In 1968, one of the most untelegenic (is there such a word?) candidates in politics, Richard Nixon, tried a new approach to campaigning that, although it did not totally shun and shut out the press, as some candidates do today, at least tried to mitigate the damage that could be caused by uncontrolled media appearances with a potentially hostile press.
More below...
The show was called Man in the Arena, an infomercial slash political ad slash tv hour. Nixon stood in the center of the studio, surrounded with panelists who were, except for one friendly journalist, "average people" with things to say and questions to ask of presidential candidate Nixon. There was even an African-American on the panel. The questions and comments weren't all friendly, but Nixon easily handled them to his advantage. The show was hosted by college football Hall-of-Famer Bud Wilkinson, a former Republican Senatorial candidate himself, and one of the hosts of ABC Wide World of Sports. Nixon playfully banters with Wilkinson at the beginning of the broadcast that maybe Michigan's winning season luck will rub off on him.
The whole event, a new idea at the time, was carefully orchestrated for Nixon by a brilliant young TV producer and campaign operative, the young Roger Ailes.
publicradio.org:
Nixon got to the Miami convention by running one of the most sophisticated campaign operations in American history. At the center of it was a team of top-flight ad men and television producers who figured out how to sell Nixon to the public. In a television interview early in the campaign Nixon said, "Nobody's going to package me. Nobody's going to make me put on an act for television." But, with Nixon's blessing, that's exactly what they did.
A central architect of Nixon's television campaign was a young producer for the Mike Douglas Show, Roger Ailes. Nixon met Ailes when he was a guest on the show in 1967. Sitting in a make-up chair, Nixon said it was silly to have to go on TV to get elected president. According to Rick Perlstein, Ailes' response was a surprise. "Mr. Nixon," Ailes said, "if you think this is silly you'll never become president of the United States." Nixon liked the young prodigy and put Ailes on the payroll. (Ailes later played a crucial role in the campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and went on to become the head of Fox News.)
Nixon's media team scrutinized their candidate's earlier television appearances and agreed Nixon came off best in more informal settings, places where he could speak extemporaneously. So they began to stage artificial town hall meetings - called "Man in the Arena" - where Nixon would take questions from a handpicked crowd of supporters. The idea was to destroy the image of Nixon as a loser by showing him as a fighter, someone who could survive tough questions on the public stage. [...]
Journalist Tom Wicker covered Nixon's campaign for the New York Times. In his book, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream, Wicker writes that these televised exchanges were a "masterly new political concept." They enabled Nixon to appear as if he were being questioned freely, "while running little risk of a hostile inquiry, a damaging answer or some other mistake." [...]
Nixon's vast resources were also used to manage the press. Nixon's handlers kept him away from reporters. The ones traveling with Nixon only got quick two-minute interviews as Nixon's airplane was landing. Sequestered from the man they were trying to cover, reporters were fed copious amounts of food and booze. A British journalist covering Nixon's campaign observed that the press corps "fell into a state of what one can only call astounded torpor." [...]
Why am I posting this as a parallel diary? I don't think this is necessarily bad. I just don't think it is new or brilliant or admirable. It's a campaign tactic, a use of the media by going around the media. The use of "real people" that ostensibly makes the whole thing itself less scripted, more real, more natural, more in touch with regular people is a standard infomercial gimmick today, used to sell specious bullshit products while still looking legit.
Like Nixon, Hillary doesn't stand up well to the light of media interrogation. We can try to say it's because the media is anti-Hillary, but, really... would Bill Clinton ever have had to do this? No, this is a technique meant to level the playing field for an unlikeable candidate who needs stricter control of his/her media presentation than his/her natural gifts safely allow.