CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Thursday that Donald Trump had recently been talking with "sycophantic interviewers that have not challenged him on issues" – and saying that was "probably not the smartest thing for a newsperson to do," Boston University's Tobe Berkovitz told Newsmax.
"For one of the analysts, one of the pundits, they're paid or they show up for the glory and express their opinions, their point of view," Berkovitz, an associate professor of advertising, said in an interview. "Usually highly partisan and rarely surprising.
"But for a newsperson to weigh in on the rigor of which either of these candidates is interviewed is probably not the wisest thing to do, and probably not the most accurate thing to do."
Tapper was questioning Joshua Green, national correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek, about Trump's recent surge in the polls on his "The Lead" program.
Green attributed the gains to Trump being somewhat less available to the press in recent months and not making many gaffes in his speeches and at his rallies.
Then Tapper said: "Generally, he's, in recent months, stuck with fairly sycophantic interviewers that have not challenged him on issues.
"Not all of them, but a lot of them."
Tapper did not mention any names, but Trump has generally held interviews with two Fox News hosts, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Last month, Trump held an exclusive interview with "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth on Newsmax TV before a rally in Kissimmee, Fla.
In his Newsmax interview, Berkovitz attributed the folly within Tapper's comment to "the nature" of political campaign interviews.
"There's rarely a tough question," he said. "If, somehow, a tough question is asked, it's even rarer that it's aggressively followed up.
"That's the nature of it, because you could make your bones by asking a tough question — but that'll be the last tough question you ever ask that candidate because the campaign won't let you near them."
Berkovitz doesn't think Tapper's comment will further limit CNN's access to Trump, either.
"You can put limits on the immediate access that reporters or news organizations get, but that's a fool's errand to try to get away with that for too long.
"But, listen, all that Hillary [Clinton] has to do is put up a road block — and unless she wants to wave and take a few generic questions and sort of hit her talking points, it's not like very many people are sitting down and grilling her."
Clinton held her first news conference in more than nine months Thursday, taking six questions from reporters after speaking at a rally in Greensboro, N.C.
She was on the campaign trail for the first time after being out for three days with pneumonia.
"Overall, unless a reporter is trying to really show that they are an aggressive, no-holds-barred reporter, most of them like to play nice," Berkovitz told Newsmax. "Because they know if you don't, you're not even going to be sitting in the back of the plane.
"You're going to be basically taking an Uber car to get to the next city."
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