Say Anything Blog

Oh my...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign excluded reporters for the Bay Area’s two largest ethnic newspapers from a fundraiser Friday at the Sheraton Palace Hotel—a perceived snub that led to days of harsh coverage.

“Our main concern is open access for Chinese media and other ethnic media in this presidential campaign,” said Joyce Chen, news editor for Sing Tao, a daily published in Chinese. “We stand by our commitment to serve our readers and our community, which often lack access from government and exposure from mainstream English (language) media.”

Readers in the Chinese community have an intense loyalty to Sing Tao and the World Journal, said Sandy Close, head of New America Media, a national ethnic media coalition based in San Francisco.

“If they’re disrespected by a candidate, no matter what the security conditions, space requirements and pressures they were under, (campaign officials) should move to remedy it immediately,” said Close, who counseled the Clinton campaign when it sought her advice this weekend. “If they move quickly, they can use it to build a bridge, not burn a bridge.”

Reporters from Sing Tao and Chinese-language daily World Journal, as well as the smaller China Press were denied entry to the noon fundraiser.

It turned out that the three papers had not been included in the mailing list for a press advisory sent out two days ahead that instructed media representatives to check in by 11:45 a.m. World Journal reporter Portia Li said she arrived about 10 minutes before noon.

Li, a prominent journalist who has worked for more than two decades in the Bay Area, said she knew such events routinely begin late and that reporters often are allowed in after they start.

But a staffer told her she was too late to get in. When Li argued, the staffer explained that because she was considered “foreign media”—which were limited to a single pool reporter—she could not go in.

If this were, say, Mitt Romney or John McCain (maybe especially John McCain given his history in Vietnam) there would be weeks of speculation about whether or not the candidate was biased against foreigners or Asians.

But Hillary doing it?  You can almost hear the journalists yawning.