After years of watching the Republican Party try -- and fail --
to deal effectively with liberal media bias, conservatives may be
tempted to throw up their hands in despair. However, my
campaign-trail excursions last year brought me into direct
contact with a
major cause of this chronic problem:
To say that Republican political operatives treat reporters like
dirt would be to suggest that Republican political operatives
have an unusually fanatical hatred of dirt, because in more than
two decades of journalism, I have never experienced the kind of
frigid hostility I encountered when I went out and tried to
cover the McCain campaign. ("Tried" being the key word, since
it's very difficult to cover candidates who almost never hold
press conferences and instruct their campaign staff not to talk
to you.)
Republican leaders habitually blame media bias for all their
woes, but rank-and-file Republicans need to start asking to
what extent this media bias is fomented and exacerbated by
the cluelessness of GOP leadership and the insulting
arrogance of GOP political operatives.
H.L. Mencken once said that the only way a journalist should ever
look at a politician is down. Imagine, then, a
reporter's reaction when he goes out on the road to cover a
candidate and finds himself being bossed around by some rudely
superior-acting 23-year-old punk fresh out of a College
Republican club. . . .
It's long -- 3,800 words -- but I urge conservatives to
read the whole thing, if you want to know why the
Republican Party's media "strategery" so often backfires
disastrously.
