While Harris is a relative newcomer to small-town Washington media circles, she comes to the table with decades of experience as a California public figure and long-standing ties there.
Former California aides recalled that she appeared on television so often that she knew the names of local San Francisco news camera crews and worked hard to cultivate relationships with powerful media figures in the Bay Area.
John Diaz, a former executive editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, recalled the first time Ms. Harris appeared before the editorial board, surrounded by San Francisco’s top politicians. Diaz said that while she hardly needed the Chronicle’s support in her district attorney race, it showed how important Ms. Harris’ allies thought it was to have the backing of a major media outlet.
“It was as if she needed training wheels, which she clearly didn’t,” Diaz said, “but I told the politicians that it’s OK to sit back and watch, but the candidates have to speak up.”
The moment was cast in a positive light in articles: The Chronicle, which endorsed Harris over the Democratic incumbent, wrote that Harris “has the support of a range of politicians and influential leaders across the city.”
Diaz said he was impressed with her response to critical articles about her tenure as a longtime district attorney and California attorney general: “There were times when I criticized her on a variety of issues. But she never stopped talking to me. She was always accessible to me.”
A former employee told Semaphore: Harris made sure that reporters from non-white media were invited to her events and had access to her, and she cultivated personal relationships with local black media outlets, including Danny Bakewell Sr., publisher of the LA Sentinel, Hardy Brown, founder of the weekly Black Voice News, and Amelia Ashley Ward, publisher of the Sun-Reporter, San Francisco’s oldest black newspaper.
Success in California politics relies more on intraparty Democratic connections, fundraising and television advertising than on favorable coverage in the state press. Harris had easy access to the state Democratic Party, which helped her beat her opponent to become a U.S. senator in 2016. But she had little time to get acquainted with Washington and the national media that would cover her before launching her presidential campaign.
Despite initial strength, then-Senator Harris was unable to break away from the pack, and her missteps drew intense media scrutiny. Her campaign’s embarrassing personal stories about infighting and serious mismanagement were the subject of some of the most well-documented and slammed stories of the 2020 primaries. In The Times, 50 current and former staffers painted a brutal picture of the campaign, accusing Harris, her sister Maya Harris, and campaign managers of squandering money, refusing to commit to a strategy, and creating a flawed organization that failed to adapt quickly.
Ms. Harris didn’t feel she was being treated fairly: Toward the end of the campaign, two people who knew her told Semaphore, she privately felt that networks were putting her in a category by assigning her coverage to mostly black war correspondents and staffers.
Harris’ troubles with the media continued into the early part of her term, even after she was promoted to vice president. As part of COVID-19 countermeasures, she was required to reduce direct contact with the public, including reporters, and to take measures such as wearing masks and social distancing.
Harris’ disastrous June 2021 interview on immigration with Lester Holt, in which she admitted she had never been to the southern border, sparked Republican attacks that continue to this day, set the tone for a more cautious approach by her media team during her first year. That fact was exacerbated by her desire not to steal attention from a president who rarely gives interviews. But Harris’ limited media appearances meant her gaffes stayed in the news for longer.
Her team has also made some odd decisions, like a behind-the-scenes fight with Vogue over a cover shoot with the vice president. (No damage was done to the relationship: Condé Nast staffers recently spotted Anna Wintour wearing a Biden/Harris scarf in the office, and Vogue endorsed Harris for president this week.)
After yet another embarrassing news story about office mismanagement and mass staff departures, Harris and her team seemed to realize they needed to reset their media strategy. In late 2021, Harris brought in Lorraine Vowles, a former aide to Vice President Al Gore. Vowles took the idea that Harris’s more media appearances would lessen the impact of the vice president’s poor performance. Harris’ team also believed that more media interactions would help Harris become more tactful and comfortable with riskier media appearances. So Harris began giving more interviews, first with local media while on the road, and then quietly with national political media.
Each year, Ms. Harris increased the frequency of her interactions with journalists, particularly in more casual, informal settings, so journalists could get to know her better and the policy areas she works on.
For example, Axios reported that she hosted a dinner in 2023. Morning Joe hosting Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski at the Naval Observatory. This isn’t a one-time event: She’s hosted similar informal dinners with other cable news personalities, including NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker, the White House reporters from Univision and Telemundo, and all of the reporters in the front row of the Brady Briefing Room (for a time, they were all women).
At every political turning point during the Biden administration’s term, she has privately reached out to reporters to explain the administration’s perspective. Weeks after the Dobbs draft was leaked to Politico, she held a background briefing with reporters, taking the opportunity to dig deeper and provide her understanding of abortion policy. And just days before Russia invaded Ukraine, on a flight to Munich to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, she took to the back of Air Force Two to brief reporters on the Biden administration’s thinking on the situation.
Her office has also sought to cultivate closer ties with alternative digital media. Staffers from gossip site The Shade Room were invited to her holiday party. The New York Times was not the only outlet in the vice president’s office to engage informally with the media. Harris’ staff also invited authors from what one attendee described as “a pretty niche pro-abortion Substax.” This approach is Harris’ own, who said she has heard from young families who get their news from podcasts and alternative media.
