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Press Barred From Talking To Palin Crowd?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Bad Decisions, McCain, Media, Palin

This seems oddly controlling of the McCain campaign.

CLEARWATER — Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn’t permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around.

When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility Monday.

And yet, now we have this negative thing being written about their lack of transparency.

How weird.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Bad Decisions, McCain, Media, Palin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Press Barred From Talking To Palin Crowd?”

NVMojo Says:
October 6th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Is this the same wingnut crowd that yelled out “Kill Him!” when she was calling Obama a terrorist?
Gaucho Politico Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 1:11 am
i dont quite understand how they prevented journalists from interacting with the crowd at a public park. IN any event the crowd got pretty crazy at some of her events

Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602935.html
kranky kritter Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 11:19 am
This is a disturbing story if it’s true. I wonder whether it reflects on the general behavior of the McCain campaign as much as the idiocy of one handler or group of handlers.

Seems to me it would be pretty hard to stop reporters from talking to supporters. All you have to do is take off your press pass and mingle. Or talk to them before or after the event as the crowd forms or disperses.

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