Wednesday, March 26, 2008

McCain’s Free Ride with the Media




the Senator's cozy ties to the press corps

Go to Newsweek original
Last month the New York Times made news with a front-page story on John McCain's relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist. The story hinted at a possible romantic entanglement and raised questions about the propriety of McCain's dealings with the lobbyist and her clients at a time when the Arizona lawmaker was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The story, which McCain's campaign has vigorously disputed, marked a rare incidence of bad press for a politician who has enjoyed a remarkably amicable relationship with the establishment media over the course of his 25-year career. Other than a flurry of critical stories surrounding his involvement in a savings-and-loan scandal in the late 1980s, McCain has enjoyed such positive coverage he sometimes jokingly refers to the press as his base.

It's hardly a coincidence, says Paul Waldman, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a left-leaning nonprofit research center that analyzes conservative "misinformation" in the media. Along with founder David Brock, Waldman has spent the last three years studying the relationship between the press and politicians. Waldman and Brock were so struck by McCain's cozy relationship with the press corps that they decided to write a book about it. "Free Ride: John McCain and the Media" (due out next month) holds that McCain has managed to ingratiate himself with the national media to an extent almost unheard of in modern politics. As a result, says Waldman, McCain has been able to create a glossy image untarnished by what he sees as some damning facts. In the aftermath of the Times piece, Waldman spoke with NEWSWEEK's Matthew Philips.

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