Mitt Romney Pays Homage To New Media
This is the latest report from the National Journal/NBC reporters embedded with the campaigns of top presidential contenders and in two key states.
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn't a big fan of today's media, but he loves the opportunity that new media give candidates to bypass traditional outlets. That was clear Saturday when a voter in Dover, N.H., asked how Romney would handle liberal media.
Staunch Romney supporter Bill Belles prefaced his question by lamenting that he "watched the current administration go down in flames because it never rebuffs what the media says." He then asked, "How are you as president going to rebuff the media so they don't, in four, five, six, seven years, say, 'Mitt lied'?"
Romney first joked that he had been advised before a speech the previous night: "The only tax increase you'll sign is a tax on newspapers that get stories wrong."
Then he added, "I can tell you this, and that is that there is today not the monopoly in the news that there used to be." He stressed a growing range of outlets and pointed in particular to talk radio, broadcast news and the Internet as avenues to communicate a message. He only mentioned newspapers as an afterthought.
Romney made sure to give a nod to the blogosphere and indicated that he would make use of it as president.
Earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Romney opened his address by asserting that the media's "wishful thinking reports of [the conservative movement's] demise have been greatly exaggerated," according to the campaign's account of his remarks. "I predict we'll be around a lot longer than ... say, newspapers."
Saturday's morning response to the questioner was a slight change from Thursday, when high-school senior Lisa Detweiler asked Romney a similar question about the media's effect on his campaign. "I thought it was interesting that he didn't mention newspapers because of how little Americans read," she said. -- Erin McPike
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