Governance: Available to the media

When asked by WRAL's David Crabtree whether he would hold regular news conferences, McCrory said, "Absolutely."

The measure: Does McCrory hold regular news conferences during his first term?

He'll be measured against predecessors like Gov. Mike Easley and Gov. Bev Perdue, who limited their formal news conferences to times when they were announcing a budget or specific policy proposal or dealing with an emergency such as a hurricane.

Promise status: Mixed results

McCrory was sworn in Jan. 5 and will have a week of inaugural public appearances.

The measure of this promise will be whether he maintains open dialog with the media, including regular news conferences.

Updated (1/18/2013): During the first weeks of his administration, McCrory's office has sent out a daily schedule of his public events, giving the public advance notice of his appearances. This is a practice that makes covering the governor much easier and was never adopted by Gov. Mike Easley or Gov. Bev Perdue. While this is not following through on the promise for regular formal news conferences, these well-noticed events have given reporters the chance to ask McCrory about the news of the day. Given this nod to transparency, or at least being helpful, we're upgrading this status from "In progress" to "Kept so far."

Updated (2/8/2013): McCrory's communications director, Chris Walker, is returning home to Tennessee. In the past month, McCrory has occasionally made himself for a short set of questions after public events, but has not been consistent about this practice. Until the Republican has a new chief for his press shop on board, the Promise Tracker is withholding judgment on this one, but we are downgrading the status from "kept so far" to "in progress."

Updated (1/10/2014): McCrory has not held "regular" news conferences in the sense that they are scheduled on a weekly or monthly basis. Throughout 2013, his availability to reporters has been sporadic, sometimes taking questions after events and public meetings, sometimes deflecting questions because he has other appointments scheduled. He has done conducted lengthy television interviews. At this point, we are not ready to make a final determination on whether this is a promise kept.

Updated (1/08/2015): Probably no other promise on the McCrory tracker list has provoked as much discussion among the @NCCapitol brain trust. Over the past year, we've seen McCrory become much more willing to speak after events if he has the time. And frequently, if he's traveling with a cabinet secretary, he'll pull them into the conversation. At three or four points during the year, McCrory has also done a round of sit-down interviews with television reporters.

In general, he appears no less accessible than his two predecessors, Perdue and Easley, although he may not be living up to the loquacious benchmark set by four-term Gov. Jim Hunt. However, our colleagues in the print media may have more to grumble about.

At this point, we're upgrading this from "In Progress" to "Kept so far," with the hope that the governor will continue to be as accessible, if not more so.

Updated (12/07/2016): Our "mixed results" rating for this has everything to do with McCrory's bifurcated approach to dealing with the reporters over the past year. Nobody who watched McCrory respond to disasters such as gas shortages, Hurricane Matthew or the wildfires in the western part of the state could say that he wasn't making public appearances. He became a regular on television during those times.

But the last year of the administration saw a significant dip in his willingness to engage with reporters in press conferences unrelated to those point-in-time crises. And as those occasions became increasingly rare, so did the reticence of his press operations to answer basic governance questions.

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