Once a ‘high-stakes affair,’ political press conferences are now a farce with journalists playing along

Political press conferences were formerly events where politicians were “girded for pitched battle with the assembled journalists,” but Robert Mann writes that the political press conference has devolved into “little more than a theater production starring the politician.” Journalists are bit players in this production, Mann says, with politicians looking to make news with carefully scripted statements. Mann writes that reporters often have no choice but to submit to these productions: “If the reporters cause trouble — if they annoy the candidate or her staff with unreasonable demands or overly hostile questions — campaign staffers can make life much less comfortable for them. … To get ahead, they go along.”

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from American Press Institute http://ift.tt/1X4VRZa