Mark Meckler:
Remember when the media was supposed to be fair and impartial, working hard to speak truth to power, no matter which political party or partisan interest?
Hollywood loves to depict journalists as the ultimate heroes, fighting against the greedy power seekers in Washington. But as one of the latest email leaks makes clear, far too many of those supposedly hard-hitting journalists are actually pretty soft when their preferred candidate comes calling with cocktails and candidate access.
One of the latest email leaks breaks down the data revealed about the dark side of campaign efforts to co-opt the media.
The Intercept breaks down the revelations:
As these internal documents demonstrate, a central component of the Clinton campaign strategy is ensuring that journalists they believe are favorable to Clinton are tasked to report the stories the campaign wants circulated.
At times, Clinton’s campaign staff not only internally drafted the stories they wanted published but even specified what should be quoted “on background” and what should be described as “on the record.”
One January 2015 strategy document — designed to plant stories on Clinton’s decision-making process about whether to run for president — singled out reporter Maggie Haberman, then of Politico, now covering the election for the New York Times, as a “friendly journalist” who has “teed up” stories for them in the past and “never disappointed” them.
The Clinton campaign seems to know which journalists they can manipulate and depend on to churn out propaganda that will be favorable to their message and their spin. The strategy document leaked in these emails laid out the goals and angles they wanted Haberman to take. And what happened? Did their strategy work. Back to The Intercept: