CLINTON’S LESSONS
Presidential campaign launch puts spotlight on the changing role of media, with echoes in Canada. Delacourt,
Politicians and the media need each other, especially during an election campaign — or so the conventional wisdom goes.
But the launch of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the U.S. presidency this week shows the ways in which that symbiotic relationship is unravelling — in what could be also be a sneak preview for media-political dealings in the coming federal election in Canada.
Clinton, entering the race officially last weekend, tossed away all the traditional tools of campaign launches — no podium, no speech, no press conference.
Instead, she announced her candidacy with a carefully staged video featuring the would-be president with everyday Americans. On Sunday afternoon, U.S. political reporters were cooling their heels, waiting for the video release through social media.
“In all seriousness, can we just pretend the announcement just happened?” Philip Bump, a political writer with the Washington Post, grumbled on Twitter. “What will actually change?”
If you think that this couldn’t happen in Canada, note that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been using weekly videos to offer “exclusive” glimpses into his government for a year or so now — glimpses that are often not available to reporters or photographers from the press gallery.
As well, cabinet appointments and many other news announcements routinely come first on Twitter and later by official news release to the Ottawa media.
It shouldn’t surprise us in the least if Harper decided to the launch the election campaign on social media either, maybe with an accompanying video release. Who knows? Maybe the video is already in the vault, complete with human backdrops.
Clinton also chose to launch her presidential campaign without the trappings of a press entourage aboard a campaign plane. On the road in a humble, nondescript van dubbed “Scooby,” Clinton has left it up to reporters to follow her on their own steam. This has led to some hilarious scenes of chaos — a media foot chase outside a community college in Iowa, for instance. “Why do we do this?” one out-of-breath reporter wondered aloud in mid-pursuit.
Again, that kind of spectacle is all too possible here during the federal campaign, especially as more members of the media make the hard decision on whether to stay off the official leaders’ tours this year.
That decision has been the topic of much recent conversation around the election planning tables at various media outlets the past few months.
Cost is a major issue: an estimated $10,000 a seat on the campaign planes, each week, for each member of the media aboard the tour. Yes, you read that correctly. A five-week long campaign will cost a minimum of $50,000 for each journalist on a leader’s plane, and that’s assuming that the price hasn’t risen since 2011. Covering three leaders brings that to a total of $150,000 for every media outlet, at a minimum, and that doesn’t include hotels or any costs beyond travel and food.
Given that hefty price tag, managers at cash-strapped media outlets (and that’s all of them) are staring down tough questions of cost and, more importantly, value for that money.
Despite the rapid changes to the media landscape, leaders’ tours still function more or less as they did in the 1970s — a platform announcement in the morning, travel throughout the day and a partisan rally in the evening.
Unlike the 1970s, however, reporters’ access to the leaders and their teams is far more limited, meaning that media outlets are paying $10,000 a week for the privilege of having a reporter on hand for appearances that are also broadcast live on TV and the web.
To borrow that existential question from the harried Clinton reporter: “Why do we do this?”
The answer, of course, is that the media and politicians still do need each other. Most Canadians get their political news from mainstream media, especially TV, studies have shown, though that may well change as more people find the news they’re seeking online.
At the big gatherings of the Manning and Broadbent institutes in Ottawa this year, attendees were briefed on how to use Facebook and Google (not Twitter, curiously) to reach potential voters during the election.
Clinton’s campaign, it should be said, hasn’t totally shunned the traditional media. In the weeks leading up to her launch last Sunday, reporters from leading media outlets were invited to private briefing dinners with her team. The idea seems to be that the political media is useful for opinion and analysis, while the old, follow-the-leader, report-the-speech journalism can be done through social media.
Canadians have often followed the U.S. lead in campaign techniques. This week, Clinton’s campaign launch provided some lessons in the changed state of political-media relations. Expect to see some of them adopted here this year. sdelacourt@bell.net