A few dozen reporters who regularly cover Hillary Clinton gathered last August to watch the first GOP debate at her headquarters in Brooklyn. MSNBC's Alex Seitz-Wald stopped for a moment and looked around.

A second later, he realized what seemed strange: He was the only man in the room.


At least 18 national media outlets have female reporters on the Clinton beat, across print, online, radio and TV, according to a POLITICO survey. Some, such as NBC, have as many as three. Local outlets in Iowa and New Hampshire have female reporters on Clinton, as well. No one can remember a political press corps this heavily female.

"If you go back to 'The Boys on the Bus,' there were so few women," said NBC's Andrea Mitchell, referring to Timothy Crouse's seminal look at the fratlike atmosphere on the campaign trail, circa 1972.

"In 2008, I was one of the only women in [Clinton's] traveling press corps," recalled Amy Chozick of The New York Times, ticking off names of the reporters covering Clinton's first presidential race. "Wow, it was pretty male then. So what's changed?"

The change seems to be a combination of more women doing political reporting in general, and many more being drawn to Clinton's potentially historic candidacy. It's made for an unusual atmosphere, with a female candidate sparring with a nearly all-female corps of reporters. It hasn’t brought Clinton more positive coverage, according to those both inside the campaign and outside it. But reporters and press aides alike note that there’s a different vibe nonetheless, punctuated by occasional expressions by the candidate herself of camaraderie for fellow pioneers.

BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer recalled one press gaggle at which Clinton encouraged her to “liberate herself” and ask what she really wanted to ask. Cramer had planned to ask a lighthearted question but explained that she felt obligated to ask about a former Clinton tech staffer, Bryan Pagliano, who took the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before Congress about Clinton’s email practice. (Cramer ended up asking both questions.)

“And Hillary said ‘Liberate yourself — ask me what you want to ask … no, just be free, be you,’” Cramer recalled, chuckling. “I felt like she was encouraging me in a woman-to-woman way."

“It was kind of mortifying but also a funny and light moment in which she was also just echoing something she had said about herself in the past,” Cramer added, referring to public comments Clinton has made about how she no longer feels as though she needs to be so careful about what to say "because somebody might think this instead of that."

Chozick recalled a chaotic news conference at the United Nations right after the news broke about Clinton’s private email server. Chozick found herself completely blocked, squished between two foreign photographers. But Clinton picked her out from the crowd.

“At one point Clinton says, 'Oh, we’ll go to her, she’s totally scrunched down there,’” Chozick said. “Maybe that was a moment of sympathizing, looking out and seeing how uncomfortable and filled in we were. ... It seemed sort of maternal."

Clinton has also chosen a disproportionate number of female reporters for her first extended interviews. Jennifer Jacobs of The Des Moines Register, Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa, Brianna Keilar of CNN, Univision's Maria Elena Salinas and NBC’s Mitchell all got early sitdowns with Clinton after she wrapped up her “listening tour” and agreed to do more media.

Keilar pointed out that Clinton was simply going to reporters who had been on the trail with her day by day — and they were almost all women. But some of the female reporters said they felt Clinton’s choice of female journalists seemed calculated to reach female voters, or at least prompt a discussion of women’s issues, given that Clinton is such a famous figure that she could call up just about any journalist or anchor for an interview.

“I don’t think that’s by accident. It’s by design, and that’s obviously a part of her campaign strategy,” said NBC’s Clinton embed, Monica Alba.

Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri denied any strategy behind granting interviews with female journalists, saying the campaign is simply going with the reporters who have been covering Clinton the most.

"I think it’s probably a mixture of both phenomena, more women in the business [and] maybe interest in covering who we hope to be the first woman president,” Palmieri said in an interview ahead of the first Democratic presidential debate.

Palmieri said she has never heard Clinton mention anything about the number of women who cover her, but that Clinton has taken notice of a number of the talented young female reporters on the beat.

So how did all these women come to cover Clinton? For some, such as Keilar, the White House beat naturally gave way to the Clinton beat. For others, like The Washington Post’s Anne Gearan, it came from covering Clinton at the State Department. Others were simply new reporters, tasked with following the one presidential contender with the clearest path to the nomination of either party.

No editors interviewed for this story acknowledged assigning reporters to Clinton based on their gender, and none of the reporters said they were chosen because they were women. But many said they felt it was important nonetheless to have women covering a female candidate.

Carolyn Ryan, political editor of The New York Times, said she believes there are “several trends converging” that have helped create a mostly female press corps.

