IT’S GREAT TO BE A DEMOCRAT: No Consequences for Reporters Caught Colluding with Hillary 

Colleagues yawn while star reporters like Thrush and Leibovich cooperate with Clinton campaign.

These days, that wise advice applies to private communications by everybody in the entire country except elite journalists and news executives.

Elsewhere in America, when emails that the author assumed would never see the light of day became public he suffers some form of consequences—you know, stuff like plummeting poll numbers, possible jail time or forced resignation. This goes for everybody from Hillary Clinton and the former head of Sony Pictures on down.

But if you’re a Politico or New York Times scribe or CNBC anchor John Harwood and hacked emails emerge that reveal you outright colluding with Hillary Clinton campaign—by giving advice or providing the communications director “veto” power over what to include from your interview with the candidate or allowing campaign chair John Podesta veto power over your stories—that is another matter.

Your media friends will not censure you or even scold you—in fact, they don’t bother to contact you directly. Instead, you can hide between a crafty spokesman who won’t even answer specific questions but acts like he’s the publicist for some elusive Hollywood star and that a journalist determined to ask standard pointed questions is actually pining to profile him for Vanity Fair.

That was essentially the response from Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring when this columnist asked to interview reporter Glenn Thrush about his newly revealed emails. Dream on, he replied, emailing me: “I want to play third base for the Yankees.”

Hacked emails reveal that Thrush has apologized to campaign chairman John Podesta for writing a “shitty” story that embarrassed the operation. In another email, Thrush called himself a “hack” and promised to let Podesta approve parts of his story on the campaign’s fundraising efforts.

[Read the full story here, at Observer]

“No worries Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u,” he wrote. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this Tell me if I fucked up anything.”

In multiple email exchanges, Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring, who would not even give out his own phone, did not answer a single factual question about Thrush. But did call him one of the “top political reporters in the country.”

Really? Top reporters theoretically treat both sides equally. Has he ever given Republicans advance copies of stories? If so, who?

When Daily Caller reporter Alex Pfeiffer made similar inquiries to Dayspring about Thrush he was also stonewalled. The flack proceeded to question Pfeiffer’s objectivity because he had called Thrush a “fucking joke” on Twitter. But again ignored specific questions. Read the rest of this entry »