He wrote a self-righteous piece that she needs to suck up the the media more because the media are there to serve the public's right to know. In principle that's true but do you really think the way the media cover Clinton has anything to do with trying to inform the public?
The only things they want to talk about are phony scandals. Here are the 2 burning things they'd like to ask her about:
1. How is that she has a server! A server! They never worry about why Jeb also used one when he was Florida Governor.
2. About her husband's Global Initiative, which as much as the media wants to make an issue out of this book by GOP opposition research-at least is a philanthropic organization that does good in the world. How vile it is to hear these fat cats demand that the CGI shutdown altogether to avoid the appearance of evil! It's not like Cheney shutdown Haliburton which certainly wasn't a philanthropic organization.
I generally like Waldman but I call him self-righteous here because it's self-righteous for anyone in the media to lecture her with it's track record of Hillary Clinton coverage.
The reason Waldman gives for why she has to treat the press better is not because it's hurting her in the polls but because it's' the right thing to do.
You know it occurs to me that what she ought to do is say she'll answer anything the media wants to ask her if it's nothing about either emails or the CGI.
I think Waldman actually is on to something where he talks about why the media doesn't like her.
"The relationship between Hillary Clinton and the reporters covering her campaign is spiraling downward. While the journalists have some legitimate gripes, they face a dilemma: How can they get their concerns addressed by a campaign that plainly dislikes them, and doesn’t think it needs to have good relations with the press in order to succeed?"
"But if they’re going to convince her to do that, many of them are going about it the wrong way. I’ve suggested before that part of the reason journalists as a group seem to have such an intense dislike for Bill and Hillary Clinton is that their ability to emerge relatively unscathed from the innumerable mini-scandals and faux-scandals with which the press becomes temporarily consumed is an implicit rebuke to the press’ power. You can see that in the argument some in the media are now making about this troubled relationship: that Clinton should work to improve it because her numbers in this or that poll are slipping."
The dirty little secret is that she doesn't need them to succeed. That's why I say they need to treat her better-assuming they want access. Matt Yglesias reminds the Very Serious folks in the media that Hillary is to paraphrase the President back in 2008 'popular enough.'
In fact she's more than popular enough-she's very popular, Klein argues she's the most popular politician in the country-at least nationally among those running for President.
It would be genuinely silly to think that her early leads in general election polling tell us anything interesting about what will happen in November 2016. But they tell us a lot about how people feel in May 2015, and the way they feel is pretty good about Hillary Clinton.
The only things they want to talk about are phony scandals. Here are the 2 burning things they'd like to ask her about:
1. How is that she has a server! A server! They never worry about why Jeb also used one when he was Florida Governor.
2. About her husband's Global Initiative, which as much as the media wants to make an issue out of this book by GOP opposition research-at least is a philanthropic organization that does good in the world. How vile it is to hear these fat cats demand that the CGI shutdown altogether to avoid the appearance of evil! It's not like Cheney shutdown Haliburton which certainly wasn't a philanthropic organization.
I generally like Waldman but I call him self-righteous here because it's self-righteous for anyone in the media to lecture her with it's track record of Hillary Clinton coverage.
The reason Waldman gives for why she has to treat the press better is not because it's hurting her in the polls but because it's' the right thing to do.
You know it occurs to me that what she ought to do is say she'll answer anything the media wants to ask her if it's nothing about either emails or the CGI.
I think Waldman actually is on to something where he talks about why the media doesn't like her.
"The relationship between Hillary Clinton and the reporters covering her campaign is spiraling downward. While the journalists have some legitimate gripes, they face a dilemma: How can they get their concerns addressed by a campaign that plainly dislikes them, and doesn’t think it needs to have good relations with the press in order to succeed?"
"But if they’re going to convince her to do that, many of them are going about it the wrong way. I’ve suggested before that part of the reason journalists as a group seem to have such an intense dislike for Bill and Hillary Clinton is that their ability to emerge relatively unscathed from the innumerable mini-scandals and faux-scandals with which the press becomes temporarily consumed is an implicit rebuke to the press’ power. You can see that in the argument some in the media are now making about this troubled relationship: that Clinton should work to improve it because her numbers in this or that poll are slipping."
The dirty little secret is that she doesn't need them to succeed. That's why I say they need to treat her better-assuming they want access. Matt Yglesias reminds the Very Serious folks in the media that Hillary is to paraphrase the President back in 2008 'popular enough.'
In fact she's more than popular enough-she's very popular, Klein argues she's the most popular politician in the country-at least nationally among those running for President.
It would be genuinely silly to think that her early leads in general election polling tell us anything interesting about what will happen in November 2016. But they tell us a lot about how people feel in May 2015, and the way they feel is pretty good about Hillary Clinton.
According to Gallup, for example, she is the most admired woman in the world. What's more, she has been the most admired woman in the world for 17 out of the past 18 years.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/1/8676727/hillary-clinton-popularity
However, as Yglesias points out, the press doesn't like Hillary and see her popularity as something to explain-it offends them, as if they're opinion doesn't matter-which it neither does nor should.
"But the press hates to admit this. For Clinton, good news is never just good news. Instead it's an opportunity to remind the public about the media's negative narratives about Clinton and then to muse on the fact that her ratings somehow manage to hold up despite these narratives."
"among journalists, Clinton is one of the least popular politicians. She is not forthcoming or entertaining with the press. She doesn't offer good quotes. She doesn't like journalists, respect what we do, or care to hide her disdain for the media. She feels that the right-wing press has tried to destroy her for decades, that the mainstream press got played like a cheap fiddle by the conservative press, and that even the liberal press was overwhelmingly hostile to her during her 2008 campaign."
She is right on all counts. As Yglesias says, her election isn't going to hinge on the press' approval of her.
Brian Beutler sums it up well:
"The Democratic primary would be genuinely more exciting if Clinton didn’t have such an enormous lead, among voters who really like her. But the truth bedeviling campaign reporters is that she is the most popular politician in America and as famous as any current or former president, and these two facts combined create daunting problems, both for anyone who wants to be the Democratic nominee who isn’t named Hillary Clinton, and for reporters covering the Democratic primary."
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121939/bernie-sanders-surges-trails-hillary-clinton-severely
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