with not having a debate moderated by Brit Hume from Fox News? Clearly they are following this sage advise.
Kozak| 11.5.08 @ 3:35AM
Explaining conservative principles to members of the press is like explaining a rainbow to someone blind from birth.
jaywhite| 11.5.08 @ 4:39AM
The "news business" ? The "news business" hates republicans. Anyone who doesn't is driven out of the "news business". Locate "friendly" reporters? If someone enters journalism who is really objective, they make it past the local weekly newspaper. Notice how even Fox doesn't begin to compensate for the one-sided , incredibly biased "news" business. While Fox has co-hosts like ferret faced Colmes, and constantly has Al Sharpton, and similar types, the rest of the "news" business is continuous stream of anti-conservative , anti-republican propaganda.
jaywhite| 11.5.08 @ 4:42AM
Correction :Should read " If someone enters journalism who is really objective, they DON'T make it past the local weekly newspaper.
Becky| 11.5.08 @ 8:26AM
Anyone running for office should be accessible to the press, no matter which flavor. As noted elsewhere, McCain's campaign suffered from an in coherent, unpolished message. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. You cannot claim to be a conservative and then state your proudest acheivements involve reaching across the isle, unless they prove you moved your opponent to your side.
The persuasion of conservative and libertarian principles in bringing over those who suffer from laziness in historical perspective and thought, involves the ability to use logic instead of emotion, and to prepare better defenses of why central control of individual liberties damage the fabric of American culture and society much like the central planning control of an economy damage the overall wealth of the nation. I find that the campaign sound bites that tv affords have become more and more asinine over the years. What liberty is, was hardly mentioned, if at all.
Obama won the argument (no, he wasn't really accessible and whined whenever he got bad press too) on the economy being "fair" instead of "just".
Do we really beleive in "one nation with liberty and justice for all?" The media, including conservative leaning media, do not do a good job of asking questions that make the public think. The poll questions are poor. The polls all ask basically the same questions and lead the responder to think and respond accordingly. The variety of questions and selection of options are restricting. An example "do you think the country is going in the wrong direction?" I have answered that one yes, but it doesn't mean because a republican is in office, I think a democrat should be, but that is what we are led to believe we think when the results are gathered and reported.
The biggest worry today is that the protection of the right to question and criticize is maintained, and that those doing so are intelligent and well informed enough to be up to the task.
Here's a little hope: In Detroit, the saga of the corrupt mayor was broken by dogged determination of the press. If a main stream news organization (still liberally slanted) has been under appreciated this year it is the Detroit Free Press. Then again, when you look at the state of Detroit, you wonder what took them so long.
Also, a couple of young people have had a big impact this year; the college reporters who broke and followed the Ohio voter fraud scandals and the young intern at Mackinac Center who uncovered the connection between a petition group and the UAW to change the Michigan Constitution before it was too late.
Hank Hill| 11.5.08 @ 8:32AM
No, I'm with David. The old media is dying out anyway and, to the extent they are still influential, they are too invested in the Democrat Party. The GOP needs to start looking for ways to get its message out unfiltered. Getting it "out" but chopped up and bastardized (ala the Gibson-Palin interview) does more harm than good. Obama won in part because the democrats are so much better at harnessing the power of the new media. We need to be working on that, not trying to regain the respect of a dying industry.
Robert Stacy McCain | 11.5.08 @ 9:48AM
Spicy Joker: McCain didn't "develop relationships" with the media in terms of explaining to them conservative principles. But the accessibility of his 2000 campaign was praiseworthy. In explaining the MSM's sycophancy toward Obama, it is important to recognize that Obama's campaign was run by David Axelrod, who spent 8 years as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
Brian Moore| 11.5.08 @ 11:26AM
Robert is 100 percent right on this. I'll add one point - if Republicans can't handle The New York Times, how can an undecided voter have any confidence they can handle real problems? Pace that, it's unseemly that people who - often rightly - criticize blacks for "playing the race card" turn around without a trace of irony to complain about the lousy hand they keep getting from "the media." (Okay - that's two points!)
I'm afraid the Republican Party is turning into a collection of whining losers, complaining about media bias, ACORN, penny-ante donations to Obama, Hollywood liberals and a host of other trivial items. And all this comes at the expense of generating ideas that might galvanize an electorate.
SmokeVanThorn| 11.5.08 @ 1:18PM
Yeah, that explains the media's bias - Axelrod was a reporter. If McCain had had a former reporter running his campaign, the NYT and others would have been all over Wright, Ayers, ACORN, illegal campaign contributions, etc. Gee, the LA Times probably would have released the Khalidi tape.
And, Mooore, your equating playing the race card on issues that had nothing to do with race (which the media gleefully joined in doing to stifle any serious questioning of the Hologram) with legitimate complaints about demonstrated media bias doesn't wash. I guess you liked the focus on non-trivial matters, like the cost of Sarah Palin's clothing, huh?
Greylion| 11.5.08 @ 1:59PM
Yup!
Reporters - right up there with lawyers and politicians as icons for honesty and objectivity.
You a reporter are ya McCain?
ruth| 11.5.08 @ 3:32PM
Okay, you've stated what Republicans shouldn't do--what should we do? How could we have prevented the embarassing media ambushes of Governor Palin? That was awful, and not fair to her.
Roy Koczela| 11.5.08 @ 3:36PM
I believe the strategy should parallel counterinsurgency strategy in Anbar, eg, peel off "reconcilables" from "irreconcilables". Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Jon Stewart are pieces of crap. No Republican, in any way, under any circumstances, anywhere, ever, should talk to them. They should treat them exactly as liberals treat Rush Limbaugh. Neither should they talk to most NY Times reporters. But they should talk to reporters who, though liberal(or even, wonder of wonders, conservative) have made a demonstrated effort to present the facts impartially.
They should also work to make this distinction clear to the public. There is the liberal media and then there is the media which goes on air talking about how Obama gives them tingles up their leg, chanting "f*** Sarah Palin", etc etc. The minute the media performs a hatchet job on them they should make clear that that media outlet will never get an interview again until they render a full apology. Meanwhile they should reward, with greater access, NOT those outlets which slant the facts in their favor but those outlets which present the facts impartially.
Brian Moore| 11.5.08 @ 4:10PM
SmokeVanThorn: The point is that playing the race card and whining about media bias have both become knee-jerk, default positions that mask real, often internally-generated problems. And neither has done its advocates a bit of good.
ruth| 11.5.08 @ 5:38PM
Roy, sounds good to me.
Jeanine| 11.5.08 @ 10:16PM
Tucker Bounds has never whined about an interview. Tucker Bounds is congenial and humble, with a great rapport amongst reporters. If you want to blame anyone over the Megyn Kelley or Larry King/Campbell Brown/CNN dispute, then the blame rightly belongs with hot tempered Steve Schmidt, who didn't put his candidates best interests over his own.