The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
News Features  |  Talking Politics  |  This Just In

Mitt’s pit bull

Meet Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s teeth-baring press secretary
By ADAM REILLY  |  February 1, 2008

080210_romney_banks_main
HE’S BUSY, CAN I TAKE A MESSAGE? Eric Fehrnstrom (right) and Mitt Romney

Flackdom rarely leads to fame. But Eric Fehrnstrom, the traveling press secretary for Mitt Romney, has already joined the pop-culture firmament, thanks to a testy exchange between Romney and Associated Press reporter Glen Johnson this past month. In that encounter — which was caught on video and posted multiple times on YouTube — Johnson interrupts Romney in the middle of a press conference to challenge the candidate’s claim that no lobbyists run his campaign, pointedly noting that registered lobbyist Ron Kaufman is a senior Romney advisor.

Fehrnstrom’s star turn comes toward the end. The press conference is over, and Romney has approached Johnson to continue the argument. Fehrnstrom advances from the background, boasting stylish specs and hair that’s almost as well-coiffed as his boss’s. He waits a moment. And then, discreetly, he reins in the agitated Romney — by telling Johnson to stop talking (“Hey, Glen, save the arguments for the plane”).

Then, after the ex–Massachusetts governor walks away, Fehrnstrom moves closer to Johnson and gives him a muted but very intense tongue-lashing. “Glen, you should act a little bit more professionally instead of being argumentative with the candidate, all right? It’s out of line. You’re out of line.” Johnson tries to protest, but Fehrnstrom won’t have it; instead, he talks over him, accusing the reporter of journalistic malpractice four times before reiterating his initial warning. “Save your opinions — save your opinions — save your opinions — save your opinions and act professionally. Act professionally. Don’t be argumentative with the candidate.”

The sight of a spokesman scolding a reporter like a naughty child might have struck some people as bizarre — especially since, whether or not you liked his delivery, the reporter happened to be right. But to Massachusetts reporters who worked with Fehrnstrom when he was communications director during Romney’s governorship, this wasn’t a surprise. “There were many exchanges with me where he’d end by making it personal,” says a reporter who requested anonymity, “and the exchange with Glen was a perfect example of that.”

“He will get in your face and say that ‘You’re not being professional’ — that ‘You’re expressing your opinion’ — when in fact, you’re confronting Mitt Romney with facts that undercut what he’s saying,” adds Globe reporter Frank Phillips. “Fehrnstrom does a very good job for Romney. But sometimes it can be very obnoxious.”

Stands by his man
Fehrnstrom’s reputation as a tough guy goes back to his years as a reporter for the Boston Herald, where he covered cops and then the Massachusetts State House. (“He was incredibly hard-nosed,” says Herald editor Kevin Convey. “My father used to talk about ‘pig-headed Swedes.’ Eric was a pig-headed Swede in the best sense of the term.”) But his reputation as a tough flack was cemented early in Romney’s term as governor, when he nearly brawled with North Adams mayor John Barrett after an appearance on New England Cable News.

The exact details of the incident remain murky. According to Barrett, Fehrnstrom accused him of sexism after Barrett suggested that Romney meet with the state’s mayors instead of using Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey as his surrogate. Barrett acknowledges calling Fehrnstrom a “wuss,” but claims Fehrnstrom called him a “classless piece of shit” first. He also says he shoved Fehrnstrom, but only after Fehrnstrom shoved him; Fehrnstrom has said he never touched Barrett. Whatever actually happened, things might have gotten even uglier if a station producer hadn’t helped break things up.

1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |   next >
Related: The presidential hunt, Romney’s greatest gaffes — so far, Healey gets it wrong, More more >
  Topics: Media -- Dont Quote Me , Mitt Romney, Frank Phillips, U.S. Government,  More more >
| More
2 Comments / Add Comment

bobbiewick

Over the long run, pit-bull press secretaries such as Fehrnstrom don't serve their candidates well. John Kerry had members of his press staff who behaved similarly to reporters who asked inconvenient question, or who questioned the candidate's utterance when he was lying. These people would phone reporters and yell at them, then ask to have the reporters in question removed from the beat. Kerry lost a major midwestern state that he certainly should have won, when his press people refused to allow him to be interviewed by that state's leading paper a few days before the election, because they wanted the paper to assign a different reporter. Sadly for Kerry, it was in this state that the election was ultimately decided. Fehrnstrom makes a lot of enemies for Romney when he beats up on reporters.
Posted: January 31 2008 at 1:48 PM

jeffery mcnary

bye eric, hope you gotta nice things to wear...a lotta good thing turn bad out there, yes? emily rooney might might give ya a toss for a night but...hey. what's in your wallet?
Posted: February 06 2008 at 6:23 PM
Add Comment
HTML Prohibited

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 05/30 ]   Big Freedia + Javelin + What Cheer? Brigade  @ Brighton Music Hall
[ 05/30 ]   The Wombats  @ Hurricane O'Reilly's
[ 05/30 ]   "Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey"  @ Boston Athenæum
ARTICLES BY ADAM REILLY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   BULLY FOR BU!  |  March 12, 2010
    After six years at the Phoenix , I recently got my first pre-emptive libel threat. It came, most unexpectedly, from an investigative reporter. And beyond the fact that this struck me as a blatant attempt at intimidation, it demonstrated how tricky journalism's new, collaboration-driven future could be.
  •   STOP THE QUINN-SANITY!  |  March 03, 2010
    The year is still young, but when the time comes to look back at 2010's media lowlights, the embarrassing demise of Sally Quinn's Washington Post column, "The Party," will almost certainly rank near the top of the list.
  •   RIGHT CLICK  |  February 19, 2010
    Back in February 2007, a few months after a political neophyte named Deval Patrick cruised to victory in the Massachusetts governor's race with help from a political blog named Blue Mass Group (BMG) — which whipped up pro-Patrick sentiment while aggressively rebutting the governor-to-be's critics — I sized up a recent conservative entry in the local blogosphere.
  •   RANSOM NOTES  |  February 12, 2010
    While reporting from Afghanistan two years ago, David Rohde became, for the second time in his career, an unwilling participant rather than an observer. On October 29, 1995, Rohde had been arrested by Bosnian Serbs. And then in November 2008, Rohde and two Afghan colleagues were en route to an interview with a Taliban commander when they were kidnapped.
  •   POOR RECEPTION  |  February 08, 2010
    The right loves to rant against the "liberal-media elite," but there's one key media sector where the conservative id reigns supreme: talk radio.

 See all articles by: ADAM REILLY

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2011 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group