NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd said Wednesday that Vice President Harris should set aside one day a week for media interviews and said it was a “mistake” to wait so long after launching her campaign before meeting with reporters.
Harris' first sit-down interview is scheduled to air on CNN on Thursday night and comes more than a month after she launched her campaign.
Ms Harris' supporters have responded to criticism over her lack of media interviews by pointing to her short time on the campaign trail and her desire to prioritise meeting voters across the country.
But Todd said the interview would be a major event in the absence of media appearances, and called the strategy behind the decision “the first major blunder since Harris became the Democratic nominee.” The article appeared in NBC News on Wednesday..
“They have raised the stakes for the Harris campaign's first in-person interview,” Todd wrote of the Harris campaign, “and with the campaign and candidate acting as if conducting such an interview is as interesting as going to the dentist, many more words and phrases will come under scrutiny.”
Todd encouraged more candidates, including Harris, to adopt the approach former President Trump took in 2016: “embracing all media as your best bet, whether the interviewer is friendly, neutral or hostile.”
Todd noted that conducting multiple interviews dilutes the importance of each conversation.
“For every outrageous or controversial statement he makes in one interview, he makes an entirely newsworthy (and equally noteworthy) statement in another, which effectively dilutes the impact of his interview as a whole,” Todd wrote in the article.
Todd encouraged Harris to adopt a similar strategy of saturating the market. Harris suggested dedicating one day a week to five or six interviews, so if one doesn't work, you can get your message across another time. This approach also reduces the scrutiny and pressure on each interview.
“What the Harris campaign needs to do is set aside one day a week for media interviews and saturate the media. As we all know, nowhere gets close to 100% media saturation anymore,” he wrote.
“If she did five or six round robins with all types of media one day a week, one interview wouldn't overshadow one news cycle, and she would have a better chance of reaching a more diverse audience on a regular basis,” he continued.
The Hill has reached out to Harris' campaign for comment.
