We've paired a couple of reports in this entry on the topic of Governor Cuomo's cowardly "Meet the Friendly Press" performances.
- Cuomo retreats from open news briefings that made him a star
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This article from the Associated Press quantifies how Team Cuomo's media strategy has changed since the beginning of the year:
... his conference calls with reporters have grown less frequent this spring, with six held in March, down from 10 in February and 17 in January.
And with reporters forced to dial in remotely, his office can control which reporters get to ask questions. The few who are picked often don’t get follow-up questions.
That’s a huge change from last spring, when Cuomo met daily with reporters who shouted questions from seats in the State Capitol’s Red Room.
Since February, when women began coming forward with stories about inappropriate comments or touching by Cuomo, the governor has attended numerous events featuring him speaking in front of small groups — but with no journalists allowed.
Asked on a recent conference call why he couldn’t have journalists in the room, Cuomo said that it was safer to speak to reporters remotely, and that doing it by conference call didn’t stop reporters from asking tough questions.
“We try to keep the number of people down, and we try to keep social distancing mandates,” Cuomo said of his in-person events. “Answering questions with the press, I can do through other means, like this.”
It’s in part a return to practice for Cuomo, who, before the coronavirus pandemic, rarely held regular news conferences.
But after months of easy access, the governor’s sudden refusal to allow reporters to freely question him has rankled media outlets.
With our primary focus on Governor Cuomo's multiple COVID nursing home deaths scandals, our coverage of the sexual harassment allegations has been limited, so we had to turn to one of the other timelines we've featured in our timeline to put the AP's story into historical context.
The first sexual harassment allegation against Governor Cuomo was advanced by Lindsey Boylan on 14 December 2020. Her allegations then fell back into semi-obscurity until she detailed her allegations on 24 February 2021, which marks our first entry dedicated to the story. Three days later, on 27 February 2021, former Cuomo aide Charlotte Bennett became the second woman to come forward to allege she was a victim of Governor Cuomo's sexual harassment. The number of accusers rose to nine by the end of March 2021.
But Cuomo's change in media strategy to reduce his number of appearances and thus his exposure to questions from serious journalists began after January 2021, as the AP's account indicates. That timing indicates the change in media strategy came as a reaction to other events.
Those events are well documented in our timeline! Here are the big ones:
- 28 January 2021: NY AG Confirms Team Cuomo Hiding Extent of COVID Deaths in Nursing Homes
- 3 February 2021: Judge Rules Against Team Cuomo Nursing Home Death Data Stonewall
- 11 February 2021: Team Cuomo Claims They Hid Data to Avoid Trump DOJ
These are the events that blew the lid off Governor Cuomo's attempted cover-up of the full extent of COVID deaths among New York nursing home residents during the period the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect.
The addition of the sexual harassment allegations at the end of February 2021 then contributed toward furthering Team Cuomo's by-then-established bunker-mentality-driven media strategy.
- Under siege, Cuomo adopts a new strategy: 'closed press'
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This report in the Buffalo News reveals how Governor Cuomo is excluding news organizations from attending his public appearances:
Since scandal after scandal began engulfing Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo this year, he’s taken a new approach in an attempt to keep his face and words flowing directly to New Yorkers on terms and subject matters that he dictates.
It's like a Rose Garden strategy, but with a twist.
Unlike presidents over the years who use the White House as a shield during political troubles, the governor, facing calls to resign from more than half the state Legislature, is still getting out of the Executive Mansion in Albany, as he did Friday in Buffalo.
But now, Cuomo regularly holds events throughout the state that do something remarkable in the modern history of New York governors: he bans news reporters from attending.
His stop at the Northland Workforce Training Center in Buffalo on Friday to tout new legislation that will broaden low-cost internet access across the state was the latest example. While supporters of the governor attended in person, reporters were asked to view it online and call in for a limited question-and-answer session. It followed an earlier stop this week at a Hudson Valley hard cider farm. And he has barred reporters from attending other recent stops at vaccination centers at Belmont Racetrack, the Javits Center convention hall in Manhattan and a Baptist church in Westchester County.
Whatever else it may be, it is not a strategy of confidence. Governor Cuomo has been seeking better PR people and more legal help since the end of March 2021.
