Harris is just the latest politician in the Internet age to block the press

Political campaigns do not make these decisions with the principles of press freedom in mind – they only care about winning. Unless they believe that shunning journalists will hurt them politically, they will not change course.

Harris' approach shows that politicians are not currently worried about the political fallout from shutting out reporters. Rather, they believe that new ways of communicating mean they no longer need journalists to reach voters. Many are concluding that the sacrifices they make to avoid the press are a small price to pay to get their message across in a way they can better control.

Journalists must change this equation by loudly denouncing all Politicians trying to evade scrutiny – not just presidential candidates. It seems to be working to some extent with Harris. She's committed to giving interviews. It can work at the local level too.

Governors and local officials block the press

I attended a Poynter Institute symposium in Miami in 2023 on the growing trend of public officials “circumventing independent reporting.”

Back then, it was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who refused to cooperate with the media. Florida journalists described how he had replaced press conferences at the state Capitol with rallies packed with supporters at locations far from the press in Tallahassee. Our US Press Freedom Tracker has documented several cases in which DeSantis not only avoided the press, but removed or excluded journalists from his events.

DeSantis, unfortunately, prides himself on being anti-press. Journalists should still call him out so his constituents know about his antics, but he probably enjoys seeing his victims cry.

But other governors who are more likely to value good relations with the press, including Gavin Newsom of California, have also stonewalled reporters. David Loy, legal director of the California-based First Amendment Coalition, told CalMatters that the agencies' “news control practices are really damaging to the public interest. … Because people need to know the whole story, not just the official version.”

It's not just governors. Poynter's report on the symposium cited examples involving lower-level public officials, such as a Florida sheriff who refused to brief the local newspaper on press conferences. It also noted that many government agencies had made permanent transparency cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic that were supposedly temporary public safety measures.