Responding to a question from N.Y. Times reporter Jacques Steinberg about charges that journalists have covered Barack Obama more fairly or affectionately than Hillary Clinton‘s, Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter said “that the attempt by the Clinton camp to weigh various stories represented a kind of ‘silly, even-Steven-itis.
“‘People got it into their head that if you say something good about a candidate, you [also] have to say something bad about him, and if you don√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢t, that√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s not fair. What the Clinton partisans wanted was for us to create a phony balance that was at odds with what our eyes were telling us. That√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s not the job of a journalist.’
AP reporter Mike Glover, travelling with the Clinton campaign, told Steinberg that retired AP veteran Walter Mears “used to say that who wins is part of the story. We√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢re covering a candidate who√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s lost 11 straight primaries. [But the reporters travelling with Obama] are covering a candidate who has won 11 straight primaries.”
On top of which is the common observation that many press people dislike — you could use the word “hate” — Clinton campaign staffers. It was obvious that genie was out of the bottle a long while ago. It was re-emphasized recently when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews talked about how the Clinton strategy of “knee-capping” journalists hadn’t worked. MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson has also stated flat-out that he and other journalists are not fans of Sen. Clinton’s staffers.