McCain Aides Screening Reporters? The Campaign Replies

Following up on my piece suggesting that the McCain campaign screens the reporters it allows to ask questions during the conference calls it holds for the media, Talking Points Memo pressed the McCain camp to respond. (The campaign refused to reply to my queries.) The McCain campaign reply, as TPM reports, is hardly a slam dunk.

First, Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesperson, told TPM that the McCain aides and surrogates on the conference calls never know "the questions before they're asked." That, of course, is not the issue. The question is whether the campaign blocks certain reporters from asking questions. Rogers, according to TPM, offered no straightforward, we-do-not-screen declaration. Nor did he explain why there is always a very long pause during the calls after the speakers have finished and before the campaign begins to field questions from the reporters listening in.

"You've been on calls," Rogers told TPM. "We take on all comers." But as TPM notes--backing up the initial story--"more of the questions that do end up getting asked come from friendly news outlets." And TPM adds that its own reporter-blogger, Eric Kleefeld, "has frequently tried to ask a question [on the conference calls] and has never gotten through."

All in all, not a very convincing denial from the McCain campaign.