This is hard to understand:

Even seasoned political journalists describe reporting on Hillary as a torturous experience. Though few dare offer specifics for the record--"They're too smart," one furtively confides. "They'll figure out who I am"--privately, they recount excruciating battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep suspicion. Only surgically precise questioning yields relevant answers. Hillary's aides don't hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works. Reporters' jabs and errors are long remembered, and no hour is too odd for an angry phone call. Clinton aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top editors. "They're frightening!" says one reporter who has covered Clinton. "They don't see [reporting] as a healthy part of the process. They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game."

Of course, Greg Sargent is right (Michael Crowley stupidly argues that Clinton is getting great coverage, but Michael Crowley is pretty dim generally) that Clinton has every reason to be suspicious of reporters, but my question is why would reporters be fearful of reprisals? What will a campaign withhold? Positive spin? What else does access get them? How stupid can the Media be?

I know, as stupid as all get out. See coverage of the Bush Administration if we have any doubt.