By DAVID BAUDER, AP Media Author
Throughout Kamala Harris’ thrill ride that has upended the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, journalists for essentially the most half have been on the surface wanting in. The vp hasn’t given an interview and has barely engaged with reporters since changing into the Democratic alternative to exchange Joe Biden.
That’s about to vary, now that it has change into a marketing campaign problem. However for journalists, the bigger lesson is that their position as presidential gatekeepers might be diminishing without end.
Harris travels with reporters on Air Drive Two and often talks to them, however her marketing campaign employees insists the conversations are off the document. Exterior of the aircraft on Thursday, she approached cameras and notebooks to publicly reply some questions, and considered one of them was about when she would sit down for an in-depth interview.
“I’ve talked to my group,” she mentioned. “I would like us to get an interview collectively by the top of the month.”
She spoke on the identical afternoon that her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, gave a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, partially to attract a distinction with Harris. “She’s not sensible sufficient to do a information convention,” Trump mentioned. His vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, posted a comment on social media to level out that Trump was doing one thing that Harris hadn’t.
The panorama for candidate interviews has modified
On condition that trendy presidential campaigns are basically advertising and marketing operations, Harris’ stance is no surprise. For the groups behind candidates, “the aim is to manage the message as a lot as doable,” mentioned Kevin Madden, a Republican communications strategist who was senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
Interviews and information conferences take that management away. Candidates are on the mercy of questions that journalists increase — even when they attempt to change the topic. Information shops determine which solutions are newsworthy and might be sliced and diced into soundbites that rocket round social networks, often devoid of the context during which they have been uttered.
In such an setting, the worth and notion of the sit-down interview has modified — for journalists and candidates alike.
When Trump appeared final month in an interview format earlier than the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists, his aides virtually actually didn’t need the main headline to be about their candidate suggesting Harris had misled voters about her race.
Between Instagram, Tik-Tok, televised rallies, emails or texts, campaigns have so many different methods of getting their message throughout to potential voters immediately. This lessens the necessity to immediately interact with journalists, Madden mentioned.
“Presidential campaigns more and more are performed as performances earlier than a sympathetic viewers, one that’s invited to look at and hear however to not query or reply,” The New York Instances wrote in a latest editorial.
Harris’ uncommon late entry into the race means she bypassed vetting by voters, with journalists typically as their surrogates, that takes on a extra necessary position within the early phases of a nomination battle the place a extra intimate type of retail politics varies from state to state. That makes it all of the extra necessary that she be accessible to discuss her document and plans, the newspaper argued.
“Individuals deserve the chance to ask questions of those that are searching for to steer their authorities,” the editorial mentioned.
The Instances’ editorial board has requested an interview with Harris and hasn’t acquired a solution, a spokesman mentioned. The identical was true of Biden earlier than he dropped out.
A sympathetic interview — or none in any respect
Harris and her group could also be taking classes from her boss; Biden has lagged behind previous presidents within the variety of interviews granted and press conferences held. That modified after the June debate with Trump that despatched his re-election effort right into a loss of life spiral; televised interviews with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and NBC’s Lester Holt did little to vary that trajectory.
Trump has been extra accessible, however typically he talks with individuals unlikely to problem him. Since July 5, he’s given interviews to Fox Information personalities Maria Bartiromo, Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Harris Faulkner, Brian Kilmeade and Sean Hannity. He’s additionally appeared twice on the “Fox & Mates” morning present.
Between these interviews — often clipped and run on different networks — and an limitless stream of posts on his Fact Social web site, Trump is “a content material machine,” Madden mentioned.
Trump’s information convention was telecast dwell on CNN, Fox Information Channel and MSNBC, though CNN and MSNBC each reduce out earlier than it was completed to reality verify among the claims.
Fox has additionally often identified the problem of Harris’ lack of entry. “Trump Takes Questions as Harris Dodges Media,” mentioned one of many community’s onscreen messages as Trump talked.
“We will’t be the one media firm that talks about it,” Fox’s Invoice Hemmer mentioned on Tuesday, making reference to the upcoming Democratic nationwide conference. “Sixteen days she has gone and not using a important interview. Is it doable that she may run out the clock till Chicago? That might be extraordinary. you then’d must ask your self. What are you hiding? What’s your group hiding from?”
Madden mentioned that whereas interviews carry much less significance than they used to, there are nonetheless some undecided voters who wish to see them to assist make their decisions. That’s why he expects they are going to occur.
“You wish to management it so long as doable as a lot as doable,” he mentioned. “They’ve had a lot momentum over the past couple of weeks, they haven’t needed to actually sit down and make their case on to reporters but. The day is unquestionably coming.”
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Related Press reporters Seung Min Kim and Will Weissert in Washington and Darlene Superville in Romulus, Michigan, contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Comply with him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.
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