Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 8 January 2008 at 15:07
Tags: Guardian Unlimited, Mail Online, Telegraph.co.uk
Telegraph correspondent Toby Harnden, blogging from the Iowa caucuses earlier this week, notedhow unhelpful the Hillary Clinton campaign had been to foreign journalists — in stark contrast to the victorious Barak Obama campaign:
The Hillary Clinton staff excluded all foreign press from their “victory” celebration. A smug, humourless functionary called Lane told me and my colleague Alex Spillius that 700 US national press were allowed but no nasty foreigners – not even the BBC.
He said that there was foreign pool coverage for video and tv – but no print pool – explaining, condescendingly, that “If you think about it, there couldn’t be foreign print pool because it would have to be in lots of different languages.” Well, how about print pool in English, buddy? He gave me the email of an AP correspondent who was the “national” pool. I emailed her asking for the pool copy. Did I get it? Of course not.
Contrast that with the Obama staff. Senior aides chatting away to big shot and small fry reporters alike. Credentials and access to as many reporters and members of the public who wanted it. Throughout the Iowa campaign, Obama volunteers would thank us for coming, accompany us to the correct entrance if we asked the way. Clinton staffers treated us as an inconvenience at best and at worst like a bad smell.
As this exchange was taking place, an American reporter I know came over to us and said: “Get used to it – this is what the next eight years could be like.” Except that after tonight’s result it looks like we won’t have to get used to it after all.
The old division between foreign and domestic press just doesn’t make sense in the Internet age. As the blog Britain and America notes, the Clinton campaign’s attitude might not be such a good idea given the large readership of British news web sites among the American electorate.
They are right: after all, last summer the sixth and seventh most-read newspaper web sites in the United States were called Mail Online and Guardian Unlimited.
