McCain Aides Screening Reporters? The Campaign Replies

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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.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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