The truth is non-partisan

It's not surprising with the star billing Hillary gets.

Earlier this week Politico ran a piece describing how the Clinton
campaign deals with the press. And it's more celebrity than
politician.

Clinton's campaign had a negative piece removed from Gentlemen's
Quarterly earlier this summer. The article by Josh Green, a writer
with Atlantic Monthly, described infighting in the Clinton team.

The Clinton campaign pressured GQ by saying run this piece and you
won't get a feature article later this year about Bill Clinton. The
article about Bill will be a cover piece that features him as man of
the year. Bowing to pressure GQ canned the negative piece in favor of
the cover article.

The reason is that Bill Clinton (and Hillary as well) have star
quality. He sells magazines, but most importantly his name and image
sell advertisers' products. And advertising pays the bills.

The Politico piece says that the Clinton's are unique among
politicians in their celebrity status. When Hillary announced her
candidacy she got a week's worth of news coverage on the major
networks. Recently all the Sunday morning network talk shows had her
on their programs all on the same day. (Usually they won't interview
the same person one of the other networks is interviewing.)

Politico also says the Clintons can offer the media greater access to
Hillary in exchange for not giving as much coverage to another
candidate.

Novelist George Saunders is writing the Clinton story for GQ. He told
his hometown paper the Syracuse Post-Standard in July that he was
planning to travel with the former president to tour Clinton
Foundation projects in Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa.

"It seems like [Clinton's] gift, one of his gifts, is everybody likes
him and knows him, so he can get people in a room and make things
happen," Saunders told the Syracuse paper. "I just like the idea that
at this elderly stage of life, you can go and get your doors blown
off." Saunders said he voted for Bill Clinton twice. It seems this
qualifies him for writing about Clinton.

See the Politico story at
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=390A6C6D-3048-5C12-008D860FC0899A91

// posted by John Fisher @ 9:44 AM