Palin: McCain campaign's end-run around media

[DeepModem Mom]

San Francisco Chronicle: Palin: McCain campaign's end-run around media
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The McCain campaign is attempting to do something unheard of in the modern political era. It is not just running against the mainstream media, it is running around it.

This strategy is not so much expressed in McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt's declaration last week that the New York Times is "150 percent in the tank" for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama or the media-bashing by several speakers at this month's Republican National Convention. It's more about the GOP's continued sheltering of its vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

She has yet to hold a major press conference 32 days after McCain announced her as his running mate - and that's not changing anytime soon. McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said Palin will do at least one news conference before election day. That could mean that the person who could potentially lead the free world will have done one national press conference before being sworn into office. The Democratic vice presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has given more than 89 national and local interviews over roughly the same period of time.

Other than TV interviews with CBS anchor Katie Couric, ABC anchor Charlie Gibson and conservative Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, Palin hasn't engaged the press. The effort to shield her is so intense that when she met with foreign leaders in New York last week, the campaign initially would only allow photographers near her....

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When television news outlets threatened not to run any images of her meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday unless reporters were allowed in as well, the campaign allowed CNN - which was providing the pool report for the event - inside. Briefly. According to the network, "CNN's producer and other photographers were allowed in the room for just 29 seconds."

Last week, The Chronicle began a "Free Sarah Palin" campaign on its Politics blog, documenting the continuing lack of access to the candidate. The effort was echoed by CNN host Campbell Brown, who called on "the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment."...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/29/MNTB1374LU.DTL&tsp=1