Hillary Clinton last week nearly broke a seven-month dry spell on press conferences, taking questions at a gathering of minority journalists in Washington and making a little news along the way. Problem solved? Hardly.

Fielding questions from the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists is a worthy undertaking for a presidential candidate, but it's no substitute for regular press conferences with the reporters assigned to Clinton's campaign.

"I think journalists have a special responsibility to democracy in a time like this," Clinton told the gathering. "As Ida B. Wells once said, 'People must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare to the press.'"

Nice sentiments, but they don't reflect current practices. Taking questions from journalists is an essential responsibility for politicians, who must be able to explain their policies, errors and thinking. Governing is done on the fly – not through prepared statements or careful avoidance of questions.

Amid the campaign-season fetishizing of the American people and American values, it's troubling that this important American rite is falling by the wayside. As Americans, we question and challenge our leaders, and the press has a central role to play.

"Keep holding us accountable," Clinton urged, without a trace of irony.

Members of Clinton's traveling press corps took to Twitter on Friday to gripe that a few, pre-selected questions came up short of a press conference, and they are right. And it's worse than that: Avoiding accountability is a disservice to democracy and a dispiriting harbinger of what is to come.

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Clinton to date has done 11 short, informal press gaggles with journalists, according to CNN's Dan Merica. Before her appearance at the NABJ/NAHJ, her last press conference was in December 2015. The scrap of news produced, in which Clinton confessed her latest misstatements on private emails were possibly the result of her being "short circuited," were coaxed out by NBC's Kristen Welker, a regular on the Clinton campaign.

Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post asked Clinton "on behalf of all of us" to take more questions, "especially with those news organizations that travel the country with you everywhere you go."

Of course, both parties have done a stellar job of demonizing and belittling journalists – and journalists have certainly helped that cause. But the result is that politicians have energetically eroded trust in an institution aimed at keeping them honest. That's quite a trick. Now, faith in the news industry is at historic lows, and many news consumers believe reporters pose questions to serve their own vanity, not for information-gathering.

President Barack Obama, who made "transparency" a guiding principal of his administration, has frequently lowered the standards for access at the White House. Two days before he left for 16 days on Martha's Vineyard, the president's traditional, prevacation press conference was limited to six questions, and only four went to White House reporters.

It's not about bragging rights. The reporters assigned full-time to a campaign or the White House know the most about the leaders they cover. They often spend years with a politician, observing them up-close and noting their shifts, inconsistencies and foibles. Generally, their questions are the toughest, most direct and nuanced these leaders will face – or not.

Clinton, like Obama, tends to favor one-on-one interviews with journalists. This is something politicians should do, but not as a substitute for press conferences. The spontaneity, give-and-take, surprises and challenges of a true press conference are an essential part of "transparency," and politicians who avoid them shouldn't get a pass just because they did "Meet the Press."

Obama's record is a nod to the future, because presidential administrations typically use their predecessors as cover for whatever they want to get away with. Obama won't let journalists attend or report on question-and-answer sessions with donors at fundraising events. Why not? Because President George W. Bush didn't. This is so laughable it's actually a nonsequitur.

If you like Obama's zeal against whistleblowers, terrible record on FOIA and his Justice Department's spying on journalists such as the Associated Press and James Rosen of Fox News, you will love what Clinton, if elected, will do in his wake.

While Obama generally disdains the press, Clinton reflexively despises it – obviously, a posture gleaned through decades of rough treatment. But her practices on the campaign trail leave zero doubt that access isn't going to improve.

"I have done nearly 300 interviews just in 2016 and I believe that it's important to continue to, you know, speak to the press as I'm doing right now," Clinton told Jake Tapper of CNN.

The stiff-arm is nothing new. Politicians like one-on-one interviews because they can filibuster, redirect and shut down lines of inquiry more easily, while touting their willingness to take questions.

But when a candidate won't expose themselves to the uncontrollable variables of their own attendant press corps, what they are really saying is they don't want to be accountable to the public.

Bill Plante of CBS News, a well-respected veteran newsman, called the Obama press operation "state-run media." The taxpayer-funded hagiography machine ceaselessly churns out videos, photos, tweets and more while the president resists taking questions on the fly from White House reporters in the Oval Office and elsewhere.

Months go by without an opportunity to ask the president about significant, consequential events and policymaking. The lack of access creates a firehose effect that eventually has journalists lobbing five-point questions at the president – which he turns into another opportunity to mock and lament their work.

When First Lady Michelle Obama took her most recent policy trip overseas on the taxpayers' dime, she found seats on the plane for family members, but none for the press. Reporters' objections were met with silence – the popular first lady can do what she wants, and the public got updates on Snapchat and Twitter.