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The Anatomy Of A Press Cover-Up

Photos taken from Getty, Youtube, Cspan

Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
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“The media cover-up of the Podesta emails continues w/ Page One coverage in the Washington Post,” Politico reporter Jack Shafer sarcastically tweeted Wednesday on the Post story: “WikiLeaks reveals fears and frustrations inside Clinton world.”

Let Shafer be the arbiter: there’s no reason to worry. The important stories are being covered!

From that Post story, “The emails also show a fondness among Clinton’s staff for her strengths and genuine enthusiasm when she did well in interviews or other public appearances.”

It also said: “Though the WikiLeaks disclosures have not contained the sort of campaign-shaking bombshell that some Trump backers had hoped for, the Podesta emails have provided an almost unprecedented historical archive of the inner workings of a major-party presidential campaign.”

This has been a constant theme in coverage of the WikiLeaks release of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s by major liberal news outlets, to ignore the actual newsworthy content in the release and focus on boring process stories. The Washington Post has not written on Hillary Clinton telling Goldman Sachs that American allies fund terrorists and opposition to immigration is “un-American.”

The same is true at The New York Times. When national political correspondent Jonathan Martin was asked on Twitter why he isn’t covering WikiLeaks, he replied saying that a WikiLeaks story was on the front page the day before.

The story was: “Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Strained to Hone Her Message, Hacked Emails Show.”

The front page piece is about the emails showing Clinton staffers and allies discussing her views on several issues and how to deal with Vice President Joe Biden entering the race and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy.

The same day that article was published, Oct. 11, The Daily Caller reported that Clinton told bankers in private Saudi Arabia, a major Clinton Foundation donor, is the number one exporter of “extreme ideology,” and that New York Times writer and CNBC anchor John Harwood had given John Podesta advice. Both stories have yet to be covered by the Times.

A discussion on CNN accurately portrays this cover-up by liberal media.

WATCH:

The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin said the emails didn’t show Hillary as “some kind of radical liberal.” According to him, “that’s the reveal.”

Yet, a week before Martin’s comment it was revealed Clinton “dreams” of an open border in North America. The Associated Press’ Lisa Lerer’s comments also show succinctly how the liberal press corps views the leaks.

She described them “like reading one of the post-campaign books while the campaign is still going on.” Lerer later added, “there haven’t been any real bombshells.”

According to Lerer’s thinking, CNN sharing a town hall question with Clinton is not a “bombshell,” nor is Hillary’s comment that Saudi Arabia, Qater, and the United Arab Emirates are essentially state-sponsors of terror. These are nations we give billions of dollars in military aid to. The AP has not covered those remarks. (RELATED: Clinton Spokesman Dodges Question About Hillary Considering Saudi Arabia A State Sponsor Of Terror)

This similar view on “bombshells” is shared by Politico’s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush. Like Shafer, Thrush believes he is the arbiter of journalism. He said on October 15 that the “Most [important] disclosure yet” was that Clinton said the U.S could ring China with missile defense if North Korea’s missile program wasn’t curbed.

Washington Post national political correspondent Phil Rucker tweeted out a story from one of Thrush’s colleagues titled “Wikileaks reveals the real Huma Abedin,” and called it a “good read.” The story describes Abedin in a fawning manner as a “shield, translator, and history keeper.”

TheDC reported two days later that Abedin helped arrange the Clinton Global Initiative hosting a meeting in Morocco in return for a $12 million donation.

The focus on the China missile defense story and the Abedin story is exactly what the Clinton campaign would want covered from the WikiLeaks emails. Stories about how her campaign is well-managed and planned out and Hillary being confident in America’s foreign policy strength.

The Daily Caller has previously reached out to Buzzfeed’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith about why his publication hadn’t devoted much coverage to the WikiLeaks emails and he responded with pride about his publication’s coverage. Smith wrote three days ago, “Wikileaks Reveals The Generations Of Clinton Power.” To him the “one truth” revealed from WikiLeaks was “the deep cultural difference between Bill Clinton’s freewheeling circle and Hillary Clinton’s more disciplined and professionalized aides.”

Smith wrote, “Pick your poison, and even consider that the flavor of corruption isn’t the only reason to support or oppose a candidate.” This piece was widely shared by journalists on Twitter.

John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, called it, “a fantastic piece.”