> The Times did the exact opposite and had a political campaign proofread stories before publication.

This is false, or misleading at best, if you're referring to the Mark Leibovich profile of Clinton. He sent an off-the-record transcript the campaign asking whether it could be put on the record, and the campaign only allowed him to publish part of it. Not ideal of course, but I'm not sure how you would avoid this, unless you think off-the-record interviews should be banned entirely.

I think your take on this is a bit misleading. The only thing subject to being on the record would be specific quotes or statements by HRC. The rest of the article, the parts he was asking for approval on, were the journalistic conclusions he drew. He was asking for approval in case the campaign felt any of it was off message. There was also discussion of staying on message!

It's absurd that candidates should be treated with such kid gloves. HRC should be happy to subject herself to whatever interviews, etc., from the nation's most respected paper simply to allow her side of the story to be noted.

The predominant vibe should be adversarial, skeptical of her motives and promises, and doing the interview and reading the resulting piece should be unpleasant for the candidate.

I know the NYT tailors the composition of various pages based on the print, afternoon, or online edition, etc., but throughout most of September and October, the pre-paywall politics section contained at least two flattering/fluffy stories about the HRC campaign every single day.

I'm sure there are people who want to read that stuff, but they should be asking how she'll turn all the promises into law, why she waited to support gay marriage, why she allowed her cronies to sabotage Sanders' campaign on her behalf, etc. The NYT did none of that. So coupled with the very friendly treatment by Leibovich, the news org doesn't really seem much like a news org.

> The purpose of the press is to be adversarial, not to help meet the PR objectives of those it views as friends.

Once you know enough "good" PR people, you quickly realize that the press often doesn't work that way, save a few investigative journalists. Some PR-types I know at larger SV organizations have a lot of blogger and journalist friends, and they appear to have an unwritten "we'll give you the scoop if you give us right of first refusal" on a lot of stories.