New norm: Governing by social media

Politicians are laying a new foundation in media relations and operating as if the Fourth Estate no longer exists.  

In Arizona, it’s governing by video press releases, leaving the state without a word for a softball interview, and launching campaigns for the state’s highest office on YouTube.  

It’s become a move out of Gov. Doug Ducey’s playbook that spawned from the Covid pandemic and is being adopted by State Treasurer Kimberly Yee and Arizona Regent and developer Karrin Taylor Robson, two Republican candidates seeking to replace Ducey as governor in 2022.  

For several months, Ducey held no press conferences as Covid raged throughout the state, and he now meets with the media very selectively. In 2021, he has had two press conferences and made himself available for a few questions after events.  

But when it came to signing SB1485, a divisive election bill that could lead to thousands of people being removed from the state’s early voting list, he spoke for three minutes on video to explain his thinking and champion the new law, avoiding questions from the press.   

On May 26, he left Arizona to attend a Republican Governor’s Association conference and did not alert the press corps.  

It’s a new strategy, and it’s catching on.  

On May 17, Yee and Robson launched campaigns for governor hours apart through videos and have not taken a single media request since then. 

Both Republican women have not returned a total of eight calls leading up to this story. 

Republican consultant Doug Cole of HighGround Public Affairs Consultants said this is becoming normal and it’s a shame.  

Politicians controlling the message while utilizing social media has clearly evolved over the past decade, Cole said, and “you can get in front of voters very quickly and on your terms.” 

“I don’t see this changing any time in the foreseeable future,” Cole said, adding that it has been effective for politicians, though he would argue it has affected the political discourse immensely.  

Cole, who was a communications director and deputy chief of staff under Gov. Fife Symington, said the only current politician he can think of who will talk to the media until the final question is asked and answered is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president of Mexico.  

“AMLO stands up every morning until there’s no more questions, every single day,” Cole said. “John McCain operated that way on tough issues. … He would stand there until there would be no more questions, and he loved doing that.”  

But it’s not common anymore, especially among elected officials.  

Cole said it makes for a “healthy” democracy to have that level of discourse and to face tough questions. 

Kris Mayes, a Republican-turned-Democrat, shares that sentiment.  

“Sometimes you bristle under the questioning, sometimes you don’t like having to answer the question, but if you do run for and win office, it’s your duty to answer these questions,” Mayes said. “You don’t get a choice. You shouldn’t have a choice. It’s your obligation to answer to the people of Arizona, and you basically need to be willing to do that through the press corps.” 

Mayes has the unique perspective of not only being a former elected official – she served on the Arizona Corporation Commission from 2003 to 2010 – but she was also a former reporter for the Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic and was communications director for Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. 

Napolitano would meet the press every Wednesday at 10 a.m. 

Coming at the issue from both sides, Mayes said the press corps is crucial to a democracy and anybody who fights against that does not care about transparency or about the voters who elected them. 

“It certainly was not this way under Governor Napolitano and it’s a really worrisome development,” she said. “Voters need to be able to kick the tires on candidates and ask them questions and one way they can do that is through the media. And so, if candidates are cutting off access to reporters, then they’re cutting off voters’ access to them, and that’s not good for democracy at all.” 

The worst part, Mayes said, is that they are all getting away with it. 

There isn’t really a solution at this point either because everything from politics to the media has become so polarized. 

Two major topics happening in Arizona right now are Ducey’s attempt to pass a flat tax through the budget at the state Legislature and the state Senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s ballots for the November 2020 election. Ducey clearly supports the flat tax – it was his proposal after all – but between him, Yee and Robson it’s been mostly silence on the audit. 

The governor has danced around addressing it, while Yee and Robson have been completely silent on both issues.  

Cole said one thing that is definitely not a solution is for the media to stop covering the political figures.  

“I don’t think that you all should abdicate that responsibility,” he said.  

Cole said he thinks with the evolution of social media platforms connecting politicians directly to their voters and constituents, the path was always leading here, but the pandemic made it worse. 

“Now it’s on hyperdrive,” he said, adding that politicians are “absolutely” using the pandemic to their advantage.  

“Because of the pandemic, there have been fewer public events, which means there are fewer opportunities for the media to catch public figures on the fly,” he said. “The communication medium has defaulted into the usage of social media platforms” rather than in-person events with availability for questions. 

Unlike Cole, Mayes does believe that the future political candidates who refuse to address the media are putting themselves at a disadvantage.  

“They’re losing an avenue to talk to voters,” Mayes said. 

Cole said he thinks it depends on the candidate.  

As for why Ducey and Yee and politicians like them are choosing to approach the press this way, Mayes said they don’t seem to care enough.  

“They’re doing a disservice to the people of Arizona,” she said. “In the case of Doug Ducey, clearly he’s doing things that are unpopular with the voters that are not particularly defensible and so he’s not answering reporters’ questions about it. In the case of Kimberly Yee, she also apparently doesn’t want to answer for Ducey and the Legislature’s actions.” 

And for those who have the courage to face the press corps, Cole has some tips. 

He said that standing in front of a gaggle of reporters who are “aggressively doing their jobs” is intimidating, and it takes some training to get used to.  

“You better know and have a good sense of your positions on a plethora of topics, and be able to communicate those succinctly and consistently,” Cole said. “When you poke your head out and say you’re going to run for a high office, you better be ready for primetime.”