Why Kamala Harris owes nothing to the corporate media

They're demanding interviews from her while still allowing Trump's lies to go unchecked as he uses their platforms. They're also not forcing him to lay out policy prescriptions.

At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, I overheard former Trump campaign aide David Urban, now a MAGA pundit for CNN, angrily complaining in a private conversation with someone on media row.

The basic gist: Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t done major interviews with members of the media since she announced her candidacy a little over a month ago, and the media supposedly isn’t hammering her for it.

It was an indication to me of the intense pressure from Trumpworld on the press, which had given Harris some space as she launched a campaign literally overnight but is starting to become more badgering. And we know the corporate media always caves to the GOP’s pressure.

Harris has in fact given short interviews at campaign stops or during her travels, and, honestly, the reporters have often had stupid questions about what Donald Trump said or did that day, which she’s been too busy to have paid any mind to. For all their talk about “policy,” they are more concerned with getting a sound bite and headline that includes Trump.

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She also has said she would “schedule” a longer interview at the end of the month, after the convention, and some reports have said this would be a joint interview with her running mate, Governor Tim Walz.

We’re already seeing media demands for an in-depth interview heavy on policy, with The New York Times’ David Leonhardt putting up an array of questions today that he’d like her to answer in detail, from foreign policy to the intricacies of how she’d achieve the domestic policy goals she’s already laid out quite fully.

Other reporters point to how Trump has given several press conferences in the time since Harris announced her candidacy and has done town halls and given other interviews in past months, so he’s at least giving the media his time.

But this is a trap set by the corporate media, and Harris seems adept at not falling for it.

Trump may have given what he called press conferences, but they were nothing but unchallenged rants at which he lied and lied again. Reporters allowed him to bellow on in both a presser at Mar-a-Lago and one at Bedminster—his golf resorts—in recent weeks. And TV networks aired them in full. After Trump lied, the next questioner just moved on to something else, and he was allowed to lie again. And again.

There was no discussion of “policy,” as Trump is never pressed on how he’s going to achieve his grandiose and often ugly goals. Sure, some later did “fact-checking,” but Trump knows many won’t see the fact-check later while he lies in real time.

Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC rightly blasted the press, including his own network, for allowing Trump to do this in the Mar-a-Lago event. Trump also gave an infamous town hall last year on CNN in which he lied, laid out no policy, and refused to answer questions. It was universally panned as a disaster, causing CNN’s chief executive to step down. Trump calls into Fox News and Newsmax often, but these are friendly MAGA spaces where he’s allowed to push his propaganda and never questioned on his lies or pronouncements.

Like it or not, Trump has redefined elections as short on policy and long on personal attacks and big promises —thanks to a compliant corporate media—and it’s unfair for the press to demand another candidate do it a different way while giving him a pass.

President Biden was determined to get the country, including election campaigns, back to a sense of normalcy. He detailed his policy prescriptions on his website during the 2020 election and gave a fair amount of interviews to major media organizations during the campaign, even in the midst of the pandemic. But, unfortunately, rather than forcing the media to reset how it covers elections, Biden’s actions set expectations in the media that he would be accessible and lay out policy details, no matter what Trump was doing.

This created an unfair double standard in which Biden was then hounded by the media during his presidency, accused of not giving enough interviews while Trump lied his way through interviews and events before and after he announced he was running for president in 2024, and got credit just for showing up.

The press is trying to do this with Harris now. So far, she hasn’t allowed it, even as the pressure is building. Harris is speaking directly to voters, traveling the country for in-person events and via social media, and the public isn’t clamoring for any big media interview.

Nonetheless, she said she would sit down for such an interview. But she should not be expected to give detailed policy prescriptions that will only give fodder to the GOP and Trump—and the media—while Trump offers nothing.

Contrary to the media claims, Harris has already laid out her goals quite intricately—with much more detail than Trump has—from pushing for a federal bill codifying abortion rights and passing voting rights legislation to offering expanded child tax credits and taking on price-gouging corporations to battle high prices.

She’s talked about how she will implement goals with more detail than Trump, who simply says, for example, that he’s going to “end inflation” while promoting the implementation of across-the-board tarrifs—a 10 to 20 percent tax—on all foreign goods, which economists believe would make inflation surge and tank the economy. Few are demanding details on his plans, and if they do, he doesn’t give them—and then the media just drops it.

So, no, Harris should not play this game with a media that cannot be trusted. Unless they hold Trump to the same standards—actual interviews, not opportunities to promote lies—she doesn’t owe the press interviews or deep details and should continue to speak to the public in the way she has been, which has been electrifying voters across the country.

The major news organizations, from the New York Times and the Washington Post to CNN and NBC News, have not earned the right to an interview. They’ve engaged in often reckless election coverage going back to 2016, driven by clicks and ratings.

The days are over in which they control the message. There are many other smaller venues worthy of interviews, and there are many other ways to connect with voters. Corporate media will likely get some access, but getting an interview is a privilege, not a right, and Kamala Harris appears to know that.