U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faced off with CNN's John King during the South Carolina debate Thursday, Jan, 19, accusing the "destructive, vicious, negative" media of making it "harder to govern this country," reported Politico. Following the debate, which King moderated, CNN’s David Gergen said on the air that Gingrich's anti-media rant represented "one of the harshest attacks that we’ve had on the press that I can remember in a long, long time,” Politico added.
According to the New Yorker, Gingrich's attack on the press occurred when King started the debate by asking the candidate to comment on interviews Gingrich's ex-wife had given ABC News and the Washington Post, in which she says the conservative candidate was cheating on her with his now third wife and asked to have an "open marriage."
As the Baltimore Sun pointed out, King and the reporters who interviewed Gingrich's ex-wife did nothing wrong because "they were absolutely doing the job of journalism in vetting a presidential candidate and giving her/him a chance to respond to their findings...The job of the press is to make sure voters know as much as possible about a candidate when they go to the polls."
Poynter noted that it's not just the Republicans who complain about the media, as President Obama, in a Time magazine article published Thursday, contends the press portrays him as distant: "The Washington press corps maybe just doesn’t feel like I’m in the mix enough with them, and they figure, well, if I’m not spending time with them, I must be cold and aloof."
