As the two Democratic candidates shuttled between Ohio and Texas this week before Tuesday’s potentially decisive nominating contests, questions over whether reporters were giving each candidate an equally fair shake were thrust into the center of the campaign itself. There were already indications that Mrs. Clinton and her surrogates were finding traction in casting the news media as a conflicted umpire, while also prompting some soul-searching among the reporters themselves.
The night after Mrs. Clinton reprimanded Tim Russert and Brian Williams during the Cleveland debate on MSNBC for asking her a disproportionate number of “first” questions, she appeared Wednesday at a rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio. When someone stood to castigate the news media for being unfair to her, the audience cheered, with some even turning to cast a collective evil eye on the reporters in the high school gymnasium.
In a New York Times/CBS News telephone poll conducted Feb. 20-24 and released Tuesday, nearly half of those respondents who described themselves as voters in Democratic primaries or caucuses said the news media had been “harder” on Mrs. Clinton than other candidates. (Only about 1 in 10 suggested the news media had been harder on Mr. Obama.)
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