You may have noticed Sunday's odd complaint piece about Senator Obama in the Washington Post. It's the lament of a foreign journalist who hasn't received a one-on-one interview with the man himself, even after writing a "sympathetic (and widely read) book in German about the Illinois Senator".
Despite earnest protests and foot stomping, it seems that yet another journalist has loved and been spurned by the Senator's campaign. I can't imagine his open letter will play well with Obama's staff, particularly because the op-ed opens with a tacit threat to punish the Senator by revealing a "dirty little secret" to the "adoring public" in Europe. The secret?: that this particular journalist can't get an interview.
I understand why this fellow feels jilted. After all, he works for a major outlet and has a job to do.
However, Obama's campaign is truly grassroots in practice and in philosophy. That means that the media's role as an intermediary isn't as valuable to the campaign as journalists would like it to be. Broadening the government's constituency and breaking out of normal political practices is the core goal of the Senator's campaign and, in my opinion, an excellent indication of how Obama will govern.
It's also important to realize that the media failed the American people before and during the Iraq invasion. Journalists were cowed by the Bush Administration. They were more interested in selling stories and advancing their careers than being responsible caretakers of the Fourth Estate. As a result, I think that most Americans aren't sympathetic to (even foreign) journalists complaints about lack of access to a candidate who tries to speak directly to the grassroots.
So bind your wounds and move on, my friend. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
UPDATE: Politico has a story about how this "lack of access" certainly hasn't stopped the foreign media from writing obsessively about Sen. Obama...
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Actually some of his complaints are valid, but the problem is a complicated one. Foreign media is never a campaign's priority because they don't speak to American voters. The interest from foreign media is much greater than usual this elections year and Obama is the center of it. That is making for a surge of foreign media requests. However, it IS difficult for foreign journalists to navigate the campaign as a result. I do contract work with foreign journalists from the State Department and I volunteered to help one desparate Thai journalist try to find a campaign person to interview. There are many like her. My main complaint about this column was that he seemed to define "foreign" as meaning "European". The fact is the campaign has to deal with reporters from Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc. many of whom are not as savvy as European journalists in terms of how to approach a U.S. political campaign.
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