Deggans see's the same point I do. Before this election, all the Republican candidates in California went hat in hand to the Editorial staffs of the major papers, and submitted to their interrogations. Arnold realized that they were not going to support him, and they would just use the interviews for "gotja" stories on him.
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News media lost the most in Calif. race
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV/Media Critic
Published October 9, 2003
The biggest loser in California's recall election may not be ousted Gov. Gray Davis.
It may be the traditional news media.
Newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger often didn't rely on such outlets to reach voters like traditional politicians.
Instead, the star of three Terminator films turned to Tonight show host Jay Leno, talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, shock radio jock Howard Stern and entertainment news shows such as Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight to spread his message.
He used his personal fame to take his message directly to the public.
"Things were very controlled . . . he preferred to use unconventional outlets . . . you might call them softer, less challenging outlets," said Jeff Greenfield, a senior analyst for CNN and contributor to the news channel's show Inside Politics.
"The very "outsider-ness' of the guy helped insulate him from the notion that there was something wrong with this," Greenfield said.
"The traditional way of doing things had become so discredited . . . the unconventionality of Schwarzenegger made it okay," he added.
Schwarzenegger's strategy came full circle Tuesday night, when comic Jay Leno introduced his victory speech - "Tonight is a testament to just how important an appearance on The Tonight Show can be," Leno cracked - two months after the Austrian-born actor had announced his candidacy on the NBC program. On the cable news channels, actors Ron Silver, Tom Arnold and Rob Lowe provided analysis alongside journalists and politicians.
Journalists groused for weeks about a lack of access to Schwarzenegger, and the candidate did eventually face NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, ABC anchor Peter Jennings and MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews in the campaign's final days. But he already had given exclusive interviews to Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition on a bus tour filled with tightly scripted events.
"Those shows allowed us to reach an audience that's outside the Meet the Press crowd," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Todd Harris, a former campaign spokesman for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "To be sure, a lot of reporters cried bloody murder, because we were able to go so easily around them."
Combined with the jokes of late-night comedians and movies shown on cable channels, Schwarzenegger seemed to be everywhere in the days leading to the recall election, while minimizing chances of an embarrassing public gaffe.
"It was striking to be here in Los Angeles and watch for the first time in a long time the local TV newscasts devoting 10, 15, 20 minutes to politics . . . but the coverage of Schwarzenegger was limited by and large to the same shots with flags and balloons and cheering crowds," said Adam Clayton Powell III, a visiting professor of journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication.
Mark Barabak, a political writer for the Los Angeles Times, said Schwarzenegger's fame left viewers feeling they knew the candidate and had little need to see him vetted in the media.
"This was an election about change . . . and people assumed the character they know from the movies is the actual guy," he said. "People didn't want or think they needed a lot of detail."
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, noted how news reporters covering a big election scrutinize candidates' positions.
But because Schwarzenegger limited his access to reporters and appeared at only one debate, in which the questions were provided to participants in advance, the scrubbing process came late with just two big stories: the Los Angeles Times report on allegations of sexual harassment and the New York Times report on possible comments admiring Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
"The press, I thought, was more compliant to a candidate to pull this stuff than I have ever seen," said Rosenstiel, citing the short campaign as another factor. "Here was a candidate with no record and virtually no detailed policy positions . . . (and) in the face of reportage that he is a Hitler-admiring sexual criminal, he still feels a brief soundbite is largely sufficient."
Given Schwarzenegger's success, experts expect such tactics to increase. But CNN's Greenfield saw a bright spot, hoping a movie star in the governor's office in California might spur better coverage of the state's politics by a local media known for neglecting such issues.
"In a perverse way," he said, "the entry of this world-famous figure, even residually, may get people interested in politics."
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