One of the many ironies of the endless 2008 primary season is that two of the bigger news stories were generated by an unpaid “citizen journalist.”
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She’s a woman few people had heard of who wrote for an Internet site that didn’t exist four years ago.
Mayhill Fowler, a 61-year-old San Francisco Bay area resident who contributed regularly to the Huffington Post’s “Off the Bus” primary coverage, put both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton on the defensive.
Her style remains controversial - among other things, she has contributed to the Obama campaign, something no conventional media representative would do.
However, there is no question that she got results.
Fowler reported in April on Obama’s presumed off-the-record remarks about “bitter” Pennsylvanians clinging to guns and religion when he spoke at a fund-raising event put together by Alexander Mehran, a real estate developer and also a Bay Area resident.
The occasion was off limits to the press, but Fowler got in and took her recorder with her.
The comments launched a debate during the Pennsylvania primary over whether Obama was “elitist” and “out of touch.”
Earlier this month, a Fowler blog item on Clinton also contributed to countless news stories.
In speaking with Fowler at a campaign event, Clinton commented on an unflattering profile in Vanity Fair magazine, blasting its author, Todd Purdom as “sleazy” and more.
Fowler’s post, in which she repeated Clinton’s words, added to the perception of the former president as someone who allowed his anger to distract from the political campaign of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Jacques Steinberg, in Sunday’s New York Times “Week in Review” section, noted that Fowler wore no press credential when she approached Clinton for the interview that led to her scoop. Nor did she identify herself as a reporter.
“I think we can safely say he thought I was a member of the audience, Fowler told Steinberg.
Jonathan Alter, the political columnist for Newsweek, faulted Fowler’s methods, saying that her not identifying herself “makes it harder for the rest of us to do our jobs.”
Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake.com, a political website, disagreed with Alter, saying it was up to Clinton to figure out what Fowler was doing. And besides, Hamsher noted, Fowler got a story that the public needed to know.
A graduate of Vassar College and the University of California, Berkeley (”elite” schools, some have noted), Fowler has been a teacher and a writer.
In a post Monday, she looked back on her experience covering the primary. She noted that she would arrive at events before the press bus, talk to as many people as she could, and then write about what interested her.
“Like Alice down the rabbit hole, I don’t quite fit the surroundings,” she wrote. “I don’t have a degree in journalism. I’m not in the blogger mold, for I don’t report on everything of interest I observe.”
Fowler is married to James C. Fowler, a long-time partner in the firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP, who joined Apple Inc. earlier this year.
The Fowlers are are said to be owners of a 43-foot yacht and to have an interest in Odysseus Cruising, which offers cruises along the Turkish coast and through the Greek Islands.
Mayhill Fowler is also the creator of the blog, Junehill, Owl and a Green Dog, Too.
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