Weeklies vie for candidates' attention
Posted: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 7:01 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2008, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Obama, Iowa, New Hampshire
From Aswini Anburajan and Carrie Dann
On the Sunday evening following Thanksgiving, John Beaudoin received the phone call he had been waiting ten long months for. Beaudin who publishes two weekly newspapers in Iowa, the Logan Herald-Observer (circulation 1,427) and the smaller Woodbine Twiner (circulation 1,143) had been e-mailing and calling the Clinton campaign since January to request an interview with the senator.
He finally heard back this past weekend, the day after a well publicized appearance by Obama in the region and a prominent story in the New York Times commending the Obama campaign's outreach to local weekly and daily newspapers, as also noted at The Rural Blog, of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
Referring to the phone call he received from the Clinton campaign as a "breakthrough," Beaudoin said that he found its timing to be "rather odd."
"The timing [of the interview] seems to be working in their favor,” Beaudoin said. “The New York Times piece gave Obama good press about how his people are handling weekly papers. She dropped in the polls recently… We've offered her front-page space for the past 10 months -- just like all the other candidates. It's always time constraints and one person gets the message and the other person doesn't get the message.”
In contrast, Beaudoin praised Obama's efforts to reach out to his paper, which included an attentive advance and communications staff who reached out to him before and during a tightly packed event at a cattle auction in Dunlap, Iowa. He added that he was sought out by the campaign along with another local reporter and given private time with the candidate.
The experience prompted him to write an editorial on the process, which will run in Wednesday's edition of his paper:
"The fact that Obama and his campaign are putting this much effort into courting a small newspaper is impressive in itself,” he writes. “When you couple that with the polls that now show him in the lead in Iowa and you can tell that strategy is proven to work. Small town newspapers have loyal, thoughtful and intelligent readers who, most importantly, vote during elections. Whether you agree with Obama's politics or not is really a side issue -- he's taking the time to do things that other candidates simply do not. The bad press and drop in poll numbers should have caught someone's attention in the Clinton camp.
“And if it gets me an interview with her, even better.”
Beaudoin's experience is a typical example of the intricate courtship between campaigns and local media, where campaigns can either play the role of earnest suitor or coquettish maiden whose hand always appears to be just out of grasp. Though the readership of the local weeklies and dailies are small, the combined circulation of these papers can often shame the larger dailies in the state, and they often provide a bully pulpit for candidates looking to connect with the local population in a more grassroots fashion. And, as described by the case above, how candidates handle the local press has the potential to backfire.
In Iowa, a state that has the highest newspaper readership per capita, that impact is even more profound. There are 39 daily newspapers and 272 weeklies in the state. Campaigns like Obama's generally attempt to reach a handful of these papers to get local coverage in each county they visit.
Small papers like Beaudoin's do reach out to candidates, and in the case of Clinton and other big-name candidates, Beaudoin said he's even sent talking points and general questions ahead of time to help cement the deal for an interview. But generally the conventional wisdom among Iowa's journalists is that the campaigns should want to come to them.
As Pete Graham of the Missouri Valley Times (circulation 2,279) put it, "The campaigns call us if they want to win."
A survey of 15 weekly and local daily newspapers by NBC News found newspapers reporting mixed experiences with all the campaigns, Democratic or Republican. Most papers said that their inboxes were flooded by e-mails from all the campaigns and many received phone calls before an event to remind them to attend.
The majority of newspapers reported being able to get a few minutes with a candidate either immediately after the event during the rope line or with a one-on-one interview. Clinton was the exception in this case. Both Edwards' and Obama's staff were praised for their efforts to reach out to reporters and provide access to the candidate.
Surprisingly, second-tier candidates did not appear to be as media friendly. Graham of the Missouri Valley Times said the paper recently missed an appearance by Dodd because his campaign had not reached out to them. Tim Rowher of the Daily Nonpareil (circulation 16,200) described both Dodd and Brownback (before he dropped out of the race) as aloof in their approach. Biden was seen as accessible, but his outreach efforts did not compare to the first-tier Democrats.
Campaigns also effectively use surrogates to reach out to local papers. A political reporter for the Waukon Standard (circulation 3,100) says that Edwards Campaign Manager David Bonior stopped by the office for coffee once. Lowell Carlson of the Bellevue Herald Leader (circulation 2,600) says he's scheduled to sit down soon with Sam Brownback, who's meeting with him to push his endorsement of McCain. And Graham of the Missouri Valley Times said that a county co-chair for Obama helped provide an inside scoop on the campaign's efforts to hold its event at the local cattle auction in Dunlap, Iowa and introduced him to Obama's staff at the event.
The majority of papers mentioned that they found the Clinton campaign to have limited access. The publisher of the Humboldt Independent (circulation 4,000) complained they weren't able to even get a photograph of the senator for publication because the Secret Service was so thick around her. And Konrad from Iowa Falls (circulation 3,745) said that the campaign staff was helpful, but that they seemed "strict and programmed" at times. Bill Wonder, of the Onawa Democrat (circulation 2,257), said that the media was kept as far away from Bill Clinton as possible at a recent event.
"We didn't even try to ask for an interview," he added.
However, it should be noted that in New Hampshire, the Clinton campaign has conducted outreach efforts with local weeklies. The campaign reached out to Salmon Press, which owns 12 weeklies in the state, to arrange an interview with the senator. In another example, Clinton took time during one visit to the Granite State to do a half-hour sit down with the Conway Daily Sun, a small daily infamous for making presidential candidates sign a refrigerator.
But not all the papers had good things to say about any candidates. The editor of the Onawa Sentinel (circulation 709) says she stopped allowing political letters to the editor in her paper from local residents, because she had such a hard time getting the campaigns to answer questions.
And many papers complained that the candidates, especially the Clinton campaign, use "tight schedule" as an excuse to avoid interviews, often warning the papers ahead of time that time with the senator will not be possible.
One publisher said that she refuses to cover any candidate until they place ads in her publication, which none have yet. Penny Tonderum of the Graettinger Times (circulation 700) was incensed enough to add that she wouldn't even report on a visit to her office by a candidate unless their campaign had spent the $20 to pay for a notice printed in her paper.
"Why give them free publicity when they don't give me a dime in advertising?" she asked, pointing out that the candidates are missing out on a potential 1,000 votes from the population of her small town.
Staffers from both the Obama and Clinton campaigns said they prioritized local outreach, and that the chance to present the candidate in a voice that was authentic to the local community made a significant difference in their support. And the special attention can pay off.
Obama's Saturday campaign swing through Southwestern Iowa garnered rave reviews in the local papers, which had all been personally pitched and offered media availabilities with the Senator.
As for Beaudoin, he says he's through for now with writing editorials like the one he recently published titled, "Clinton Just Doesn't Have Time for Us."
