Clinton: I'm trying to balance national, state and local news media needs in campaign

Sen. Hillary Clinton's keep-away game with journalists, one topic of a recent Iowa-related post here and on our home page, is a focus of a story in The Washington Post today by media reporter Howard Kurtz. "Reporters can generally get close enough to watch but no further, as if separated from the candidate by an invisible sheet of glass," he reported from Concord, N.H. (Associated Press photo: Cheryl Senter)

Kurtz wrote only about complaints from national and big-city reporters, the only ones he ever seems to care about. "Campaigns often brush off national correspondents in favor of local journalists, who tend to be less critical," he wrote. But when he finally got to ask Clinton a question -- just one question was allowed, he wrote -- she said local and state reporters have "a very big role to play" and "The balancing is really intense."(Read more)