German national Lena Pietsch is a skilful media handler and played a key role in preparing Nick Clegg for the prime ministerial debates.

Now Mr. Bradley is back in harness, running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, encumbered with scheduler, media handler, chauffeur.

The transition team's media handlers wanted news pictures on the sidewalk in front of the building's pillars, sometime after the closing bell.

They announce their candidacies the old-fashioned way: surrounded by political bosses, party hacks, media handlers and assorted hangers-on.

What's worse is that Ed's media handlers hadn't been aware of Gideon's past broadcast and changed their style accordingly.

Neither characteristic was the product of media handlers of any kind.

And what about the extraordinarily tight management of the scientific and popular press by Ida's media handlers?

The Kennedy-Nixon debate was widely considered a turning point in American politics, the beginning of the era when media handlers and image consultants dominated campaigns.

"All the media handlers in the world are never going to make Jim Florio appear warm and fuzzy," one Democrat said.

It spawned a generation of televised political appeals and a half-century of fears about manipulative media handlers.