{"id":528148,"date":"2010-04-15T00:44:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T04:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.76069"},"modified":"2010-04-15T00:49:30","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T04:49:30","slug":"rob-simmons-linda-mcmahon-and-the-fourth-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/528148","title":{"rendered":"Rob Simmons, Linda McMahon and the Fourth Estate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rob Simmons called a press conference on the north steps of the state capitol Monday to raise questions about Linda McMahon’s ethics as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.<\/div>\n
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Tucked in his pocket was the Pulitzer medal for public service journalism won by his grandfather, Robert W. Ruhl, in 1934. Simmons has a profound respect for the news media — he often talks of the three years he spent working at the Medford Mail Tribune, the Oregon paper his family owned and the publisher of his grandfather’s Pulitzer-winning editorials about unscrupulous politicians.<\/div>\n
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There were no TV cameras present on Monday, just five newspaper reporters and an online political writer shivering in the weak, early spring sunlight. It made for a poignant moment.<\/div>\n
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A couple of members of McMahon’s campaign staff stood nearby and when Simmons was done, they held an impromptu press briefing of their own. <\/div>\n
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Of course, McMahon herself wasn’t there. In fact, as CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas determined, she has not held a single press conference since announcing her Senate bid.<\/div>\n
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McMahon spokesman Ed Patru spins it differently. <\/div>\n
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“It depends on what your definition of a press conference is,” Patru said. “She’s made herself available to reporters for extensive one-on-one interviews….Every time she’s been asked by editorial boards, radio personalities or televisions, she’s made herself available, not for short sound bites but for  one-hour extended interviews with…no questions off limits.<\/div>\n
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“I think Linda McMahon has been more than straightforward in terms of making herself accessible to the press.”<\/div>\n
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McMahon’s critics say her reluctance to face reporters in an open-ended press conference is evidence that she’s some type of automatron who can only function with a script and a bevy of supporters to shield her from uncomfortable questions. Patru says that’s nothing more than a political attack. “The narrative that Linda is not able to think on her feet…has been brought up by the Simmons campaign again and again,” he said.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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Maybe McMahon hasn’t held any press conferences because she doesn’t need to. She’s moved to the front of the GOP field, according to the latest Q poll, and she has $50 million she’s ready to spend on the race. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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What’s the point of facing the small band of survivors in the greatly diminished political press corps when you can make handsome television spots that tell your story exactly the way you want it told? Let the papers detail <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>steroid investigations<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/a> and <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>questionabl<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>e memos<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/a> and WWE’s sexually provocative history for their no longer robust readership. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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McMahon isn’t the only politician who is eschewing the old rules of news coverage and largely circumventing the press. According to t<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>he Washington Post’s Dana Milbank<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/a>, President Obama has become a master at avoiding journalists and their pesky questions.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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Maybe they believe, as <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>Colin McEnroe recently noted<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/a>, that we are living in the post-journalism age. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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Simmons is an old school guy who believes newspapers do still matter. Some might argue that’s because Simmons lacks McMahon’s enormous wealth and needs the free media to get his message out. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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But he says it goes deeper than that. It was a newspaper reporter, Ted Mann of the Day, who broke the story about McMahon’s 1989 memo that was the subject of his press conference on Monday.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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“The media has important responsibilities, we all know that,” Simmons said. “I worked for a newspaper in year’s past, my family has owned and operated a newspaper for three generations. The newspapers and the media have important responsibilities and when they ask questions, they should be answered.”<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n

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Or not. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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Rob Simmons called a press conference on the north steps of the state capitol Monday to raise questions about Linda McMahon’s ethics as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. Tucked in his pocket was the Pulitzer medal for public service journalism won by his grandfather, Robert W. Ruhl, in 1934. Simmons has a profound respect for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}