'Here's Why Harris Won't Hold Any News Conferences'

<https://pjmedia.com/marktapscott/2024/09/03/is-this-the-real-reason-harris-avoids-the-media-n4932193>

'It's going on 45 days since Vice President Kamala Harris last held a
news conference with journalists, and speculation is rampant about how
much longer she will go before convening another such gathering.

Here's my suggestion: She won't.

Or if she ever does, such gatherings will be few and far between.

Harris watched President Joe Biden all but ignore the White House press
corps for more than three years. When he did deign to stand in front of
the journalists to take a series of well-scripted questions, doing so
invariably drew attention to his waning cognitive abilities.

But here's the overlooked fact that is even more significant than the
spotlight that shone on Biden's decline during news conferences: rarely
was he ever asked a challenging question by any of the assembled
journalists other than Fox News' Steve Doocy. And even rarer were the
tough follow-ups that are essential to getting some semblance of the
truth out of most politicians. More often, the questions have tended to
be softballs that suggest most of the journalists present are
sympathetic to the Biden-Harris administration.

What's the lesson here that Harris and Democrats are likely drawing?
Ignoring the national media is a no-downside proposition for them
because, for the most part, the Mainstream Media is in their pockets.'
'It's not news that most journalists tend to the liberal side of the
ideological spectrum. There is little doubt that, in the absence of
existing professional standards that bar journalists from making
political contributions, the results would be overwhelmingly favorable
to Democrats. And this bias has been clear to anybody not wearing
ideological blinders for decades. Consider this from the Media Research
Center:'

'Editors Group Noted the Growing Imbalance: In 1996, the American
Society of Newspaper Editors surveyed 1,037 journalists at 61
newspapers. They learned that newsrooms were more ideologically
unrepresentative than they had been in the late 1980s: “In 1996 only 15
percent of the newsroom labeled itself conservative/Republican or
leaning in that direction, down from 22 percent in 1988,” when the ASNE
last conducted a comprehensive survey. Those identifying themselves as
independent jumped from 17 to 24 percent while the percent calling
themselves “liberal/Democrat” or leaning left held steady, down one
point to 61 percent.

The ASNE report, The Newspaper Journalists of the ‘90s, also revealed
that bigger — presumably more influential — newspapers had the most
liberal staffs: “On papers of at least 50,000 circulation, 65 percent of
the staffs are liberal/Democrat or lean that way. The split at papers of
less than 50,000 is less pronounced: still predominantly liberal, but
51-23 percent.”'

'The bias has become even more pronounced in the Trump era, as reported
last December by The Economist, which employed some sophisticated
academic research techniques to measure how journalists react to the
language of Democrats and Republicans:

We find that there is indeed an affinity between the media and the left,
because journalists tend to prefer the language used by Democratic
lawmakers. Moreover, this disparity has grown since the start of Donald
Trump’s presidency. As a result, the number of media sources covering
politics in balanced language has dwindled.

It's true that Harris would almost certainly be a disaster were she
subjected to the withering blizzard of critically couched, rapid-fire
questions that typified Trump's four years in the Oval Office. Even
given the velvet-glove treatment Harris would get from the vast majority
of journalists, there is always the possibility that some loner of an
independent scribe might somehow manage to be recognized and then ask a
question Harris can't handle.

So, don't be surprised between now and Election Day when Harris does
only one wide-open news conference on the campaign trail. Or none.'