by Hailey Gomez
The Harris-Walz campaign has consistently turned down reporters and photographers. Pittsburgh Post Gazette access to campaign events, allegedly due to a labor action at the company, according to an editorial Pittsburgh Post Gazette editor Brandon McGinley (pictured above).
Vice President Kamala Harris and her vice presidential candidate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have kicked off their bus trip in the battleground state of Georgia, starting its outreach to voters after the Democratic National Convention (DNC). McGinley he called out on Saturday, the Democratic campaign said it had blocked “Official Journal reporters from the vice presidential announcement, from part of the Democratic National Convention, and (as of this writing) from any future events where they have the ability to control access.”
“It’s a form of political pandering at the expense of basic democratic principles — which is exactly what the Republican campaign says it’s fighting against,” McGinley said.
According to sources, the exclusion from the campaign is related to employee activities which began in October 2022, when a journalists’ strike broke out after the Teamsters, one of the largest labor unions in America, went on strike over the suspension of its established health care plan. McGinley said that as negotiations continued, the union interfered with newsroom coverage and allegedly convinced Democratic officials and candidates to decline interviews with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“But denying access to the unpopular press as a favor to political allies only further institutionalizes a new normal in which all the rules apply whether you are friend or foe. Today, the Harris-Walz campaign considers the Post-Gazette its enemy and denies us the rights granted to others. Who’s next tomorrow?” McGinley asked.
It is worth noting that support for the largest union remains uncertain, as Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Commercial Drivers, rejected on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday to pledge to support either Harris or former President Donald Trump. Although the group hasn’t endorsed a Republican president since 1988, O’Brien said Harris won’t receive their endorsement until the meeting determines their choice.
“You don’t hire someone until you interview them,” O’Brien said. “And, you know, this is our opportunity to ask her about Teamster issues, as well as labor issues. So until we have that meeting, you know, we’ll obviously wait to make that decision.”
Harris and Walz campaign’s move to block reporters’ access Pittsburgh Post Gazettebut this is not the first time the campaign has pressured the press. July 29, Associated Press Press AgencyChief Political Reporter Steve Peoples published on X (formerly Twitter) that the campaign “prevented reporters from speaking to voters outside the press building during a Whitmer/Shapiro event in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.”
Harris campaign staff prevents reporters from speaking to voters outside the Whitmer/Shapiro press conference building in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) July 29, 2024
Peoples noted that campaign workers at the Pennsylvania event eventually allowed him to leave the press box to speak to voters after “someone from Delaware headquarters intervened.” The incident involving Peoples occurred nearly a month after reporters claimed President Joe Biden’s campaign staff tried to stop interviews with voters after his penniless debate performance.
In overdue June, Biden, then the Democratic presidential candidate, had what even liberal analysts dubbed “disastrous” debate performance with Trump, stumbling over answers and freezing in mid-sentence. After the event, several reporters said Biden campaign staffers tried to shut down conversations with voters as the mood turned negative.
“When I spoke to voters at Vice President Harris’ rally in Las Vegas, a Biden campaign worker in Nevada followed me and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ twice. asked voters to end interviews if their comments became critical of President Biden” New York Times reporter Simon Levin he wrote.
Until this week, Harris had faced criticism for avoidance in-depth interview more than a month after she became her party’s presumptive nominee. While she and Walz he finally sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday, Harris lost to explain her hesitations on some of the far-left policies she promoted in her 2020 campaign during a nearly half-hour interview.
Harris was also he called out for not providing a full version of its policy campaign website since Sunday.
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Hailey Gomez is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Brandon McGinley” by Brandon McGinley.