"One, a younger generation of talented women reporters is coming of age just as Clinton pursues the presidency,” Ryan said. "Two, while I don't think editors are choosing reporters to cover Clinton because of their gender, women are drawn to this story journalistically, given its sweep, history-making potential and the way the Clinton story intersects with the broader discussion about gender, power and culture in this country."

Still, some have discovered the hard way that being a female reporter covering a female candidate does nothing to shield one from accusations of sexism. NPR’s Tamara Keith recalled a story in which she referred to an infamous news conference with Clinton in the 1990s at which Clinton wore a pink outfit — a very 1990s look, Keith remarked in an interview. The letters accusing Keith of sexism poured in.

“We actually had to do a letters segment there were so many letters,” said Keith. “I had to come on air and try to explain why I had used that, why I had described what she was wearing. Sometimes what someone is wearing is interesting and relevant."

Chozick said she sometimes receives vitriolic notes and comments from women who tell her that there’s a “special place in hell” for women who work to bring down other women.

When it comes to details about the candidate that could be perceived as sexist, from her appearance to her emotions, many of the reporters said they aim to treat Clinton as they would a man. Some even have self-imposed bans on never writing about Clinton’s appearance. But being a woman reporting on another woman leads to unavoidable differences from male colleagues who cover the same candidate.

“There are details I gravitate to in stories that I think women readers in particular will like, like Hillary was on a diet, doing yoga, sometimes I get made fun of for those details but I’m not going to stop,” Chozick said. “Maybe I don’t want to stereotype my whole gender, but I was drawn to those things because I found them relatable. "

Fox News’ Tamara Gitt added: “I think, as a woman, if you hear someone talk, whether man or woman, talk about women’s issues, it might resonate with you more in that you might focus or hear it more, maybe more so than a man.” Gitt quickly added, “It definitely doesn’t affect how we report on her, though.”

Among the reporters, though, the atmosphere within the pack is shaped by its being dominated by women. All the reporters, including the few men in the group, such as Ken Thomas of The Associated Press, CNN's Dan Merica or MSNBC's Seitz-Wald, commented on how collegial the group is. Journalists look out for one another, through big moments, such as when NBC’s Kristen Welker threw a birthday party for Keilar, or for little ones, like when one reporter saves another with a stain remover stick or with a granola bar after a long day on the trail with no food.

"I must say I’ve always enjoyed being on the road with increasing numbers of women reporters,” Mitchell said. "A lot of the women traveling have children and are dealing with other family issues that are more complicated often than for men, just because women tend to have more family responsibility than a lot of the men who are traveling. It’s always been an affinity among women and I’ve really enjoyed that."

Mitchell, who has covered Clinton since the 1990s and is often called the “dean” of the Clinton press corps, said the questions being asked of Clinton aren’t any less critical than when more men were following her.

Before her campaign launched, the Clinton camp promised to help create a better relationship with the news media than she had in the 2008 cycle, when a visit by Clinton to the press bus with bagels warranted articles and the campaign complained of sexist coverage. But six months and an email controversy into this year’s race, any chance at a friendlier relationship was dashed, Mitchell said.

Hillary Clinton surrounded by journalists. | Getty

“At the very beginning of the campaign, the email controversy erupted and has to a great extent overwhelmed a lot of policy discussions for the news media, so much so that gender has not played as much a role,” Mitchell said. “It has been more adversarial than one might expect because she was on defense from almost the beginning. So she was very defensive, and that affected her interaction with reporters. I don’t sense any increased empathy or connection, if you will, between the candidate and the press corp because [of the fact] there are so many women."

BuzzFeed’s Cramer added, “I think [Clinton] looks at us and sees the press.”

But campaign insiders insist that Clinton appreciates and recognizes those who show up every day on the trail and have been with her for multiple cycles. Reporters like Mitchell, Gearan and the BBC’s Kim Ghattas traveled with Clinton and covered her during her tenure as secretary of state, a golden era of sorts for Clinton’s relationship with the press when the reporters were more concerned with policy than politics.

“Every time she sees us, she smiles and recognizes us,” Gearan said. "That’s a note that she understands and recognizes we’re out there doing our jobs."

The overriding sentiment, though, among all women who cover Clinton is that while the number of women covering the candidate is unique, this might be the last time it will be remarked upon as notable.

"The same forces that have led Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina to be prominent presidential candidates have also altered the look of their press corps,” Chozick said.

Added Keilar, "We’ve seen women have so many opportunities in political reporting, maybe that’s the victory, that it doesn't register as much for us and there is something about it being so normalized.”

