On the latest episode of Bloomberg’s Masters in Politics podcast, Tammy Haddad and Betsy Fischer Martin spoke to media writer extraordinaire Jim Rutenberg about how candidates manipulate the media or hide from it in order to control the narrative.
According to Rutenberg, journalists are finding it difficult to remain impartial this election season with the unprecedented rise of Donald Trump and his near-daily controversies. “All the focus on Trump takes some of the onus off of Hillary Clinton, who almost gets rewarded for not doing press conferences. I think her refusal to do press conferences is disgraceful,” Rutenberg said. “The email story and the stories about the interplay between her foundation and the State Department, which is a story that broke last week. We have to chase that really hard.”
Rutenberg also discussed the Trump campaign’s decision to bring on Roger Ailes to assist with debate prep. “They just spent the weekend together, Ailes and Trump. Here’s the thing about Roger Ailes, whatever you say about him, he is the best living television strategist and producer and maybe the best of all time, one of the best for sure. He knows how to game moderators, he knows how to work a debate, he invented it! He will be a formidable tool in Donald Trump’s toolkit. Donald Trump knows how to debate, sure. But he doesn’t know how to debate in a general election. He couldn’t have a better or more politically potent coach than Roger Ailes.”
You can listen to the full interview here.
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