| | Black journalist suspects racial profiling by McCain campaign
At a McCain campaign event on Friday, one senior reporter for a local Florida paper, the Tallahassee Democrat, was ordered by a member of McCain's security detail to leave the media area outside McCain's bus. Another reporter who asked why he was being removed was also made to leave.
Although the reporter, Stephen Price, is black, a McCain spokesperson insisted that "race had nothing to do with it" and said that Price was standing in an area reserved for the national press corps. He could not explain why no other local reporters were moved out of that area.
Price appeared on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Monday and provided more details of the incident. "It was pretty odd that I'm the only black reporter," he stated. "All of the other reporters were white. ... I was told because I was not national that I had to be removed. Didn't make sense to me."
Price noted that prior to his ejection he had done nothing to call attention to himself and that the first sign he had of trouble was when "a gentleman in a brown suit came and asked me what I'm doing here. I show them my credentials. ... He asks me, 'Are you national?' ... A Panama City police officer comes to me with his gun, with his hand on his holster, asking me what's going on, and this thing starts gaining momentum pretty quick."
"We couldn't find any other national reporters in the area at the time," Price continued. "My friend, the writer from the Palm Beach Post, said, 'Well, Stephen, you're guilty of being black while reporting.' ... This guy had to know that we all weren't national, because ... he had to be familiar with them. So if he didn't recognize me, well, he surely couldn't recognize the other reporters there also."
Olbermann said he had not been able to get the McCain campaign to comment on the incident, but he saw it as further evidence of a change in McCain's campaign style compared to eight years ago. "In the 2000 presidential campaign, John McCain's openness to reporters and their access to him underscored the image McCain wanted to advance as a straight-talking, honest maverick, unscripted, unafraid, uninterested in having consultants micro-manage his statements," Olberman noted. "What, then, does that say about McCain today? His access and openness are gone."
This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast August 4, 2008.
Download video
|
