McMahon Campaign Says She Won’t Meet With Editorial Boards

Linda McMahon’s campaign manager says the Republican U.S. Senate candidate will not meet with newspaper editorial boards before the August primary.

In a prepared statement issued Sunday, Corry Bliss says McMahon will not participate in editorial boards because she is running a grassroots campaign “that involves taking her message directly to each and every voter — face to face, person to person.”

McMahon, a Greenwich resident and the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, attends events throughout Connecticut every week, and most of those events are open to the public, including the media, Bliss says.

Asked by reporters Monday about the decision not to meet with editorial boards, McMahon said she would instead use campaign events to make her positions known to voters.

“We did make a decision not to do pre-primary editorial review boards because I’m out every day, visiting with companies and organizations, just like this morning, to address the AFL-CIO, and I’m going to continue to do that,” said McMahon. “I think we have been very responsive to the media.”

When a candidate declines to meet with editorial boards, they are not helping the citizens or newspapers, said Jill Geisler, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a school dedicated to educating journalists and media leaders.

While candidates are not obligated to speak to the media, citizens may not get their questions answered if candidates refuse to talk to an objective third party, Geisler said. When a candidate doesn’t talk to an editorial board, she said it also reduces the newspaper’s ability to give fair hearings to all candidates before making any endorsements.

“It’s a potential lose, lose situation for the citizen who would like to know more and for the journalist who is trying to be fair,” Geisler said.

Regardless, Geisler said not talking to editorial boards is a growing trend. Through social media and other forms of technology, candidates can control their messages more now than in the past, she said, allowing them to dodge questions they aren’t willing to answer or don’t know anything about.

Describing his boss as a fighter who will not be bullied by anyone, Bliss says McMahon won’t let the media and her opponents prevent her from sharing her message directly with voters.

In his statement, Bliss specifically targets the Norwich Bulletin, saying that the newspaper responded with threats and temper tantrums when McMahon’s campaign said it wouldn’t meet with the newspaper’s editorial board. Bliss said Sunday’s editorial in the Norwich Bulletin included personal insults against McMahon and appeared because the newspaper didn’t get its way.

“Today’s editorial showed us that we have to fight more than one opponent in this campaign: career politicians and the biased media who are desperate to maintain their relevance and the status quo,” Bliss said.

“It isn’t objective not because it’s an editorial,” said Norwich Bulletin columnist Ray Hackett in his blog. “It’s [a] political opinion column. If Linda’s campaign manager doesn’t know the difference, then she clearly isn’t getting the biggest bang for her money.”

McMahon, who lost a bid for U.S. Senate in 2010 to Democrat Richard Blumenthal, will face former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays in the Aug. 14 Republican U.S. Senate primary.

The Courant’s editorial board has met with Shays about the Senate race. It, however, has not met with McMahon.

Christopher Murphy and Susan Bysiewicz are also vying for the Senate seat. The Courant’s editorial board has met with both Democrats.

If there is an objective third party dedicated to dispensing information, Geisler said voters should ask a candidate who declines an editorial board interview one question: “What do you have to fear?”