If you follow political news, there have been some criticisms from some of those in the pundit class (even those considered to be Democratic supporters) about the paucity of media interviews given by the Harris-Walz team. Some of this is self-interested. They like to portray themselves as at least partly above the partisan fray and in trying to appear even-handed, they look for things to criticize and this is one of them. Other popular topics are her alleged lack of specifics about her proposals and how she will pay for them.

Noteworthy is the fact that creepy Donald Trump seems to get a pass on all these things. It is as if he is so out there, that there is no point in even trying to find fault with him or, if they do, it is to indulge in ‘both siderism’. A good example is this exchange between a so-called conservative Bret Stephens and a so-called liberal Gail Collins, two columnists for the New York Times.

Gail: Bret, this is about the time that I should be asking you to admit you’ll vote for Harris in November.
…

Bret: I’m still where I was last week: waiting for Harris to persuade me to vote for her. What’s wrong with asking her to sit down for a one-on-one interview with a serious journalist who will ask some tough but reasonable questions about urgent public policy matters? The same, of course, should be done with Trump.

Gail: You know I’m not gonna tell you that Harris is doing enough serious interviews with national reporters. She’s not. Neither, obviously, is Trump, but we have a right to hold her to a higher standard.

So there we have the familiar complaint that Harris needs to do more ‘serious’ interviews’ and astonishingly, that they “have a right to hold her to a higher standard” than creepy Trump. Really? Why?

This explanation of this attitude makes sense to me.

That brings us to what we really want to talk about, which is Harris' media strategy. We had an item yesterday covering all the carping from Democrats that Harris isn't doing enough press. For example, Obama-era operative David Axelrod has felt free to share his many criticisms of her approach. We must admit, whenever Axelrod opens his mouth, we are reminded of the line from the movie The American President: “It occurs to me that in 25 years I’ve never seen your name on a ballot.”

In any case, we have a couple of thoughts about Harris’ approach. The first is that we actually see some merit in the course that Harris is pursuing. That is to say, if you do a bunch of media in August or September, you’re probably not going to accomplish much, since the low-information/persuadable voters probably aren’t paying attention yet. Meanwhile, you run the risk of overexposing yourself or, more significantly, saying something damaging that lingers. Think “childless cat ladies,” for example. It may very well be best to save your bullets for the home stretch.

On top of that, when people like Axelrod say that Harris isn’t doing enough media, they really mean she isn’t doing enough traditional media. The seasoned vets tend to turn their noses up at anything that isn’t one of the big three broadcast networks, the big three cable news networks, the Sunday morning shows, The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Well Street Journal.

The truth is, Harris actually has done a fair bit of traditional media. She was on CBS yesterday, and has also had hits on two of the big three cable news networks (all but Fox), and has already sat down with both the Times and the Post.

Meanwhile, the candidate is giving a fair bit of time to podcasts and other “off the wall” options. She did the baseball podcast All the Smoke last week. As we noted in yesterday’s item, she did the Call Her Daddy podcast over the weekend. For those who are unfamiliar, that is the second most downloaded podcast in America. Host Alex Cooper, who is basically a female version of Howard Stern, has 5 million listeners, nearly all of them women. Speaking of Stern, who has 10 million listeners, three-quarters of them between 25 and 54 years of age, Harris will be sitting down with him this morning. She’s also got a town hall with Univision later this week, along with appearances on The View and Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

It seems pretty obvious to us what’s going on here. The people who follow the traditional media? They are largely high-information voters, and most of them have presumably made up their minds as to how they are voting. So, Harris is going to where the low-information voters are. She connects with 5 million of them here, 10 milion of them there, then adds another 3 million (Colbert), and another 2.5 million (The View). The David Axelrods of the world might not like it, but it sure looks pretty shrewd to us.

The media world is much broader than it was a decade ago. Much of it is invisible to people like me who tend to follow legacy media. If the Harris-Walz campaign is going after those new niches, then that is a good thing.