The clip of Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, manhandling a female reporter last month then facing criminal charges has raised questions we’ve heard before about the Republican front-runner.
Is this more evidence that his sexist views filter down to his staff? Is his campaign manager, who’s from Windham, a bully? Is The Donald’s path to the White House blocked for good after so many speed bumps?
And after months of covering the primary season here, it really wasn’t surprising to see some rough stuff out in the field, no matter which candidate’s team got involved.
Because these days, it’s the nature of the beast, as the media and the campaigns struggle for access and control. Pull back the curtain, peek behind it and there’s the story the media rarely reports and didn’t during the New Hampshire primary season, because it has nothing to do with foreign policy or the economy – the real news!
We don’t want to come off whiney. Instead, we want to further the understanding of a candidate, maybe get reaction to a specific question, even get the chance to ask a follow-up question or two.
Truth is, the climate here through the fall and into winter was confrontational, from east to west, north to south, resembling a tug of war between the media and candidates’ handlers and venue personnel.
Lewandowski would not comment to me when I wrote about him last summer, saying he wasn’t the story.
“I really appreciate the interest in me,” Lewandowski wrote in an email, “but Mr. Trump is the focus of this campaign and how he is the only individual in the race that can make America great again.”
Now, however, Lewandowski is, indeed, the story, along with the overall change in how the media are forced to do their job. Or are not allowed to do their job.
We’ll find out, one way or the other, if Lewandowski is guilty of assault for keeping a reporter away from his boss. And maybe she would have written something nasty, although the reporter, Michelle Fields, worked for a news outlet supportive of Trump.
But the problem is, it’s not up to Lewandowski and those like him to decide. It’s a little thing called freedom of the press.
Back in New Hampshire, some reporters got access to the candidates, others didn’t. Sometimes accessibility was so limited for the media, security so high at events and the crowds so big that physical contact was inevitable.
That’s the way it was at many places, as reporters jockeyed for position while those with authority took it upon themselves to play defense.
In fact, it happened to my colleague, Ella Nilsen, while she covered a Bernie Sanders event at the Colonial Theater in Keene. There, along with several other national and local reporters, Nilsen stood on a chair to better hear and see Sanders.
Soon, though, a woman working security for the theater pulled Nilsen and another female reporter off their chairs, claiming it was for safety reasons.
Tweeted Nilsen at the time, “That is just dangerous. I wasn’t hurt but the other reporter said she was. It was a small altercation while Sanders was speaking.”
It was also a sign of the times. As for Trump, it was not surprising that his campaign was accused of strong-arming the media, with Lewandowski at center ring.
His events, to be sure, create a frenzied atmosphere, leading to more conflict and contact. Trump says crazy things, sometimes tossing gas on burning embers. As the GOP front-runner with a colorful streak, his thoughts are transferred to the public via megaphone. Some are shot from a cannon.
And Lewandowski has, indeed, resembled a bodyguard more than a campaign manager. The clip clearly shows him tugging Fields, then passing her like a truck moving down hill in the left lane.
It’s absurd, really, that Trump and Lewandowski are denying the allegations in the face of overwhelming proof. She dared go where she was told not to, and they showed her who was in charge.
The incident, which was recorded in Florida on March 8, was the perfect story in a perfect storm, but it can certainly be viewed in a wider context, one that reflects tightly controlled and choreographed scenarios in which image is everything.
We’re cordoned off behind rope, told we can’t stand here or there. It happens all the time, meaning reporters have to use pushier measures to secure interviews, and campaigns have responded in their own ways.
Once, though, things were different, before the elbowing throngs of reporters – tweeting messages and posting photos on Instagram – wrestled for access.
“There was no recording that would be suddenly rocketing around the world,” said former Monitor photographer Dan Habib. “That’s the major difference than the reality of today, so I understand.”
Habib covered the 1992 primary for the Monitor, which at the time was able to set up day-in-the-life projects with relative ease. Habib had one with Bill Clinton, just a month before the primary vote. His access to Clinton at the then-Center of New Hampshire hotel was startling.
Habib arrived at 7 a.m.
“He (Clinton) came down alone in running sweats, and I jogged backward and he jogged forward so I could get photos of him,” Habib said. “When we negotiated full access, we got it.”
That access included the men’s room at the WMUR studio in Manchester. Habib followed Clinton in and an aide “started to grab my arm, but not in rough way,” Habib said. “I said that we negotiated for full access and Clinton turned to me and said it’s okay.”
The resulting shot was priceless, perfectly capturing the relentless and draining nature of campaigning for president: Clinton looking in the mirror, hands cupping his face after he’d washed up, eyes half open and devoid of expression, urinals in the background.
“He did his business and he washed his face, and I asked him if campaigning was what he thought it would be,” Habib said. “He said it was much more tiring than he could have imagined.”
You’d never see a photo like that today. You’d never see a candidate looking vulnerable or tired. It’s not the shot they want you to see.
“They’re trying to control the image,” Habib said. “But I worry that the restrictions they put on the media is damaging to the democratic process.”
And damaging to a reporter’s arm, too.
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304 or rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)