A Quote by Michael Hastings
In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren't just covering a story, they're a part of it - influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates - and despite what they tell themselves, it's impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively.
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As someone who's been covering presidential campaigns since the 1950s, I have no delusions about political reporting. Candidates bargaining access to get the kind of news coverage they want is nothing new.
There's an idea that action movies are more attractive to one gender than the other or different kinds of people or whatever. The truth is action is not any different than any other part of a story.
I think my image gets distorted in the public's mind. They don't get a clear or full picture of what I'm like, despite the press coverage I mentioned early. Mistruths are printed as fact, in some cases, and frequently only half of a story will be told. The part that doesn't get printed is often the part that would make the printed part less sensational by shedding light on the facts.
It's both strategic, to get people's minds off other things, and to pick an internal enemy. It's part of [Donald Trump's] psychodynamics to always care about his press coverage intensely. He's more interested in that than anything else.
If you're following candidates in a campaign, you get on their plane, and what they're generally doing is they're dividing the cost of that charter flight by the number of reporters they're carrying aboard. In effect, the press is buying them that campaign flight.
My reporting in Africa wouldn't be political per se, but it's certainly the point of my reporting - and of a lot of other reporters I know: Human suffering is bad, and if reporting stories about it brings it to light and someone does something, that's part of the point of journalism. And it's a thin line between that and activism, and you have to be careful about that.
Unlike any other player on the board, the press has no oversight, no mandate, few penalties, and even fewer consequences. Because there are not enough reporters on the ground, too many bureaus have outsourced both their reporting and standards to third party stringers whose spectacular videos of explosions and inflated body counts have shown up on both jihadist recruiting sites and American television screens, simultaneously.
It's part of Donald Trump's psychodynamics to always care about his press coverage intensely. He's more interested in that than anything else.
Right-wing media and politicians are looking for any opportunity to be critical of the reporters who are here. Some reporters make judgments, but that is not my style. I present both sides and report what I see with my own eyes.
I think there's a part of us that would like to use the fact that we're married, but you don't want the idea that we're married to overshadow the project itself.We're just looking for something that's so specific and good that it becomes a part of the story of why we did it rather than when we go to do press it's, 'Oh, my God, you're married and that's the only thing we want to talk about.' If we can merge both, that could be great.
I'd be lying if I said that any part of writing is easy for me, but I have always found that setting comes more naturally to me than, say, writing action scenes.
You can always find a way to do something. Now, of course, when I do the action, it's an action that inspires people, it's a gift to people, it's not the other way around, I do not take something, I do not hurt people. Yes, I think today would be more than impossible and yet part of me would think that I continue to think that nothing is impossible.
Taking the things people do wrong seriously is part of taking them seriously. It’s part of letting their actions have weight. It’s part of letting their actions be actions rather than just indifferent shopping choices; of letting their lives tell a life-story, with consequences, and losses, and gains, rather than just be a flurry of events. It’s part of letting them be real enough to be worth loving, rather than just attractive or glamorous or pretty or charismatic or cool.
People get together and they donate to organizations so that a pile of money can be used to create a message that can be broadcast en masse as part of the a political campaign. They are the lifeblood of Hillary Clinton campaign, the banks and all these big time rich people from Hollywood and Silicon Valley are the mother's milk of her campaign. They are the money. She just doesn't want Donald Trump to have it or any other Republican to have it or any average citizen to be able to bundle his money with other people's money and create an ad or a campaign.
When you speak of the press, of course, you have to speak of different segments of the press. Reporters, straight reporters, wire services, you stick to the facts; you don't create the story, per se. You cover what is happening.
I don't have more money. I won't have more money than any of the candidates, even the Republican candidates. We know that already. But we are building this campaign team like I would build a business. And that is, we are building it so far with no debt.
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