NPR Digs Into Hillary Clinton’s Claims About Media Access: ‘At Once True and Somewhat Misleading’

Hillary Clinton has not held a formal press conference in 2016 and NPR conducted a thorough review of her campaign’s “somewhat misleading” claims that she has “been in more than 300 interviews with reporters” over the same time period.

Clinton and campaign manager Robbie Mook have both mentioned that the Democratic nominee has done roughly 300 interviews, while shooting down questions about the lack of traditional press conferences.

The NPR review found that the campaign’s claims are “at once true and somewhat misleading” because “some were conducted by unlikely questioners, and overall she favored local radio and national TV hits over granting interviews with national reporters covering her on the campaign trail and with print publications.”

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NPR found that Clinton “had indeed done 350 interviews in the first seven months of the year” but they were not all conducted by “reporters or journalists.”

The report noted that Clinton granted roughly 65 interviews to people it would “not classify as journalists or in settings that would be considered journalistic, even using expansive definitions.”

Some of the people who interviewed Clinton were known supporters of her campaign, such as Democratic mayor of Miami Beach Philip Levine.

In addition, Clinton favors television, according to NPR. “Clinton gave one hundred interviews to national cable and broadcast network news programs in that period and also emphasized brief interviews with local television news stations. She also frequently graced local radio hosts with her calls,” the study noted.

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The study also found that Clinton tends to skip print journalists, giving only 35 interviews to newspapers and magazines and often favors publications who reach Latino and African-American voters.

Clinton also has kept her interviews short, according to the study, mostly between three and eight minutes.

According to NPR, the Clinton campaign did not have an issue with the results of the study.