By: Todd Shields E&P's Campaign Confidential Looks At the Races
WASHINGTON - Against early expectations, Florida is in play, and the prospect of gaining its 25 electoral votes is eliciting close attention from both major presidential candidates. Their near-weekly visits have spawned a mini-institution: the limited, quasipress conference with the state's newspapers.
Several times this campaign season, Republican George W. Bush has sat with reporters from four major Florida daily newspapers - the St. Petersburg Times, The Miami Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, and The Palm Beach Post.
For Bush, the sessions offer a chance to put forth a viewpoint that may be ignored by national reporters chasing the controversy du jour. For the reporters, the sessions are the next best thing to a one-on-one interview, said Tim Nickens, political editor of the Times.
Nickens said the Florida reporters generally manage to follow one another's questions closely. "It's more of a discussion than a press conference formal-type of thing," he told E&P.
Bush "certainly doesn't adopt a different persona with the four of us," Nickens said. "But he also seems more conversational."
For instance, Bush laughed at what he called "a loaded question" when asked about sparse campaigning on his behalf by his brother, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, Nickens reported.
The arrangement's success stems partly from Florida's size. "It really works out fine," Nickens said. "We're all in different circulation areas."
Scorecards, please
From the traveling press: Gore 26, Bush 5 - The vote among journalists on George Bush's campaign plane, according to the Web site Inside.com. The vote was about who would win the election, not who should win.
From major news centers:
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz analyzed front-page stories in three major dailies between the political conventions and early October, and came up with the following tally:
o The New York Times - nine anti-Gore, six anti-Bush, 12 pro-Gore, 21 pro-Bush, and 23 neutral.
o The Washington Post - six anti-Gore, 10 anti-Bush, 19 pro-Gore, nine pro-Bush, and 16 neutral.
o The Washington Times - 34 anti-Gore, one anti-Bush, 13 pro-Gore, 19 pro-Bush, and 15 neutral.
The candidates speak
George Bush on the national press, as quoted in The Dallas Morning News: "They'll be focused on the latest rumor. They would rather me answer their questions, rather than ask me questions about the message of the day."
Democrat Al Gore is wary, too, according to reporter Victoria Loe Hicks. Another excerpt from her story: How often, (Gore) was asked, does the press corps top its stories with the lead he would have them use?
"Not very often," he said ruefully.
And the local news media? Do they more often follow the campaign's lead?
"Yes," he said with a broad grin. "Yes, they do."
Todd Shields (tshields@editorandpublisher.com) is the Washington editor for E&P.
Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.
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