Accuracy in Media

Hillary Clinton told MSNBC’s Joy Reid that members of the media have told her they “overdid it” with their coverage of her private email server during the 2016 campaign.

Reid asked Clinton what she says to reporters to say, “Well, the email scandal was not the media’s fault, it was your fault.”

Clinton said that she made the original mistake, but Trump “had a million mistakes” that he made before he decided to run and declared his candidacy, but for some reason that didn’t matter. Those mistakes faded while Clinton’s email coverage continued.

After telling Reid that she was a strong proponent of First Amendment, she told her what the media has told her about the coverage of her email.

“Here’s what members of the press have basically said to me: ‘First of all, yeah it was a legitimate subject to cover. We overdid it,’” she said. “And I couldn’t agree more.”

She didn’t name which reporters told her this, and Reid didn’t press her.

Clinton also complained about what she called “crazy accusations.”

“It was way overhyped, and again, there was this attitude, like, ‘Well, you’re going to win anyway, and so we have to vet you harder. Trump is the reality TV show candidate, and you’re going to be the next president, which is a terrible assumption to make,” adding that the press didn’t hold Trump to the same standards.

Chris Cillizza of CNN had this to say about Clinton’s email problems in May:

I’d agree that Clinton’s email server played a decisive role in deciding the election. But I wouldn’t agree with the idea that the media is responsible for it.

After all, it was Clinton who never seemed to grasp the seriousness of the issue and how it eroded the public’s already shaky confidence in her. Her inability to do those things meant she was never able to put the story behind her. And then the Comey announcement came, which undoubtedly surged the issue back to the top of many voters’ minds.