http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6e01fdce-ad97-4dab-a07d-bf98dc52f681&p=1
But I do want to take issue with it on three points.
Crowley writes: “[T]hey killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works.”
I don’t think that’s correct. The editor of GQ killed that story, written by Atlantic editor Josh Green. Bill Clinton does not need any more press, and he does not need any more magazine covers. It is entirely within his rights to decide to not sit for a sales-generating profile (i.e. do a favor for) a magazine
Second, Clinton’s is hardly the only campaign press shop that comes under fire from the press. Crowley writes: “Reporters who have covered the hyper-vigilant campaign say that no detail or editorial spin is too minor to draw a rebuke.”
That may be the case when it comes to the major media reporters — I’ll have to take his word for it — but it is definitely not the case for blogs and media outlets, like this one, that play a different role in today’s trickle-up media environment.
The Obama and Edwards campaigns and their legions of online supporters are merciless nags when it comes to dealing with reporters who write unflatteringly about their candidate. Indeed, an Obama staffer once demanded a correction on a blog item he didn’t like on my personal blog, going so far as to give me false information about what happened when, in fact, I had the story right. I never encountered such unprofessional behavior from a press operation before in my career. Similarly, the stories about delays in returning calls are legion.
Third, Crowley writes: “the Clinton machine, say reporters and pro-Hillary Democrats, is emulating nothing less than the model of the Bush White House, which has treated the press with thinly veiled contempt and minimal cooperation. “The Bush administration changed the rules,” as one scribe puts it–and the Clintonites like the way they look.”
That may be the case, but I will differ with Crowley’s take on Bush when it comes to the behavior of his campaign. Bizarre but true: I, an American Prospect reporter, found it easier to get people from the George Bush re-eleciton campaign to talk to me on the record and call me back than people from the Kerry campaign. Go figure.