NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw rebutted a smear in a Wall Street Journal column after the 2000 presidential election. Around the same time, pollsters were sampling the public's perception of news media fairness. Gary Hart might well have been elected President of the United States in 1988. Answering questions about his judgment and ethics, he had denied that he had been disloyal to his wife. His campaign crashed after the Miami Herald found another woman at his Washington townhouse.
Candidates often choose to reach the voters where they are.
The talk and comedy shows are much different than the traditional newsmaker interviews and formal debates. In 1988, George Bush and Robert Dole fought for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire. Large blocks of voters were not firmly locked on either candidacy. Frequent media polling allowed the public to know what the political insiders knew from their own tracking. Covering Up President Reagan's Skin Cancer Mrs. Reagan asked the White House spokeperson to conceal the results of a physical examination.