It's funny how journalists admit Vice President Kamala Harris is getting a media honeymoon, and then deny it means anything. Ben Smith at Semafor sent an email noting "Republican fury" at the gushy pro-Kamala bias and claiming, "But who are we, and Republicans, kidding? I wish we had that kind of power. The news media can't make and break politicians (even Democrats) anymore."
He wrote this right after weeks of a brutally negative media drumbeat was part of driving President Joe Biden out of the race.
Smith was promoting a July 28 Semafor article by reporter Max Tani titled "A more media-friendly Kamala Harris runs for president." The Harris campaign is starting late, but for years now, Harris has been building relationships with her Democratic allies in the so-called mainstream media elite.
We're told she's invited a "parade of prominent television anchors and media executives" to dine with her at the vice president's home, the Naval Observatory, and given "personal tours of her garden" to many journalists. Who might that be?
In 2023, she hosted a dinner for "Morning Joe'' hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who are currently the most shamelessly robotic DNC talking-points repeaters on television. She's held similar off-the-record schmoozefests with "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker, the White House reporters for the Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision, and "all of the reporters -- for a while, all women -- in the front row of the Brady briefing room."
That would be ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, AP, Reuters and ... Fox News.
On top of that, Tani dished that there were off-the-record meet-and-greets in Harris' office with not just The New York Times but with writers for "fairly niche abortion Substacks." Let's guess that starts with staunch feminist Jessica Valenti, with her "Abortion, Every Day" blog.
This kind of meeting establishes what the "off the record" game accomplishes. Journalists feel like they better "know" the politician, then can gush over "how they think" about things and feel good about their insider knowledge. When everyone in the room is a Democrat, the politician can explain what kind of spin they would like the servile journalists to convey. Maybe Harris told each one, "I am definitely not the border czar."
So, what media outlets does Kamala consume? It's predictable: "Harris keeps the ritual that many Democratic Washington politicians do: casually tuning into 'Morning Joe' on the treadmill and elliptical," with a nod to "morning broadcast news." She "keeps the TVs in her office and on Air Force Two tuned to CNN." You have to highlight the "reliable" liberal sources.
Kamala allegedly doesn't gripe about individual stories, but we do learn she wasn't happy with the media coverage on her 2019 presidential campaign. "Towards the end of her campaign, two people familiar [with Kamala] told Semafor that Harris privately observed that it seemed like the networks were pigeonholing her by mostly assigning to Black embeds and staff to cover her."
It's always curious when assigning black reporters to black politicians (or female reporters to female politicians, or gay reporters to gay politicians) is "pigeonholing" instead of a method to ensure media "empathy." This statement stumbles into implying black is "second class."
The most fascinating media question in the next three months is: How many press conferences or interviews? The national newspapers were never granted a President Biden interview. The voters can't scrutinize you when your "media appearance" is chatting over breakfast burritos with Joe and Mika. Slap on a microphone and take some questions.
Otherwise, we'll continue the curious pattern of Donald Trump granting wide access despite being hammered, and the Democrat slamming the door on their allies.
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