Dennis Kucinich For President! (Yes, I'm Kidding)
Plain Dealer sees 'ironic' turn by candidate Kucinich
Commentary: 'We'll cover him just like anyone else,' an editor says
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer is bemused -- and frustrated -- that presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich seems to be freezing out his own hometown newspaper.
Many American voters generally scoff at the notion of Kucinich for president, as if he exists solely to provide a punch line on "Saturday Night Live." They regard the Ohio congressman and former Cleveland mayor as that amiable, smart fellow who stands shoulder-to-sternum with the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at debates.
A long shot
Even national political reporters care more about what Sen. Clinton had for lunch than about Kucinich's speeches, proclamations and press releases. Yet, he won't talk to the one daily newspaper that can give him the most publicity. Here's what The Plain Dealer's said on Sept. 28:
"Heretofore a champion of a free press, congressman (and former Plain Dealer copy boy) Dennis Kucinich has cut off nearly all communication to Plain Dealer political reporters. Kucinich has not returned calls for several weeks to the newspaper's Washington bureau, which covers his actions in Congress and his presidential campaign. , he uttered a string of non sequiturs -- albeit pleasant ones -- when a Plain Dealer reporter attempted to interview him outside the House of Representatives chamber."
It's a strange media strategy, indeed. (Or, maybe Kucinich is just turned off by a blog that uses pedantic language like "heretofore.")
Understand, I live and work in New York City, so my most profound Cleveland-related thoughts this week center on whether my beloved New York Yankees can defeat the Cleveland Indians in the baseball playoffs.
But I was drawn to the Kucinich-Plain Dealer story after receiving an email from a Media Web reader named Jean Robertson, who pointed out:
"There are some personalities at the Plain Dealer that have a 40-year hate on Dennis Kucinich. There have been some hard feelings over all these years and they can be very petty about it. ... If Kucinich isn't talking to people at the PD, it's because what they want to talk about isn't important to his mission as he sees it. They are provincial and can't stand it that he's consistently right and feel he is arrogant about it."
No feud
Elizabeth McIntyre, a Plain Dealer deputy managing editor, doesn't see it that way.
"I've worked here for 17 years, and I know of no feud," McIntyre said. "I just think it's ironic more than anything else. He repeatedly says the press ignores him in his effort to become president, and yet he ignores us. We still make every effort to talk to Dennis and talk to his staff."
McIntyre shrugs off the charges that her paper has been unfair to Kucinich or has held any grudge -- and dispels any suggestion that he could get encouragement from his local paper. "We'll cover him just like anyone else," she said in a phone interview on Thursday morning.
The Kucinich-Plain Dealer rift, which has gotten some play in national media circles, underscores the ever-fragile relationship between candidates and journalists. No one, it seems, is exempt. Even GQ, hardly a must-read for politicos, made headlines itself recently after reportedly bowing to the demands of Hillary Clinton's campaign by killing a potentially unflattering story to gain access to her husband, Bill Clinton. (GQ, for its part, denied the accusation).
In sectors of Ohio, Kucinich remains a terrific story, filled with pathos and melodrama.
"People either love him or hate him," McIntyre said. "Your letter-writer [Jean Robertson] is a perfect example of backers who are very loyal to him. On the other side, dating back to the 'Boy Mayor,' there are people who will bash him at every opportunity."
So, would Plain Dealer readers rather see heir local hero become the next president or see the Indians win the World Series? It's a no-brainer, really.
"Oh, win the World Series," McIntyre chuckled. "We're a sports-crazy town here."
MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have the media been fair to Dennis Kucinich's campaign, or do they go along with the national joke?
FRIDAY STORY OF THE WEEK: "Newspapers Now Stuffed Full of Blogs, But No Clue Where to Put Them" by Choire Sicha (Gawker, Sept. 28) -- Sicha's condemnation of newspapers that are content to jump mindlessly on the blog bandwagon was brutally blunt. (Well, of course, it's on Gawker, right?) To the distress of some Gawker readers, though, also set out to be highly instructive, and not merely snarky. Sure, Gawker would have sought my head (or byline, at least) on a stick if I had written this kind of earnest piece. But Sicha's discussion should be a must-read for every online editor who wants to understand the blogosphere.
READERS RESPOND to about NYTimes.com and the end of its TimesSelect program: "I think your argument is not strong enough. The fact is the marketplace decided that reading NY Times opinion pieces was not worth payment. I would suggest that the message is that the message is not gaining traction. Like it or not, Americans are slightly right of center, not relatively far left in their thinking. The NY Times and its columnists and reporters spend too much time listening to and agreeing with each other." Ed Abbott
For the record: New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis wrote that it was not "a fair comparison" when I placed WSJ.com's paid subscriber base of nearly 1 million next to TimesSelect's roughly 225,000 customers. Mathis said I should've compared the WSJ.com's number "to our 698,300 TimesSelect number, which includes both the 226,800 and the 471,500 paid print subscribers who have accessed their TimesSelect account."
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By Jon Friedman