'Hold me accountable,' Clinton says to journalists who mostly aren't allowed to ask her questions

Hillary Clinton
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Speaking in Washington, D.C. at a joint conference for black and Hispanic journalists on Friday, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton urged reporters to keep her honest. "I want you to hold me accountable," she said, "because the stakes are as high as they’ve ever been in our lifetime."

That's difficult to do, however, when journalists aren't often allowed to question the candidate. As Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus pointed out Friday afternoon, Clinton "hasn't held a press conference in 244 days," since December 4, 2015.

Though she did allow about 10 minutes for convention attendees to ask pre-screened questions after her talk — sort of breaking her eight-month streak — Clinton prohibited questions from the working press, the journalists on hand to actually cover her appearance.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.