Reporters rage while waiting for Hillary Clinton's campaign to finally launch
AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
After Business Insider broke the news Clinton would launch her campaign some time this weekend, the Guardian followed it up with a story claiming she would announce via a video released at noon on Sunday. However, when the appointed time arrived, there was no video. Now, there are multiple reports Clinton plans to make her announcement at an unspecified time later on Sunday.
This left reporters assigned to cover the launch - including many camped out in front of Clinton's campaign headquarters - spending the day in limbo waiting for the expected news to break. Many of them took to Twitter to express frustration with the situation. Some even made up dedicated hashtags like #waitingforHillary and #WhyHillaryIsLate.
One member of Clinton's team seemed to poke fun at the reporters who were spending part of their weekend at work waiting for the announcement. Teddy Goff, who is working with Clinton's campaign on digital strategy tweeted what appeared to be a coomment teasing those who were trapped at their desks awaiting the video at 12:01 p.m.
"Beautiful day out there!" he wrote.
Goff's tweet prompted testy replies from several reporters.
The Clinton campaign's secretive and difficult to cover campaign launch is a stark contrast with the Republican candidates who have kicked off their campaign in recent weeks. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) all made their announcements at scheduled events and sent advance alerts to press. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) who has his announcement scheduled for Monday also set a time and gave reporters notice.
In the leadup to her campaign, critics have attacked Clinton for avoiding the media. Last week, her team reportedly held a series of off record dinners with reporters in an effort to establish a better relationship with the media than Clinton had during her 2008 presidential bid. If the press' response to her announcement is any indication, that effort is off to a somewhat rocky start.
View some of the angry tweets about the launch below.
help im being held hostage by the clinton team and they think its funny https://t.co/Z6GlPXhKMd
- T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) April 12, 2015
No one is as ready for Hillary as every political media person looking outside at this beautiful day.
- Natalie Andrews (@nataliewsj) April 12, 2015
The AFP Washington newsroom just became an even swearier place https://t.co/a3SQ2UWWY3
- Dave Clark (@DaveClark_AFP) April 12, 2015
At least those of us staking out Hillary HQ are stuck out here on a beautiful day. The only upside. @NY1 #waitingforhillary
- Grace Rauh (@gracerauh) April 12, 2015
Seems appropriate that Clinton '16 starts with them seemingly messing with the press just for fun
- Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) April 12, 2015
The @DailyKos tech team moved a huge upgrade up a day earlier so that the site wouldn't be down when Clinton announced. Sheesh.
- Daily Kos Elections (@DKElections) April 12, 2015
Nothing says strong, decisive leadership like being unable to decide when to release a video
- David Freedlander (@freedlander) April 12, 2015
In all seriousness, can we just pretend the announcement just happened? What will actually change?
- Philip Bump (@pbump) April 12, 2015
See the joke here is that while we're all waiting around for this announcement we actually are slowly dying a little bit
- Ned Resnikoff (@resnikoff) April 12, 2015
- I got a $40K raise using this 30-second strategy. It made me realize loud work, not hard work, always wins.
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