In a gushing profile on Monday, Politico’s Hadas Gold touted: “At least 18 national media outlets have female reporters on the Clinton beat....No one can remember a political press corps this heavily female.” She proclaimed: “The change seems to be a combination of more women doing political reporting in general, and many more being drawn to Clinton's potentially historic candidacy.”
Gold then assured readers: “It hasn’t brought Clinton more positive coverage,” but that, “reporters and press aides alike note that there’s a different vibe nonetheless, punctuated by occasional expressions by the candidate herself of camaraderie for fellow pioneers.”
Gold cited one reporter supposedly being encouraged by Clinton to ask a tougher question:
BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer recalled one press gaggle at which Clinton encouraged her to “liberate herself” and ask what she really wanted to ask. Cramer had planned to ask a lighthearted question but explained that she felt obligated to ask about a former Clinton tech staffer, Bryan Pagliano, who took the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before Congress about Clinton’s email practice. (Cramer ended up asking both questions.)
“And Hillary said ‘Liberate yourself — ask me what you want to ask … no just be free, be you,’” Cramer recalled, chuckling. “I felt like she was encouraging me in a woman-to-woman way."
New York Times political editor Carolyn Ryan explained the phenomenon: “...while I don't think editors are choosing reporters to cover Clinton because of their gender, women are drawn to this story journalistically, given its sweep, history-making potential and the way the Clinton story intersects with the broader discussion about gender, power and culture in this country.”
Gold promoted Andrea Mitchell as “the ‘dean’ of the Clinton press corps” and noted how the NBC reporter claimed “the questions being asked of Clinton aren’t any less critical than when more men were following her.”
Mitchell professed:
At the very beginning of the campaign, the email controversy erupted and has to a great extent overwhelmed a lot of policy discussions for the news media, so much so that gender has not played as much a role. It has been more adversarial than one might expect because she was on defense from almost the beginning. So she was very defensive and that affected her interaction with reporters. I don’t sense any increased empathy or connection, if you will, between the candidate and the press corp because [of the fact] there are so many women.
Even so, The Washington Post’s Anne Gearan recalled: “Every time she [Clinton] sees us she smiles and recognizes us. That’s a note that she understands and recognizes we’re out there doing our jobs.”
Editor's note: Image above is a slightly altered screen caption from Politico's website.
