Major news outlets have devoted very little attention to the Wikileaks release of thousands of John Podesta’s emails.
The New York Times, allegedly America’s “paper of record,” has only written five stories about the leaks. None about Hillary saying Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund ISIS, the state department coordinating with the Clinton campaign, or journalists’ coziness with the Clinton campaign. Possibly the reason the Times didn’t cover the latter is because two of their writers were exposed in the leaks for their close relationship with the Clinton campaign.
Political writer John Harwood showered Clinton with praise in the emails and even gave her campaign chairman Podesta advice. While New York Times Magazine chief national correspondent Mark Leibovich gave the Clinton campaign veto power over an article he wrote.
The Washington Post had only two stories about the leaks on their front page Tuesday afternoon. But none were about the leaks themselves and just Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s and Podesta’s remarks on them. The Washington Post’s editorial board even ran a piece titled: “Scandal! WikiLeaks reveals Hillary Clinton to be…reasonable.”
The Washington Post did not cover Clinton allies making fun of someone raising their kid Catholic, Chelsea Clinton seeking an “internal investigation” into the Clinton Foundation, or Hillary having to be told when to smile during speeches. One of their reporters was featured in the leak running her story by Podesta before it was published and admitting to leaving out factual information.
The Los Angeles Times has one story regarding the leaks on their homepage Tuesday night and it is about Podesta accusing Trump allies of being behind the leaks. The liberal paper is light on their coverage of the leaks and one of their few stories is about Clinton’s press secretary Brain Fallon attacking the leak.
Fallon told Wikileaks on Twitter Tuesday, “You are no media organization. You are a propaganda arm of the Russian govt, running interference for their pet candidate, Trump.”
“Russia actively trying to boost Trump is way more important than how our campaign’s tweets are crafted, but is getting fraction of coverage,” Fallon wrote in another tweet. The Clinton campaign was quick to condemn reporters covering the leaks as they claim the Russian government is behind them.
In another tweet, Fallon wrote, “If you are going to write about materials issued by [Wikileaks], you should at least state they are product of illegal hack by a foreign govt.”
The United States government has not definitively accused Russia of being behind Wikileaks.
Buzzfeed has also been light on their coverage of the damning leaks, and have only written three stories regarding them. When asked by The Daily Caller about their lack of coverage, editor-in-chief Ben Smith pointed TheDC to sociologist Zeynep Tufekci’s tweets regarding the leak. In one tweet she wrote, “Forget leak tidbits. Normalizing making a big deal of non-scandal, merely private stuff will end up destructive—whatever politics you hold.”
The New York Times’ Nick Confessore seems to hold a similar view to Tufekci, as he tweeted out, “News orgs have decided to report Podesta e-mails as newsworthy. But what’s the right standard in an era of potentially pervasive hacking?”
