The Public Editor\'s Sunday Column: Covering Clinton\'s Candidacy in Waiting

Covering Clinton's Candidacy in Waiting

WHEN Hillary Clinton joined Twitter in June, her profile described her many roles - as the former first lady of Arkansas and the United States, former secretary of state and New York senator, and as “hair icon” and “pantsuit aficionado.”

And it described her future with three letters: TBD. To be determined.

Mrs. Clinton may consider her future up in the air, but The Times apparently does not. Or at least it's hedging its bets.

Not long after Mrs. Clinton's first tweet, a reporter who had been covering the news media, Amy Chozick, was moved to the political desk to cover the Clintons - particularly Hillary - as a full-time beat.

It's a major use of precious reportorial resources, considering that Mrs. Clinton holds no public office and has not said that she's running for one. And, after all, the next presidential election is more than three years away.

What gives? And for readers - and citizens - what are the potential benefits and the possible pitfalls?

Carolyn Ryan, The Times's political editor, made the case to me for the assignment. Mrs. Clinton, she said, “is the closest thing we have to an incumbent, when we look at 2016.” And getting in early allows The Times to develop sources and get behind the well-honed facade.

“With the Clintons,” she said, “there is a certain opacity and stagecraft and silly coverage elsewhere. Amy can penetrate a lot of that.” She praised Ms. Chozick as a relentless reporter who is “very savvy about power and has a great eye for story.”

Two articles last week give a sense of how she is developing the beat so far. In the first, which appeared on page A11 of most Tuesday editions, Ms. Chozick covered Mrs. Clinton's speech in San Francisco, in which she called for efforts to protect voting rights; it also detailed awards she is receiving. The second piece, which appeared on Wednesday's front page, was more substantive. Co-written with Nicholas Confessore, it examined the finances and shifting focus of the Clinton Foundation, and was an impressive example of enterprise and digging.

Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College and a media critic, said that the Clinton Foundation story began to change his mind about the wisdom of a Clinton beat.

“I haven't been sure there is enough news to sustain a full-time reporter's time,” he told me, “and a dedicated beat creates the incentive to make news.” A full-time Clinton beat at The Times, he said, “could help cement the perception that she is the inevitable Democratic nominee, and effectively serve to pre-anoint her.”

Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, echoed that concern, and raised a related one: “Is it in the public interest to perpetuate the permanent campaign? Should the press resist enabling it?” Both said that they saw positive possibilities, as well, in this effort.

Carl Bernstein, the Watergate reporter who wrote the well-regarded biography of Mrs. Clinton “A Woman In Charge,” told me in a phone interview that she is “really difficult to get a reportorial handle on.”

“She's someone who tries to write her own narrative,” and who, in words from the last chapter of his book, “has a difficult relationship with the truth.” So, The Times's putting an aggressive reporter on Mrs. Clinton early, he said, is a laudable effort to publish “the best obtainable version of the truth.”

But beat coverage, by its nature, is tricky. For every ounce of inside access and insight that is gained by a reporter's day-in and day-out attention, an ounce of independence and objectivity may be lost, notes Sandy Maisel, chairman of the government department at Colby College.

“The question is, does the reporter become captive,” writing largely positive pieces to maintain access, he said. Mr. Maisel praised the foundation story, though, as “not a puff piece and not a hatchet job, just very interesting.”

Ms. Chozick told me last week that her aim is to write a broad range of Clinton-related stories - from quirky to serious.

“I want to write stories that resonate beyond the bubble, that will appeal to my mom in Texas as opposed to Gawker.” She noted that other news organizations, particularly Politico and The Washington Post, are covering Mrs. Clinton heavily now, too. And because her editors, including the executive editor, Jill Abramson, want her to “own” the Clinton beat, “I live in constant fear” of losing a big story to another news outlet.

When The Times - still so influential, even amid today's constant media barrage - brings this kind of pressure to bear, who benefits?

The potential candidate may or may not. Constant tough scrutiny may not be welcome but, on balance, I think The Times's treatment of Mrs. Clinton as an undeclared, free-agent front-runner helps her. She can play her cards close to the vest and still maintain the highest possible profile.

The reader may or may not. If the intense and competitive coverage produces stories that serve the unintended purpose of promoting a candidacy in waiting, the reader-as-citizen loses. If that coverage digs beneath the surface to ferret out what ought to be known, the reader-as-citizen wins.

Jodi Kantor, the political reporter who has covered President Obama and his family for The Times and in her fascinating book, “The Obamas,” sees a simple proposition: Sometimes, she said, “The best campaign coverage happens before the campaign.” Once it begins, “the frozenness, the rigidity and the defensiveness make reporting that much harder,” she told me.

With Mr. Obama only seven months into his second term, and Mrs. Clinton's future still TBD, The Times runs the risk of overdoing it and, in Mr. Nyhan's term, “pre-anointing” a candidate. But it certainly runs no risk of having to make up for lost time.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 18, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Covering Clinton's Candidacy in Waiting.