Mitt Romney's anti-press campaign is creating some, well, bad press for the Republican presidential candidate.
Romney has drawn attention for his testy, limited interactions with the media. Last week, he got angry enough with Fox News host Bret Baier after an interview that Baier publicly called him out about it.
Now, New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg has relayed another embarrassing incident for Romney. Fox News allowed Rutenberg to sit backstage as Romney and several other candidates waited to participate in a forum hosted by the network's Mike Huckabee on his Saturday show. Rutenberg writes that, while Newt Gingrich chatted happily with him, Romney and his aides treated him as if he was a leper, and reacted in comically over-the-top fashion:
Spotting the reporter, Mr. Romney’s aides sprang into action, asking where he worked and what he was doing there, and then insisting that he not physically approach Mr. Romney before or after he was questioned on television by the attorneys general and Mr. Huckabee.
The incident is another example of the increasingly sour relationship between Romney and the media. As Politico's Dylan Byers noted, the candidate's disdain for interviews and near-total inaccessibility with the press have only made his coverage worse — and made the rare interviews he does grant stick out negatively. What's more, prominent media figures such as Time's Joe Klein are now openly deriding Romney's unwillingness to talk to them.
Background on Mitt Romney:
