Panic Mode: Leftist Journalists Worried Trump Allies Will 'Dig Up Old Tweets'
New York Times story has reporters scrambling
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In the wake of the recent New York Times story about allies of President Donald Trump rummaging for comprising information on reporters from “news organizations deemed hostile” to the president, many journalists are starting to panic.
According to the article, this is "the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting."
It adds that the group has also released information about journalists from NYT, CNN, and The Washington Post - the “three outlets that have aggressively investigated” Trump.
Lydia Polgreen, editor-in-chief of HuffPost, tweeted:
“This is an extremely alarming piece and should worry anyone who cares about independent journalism."
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A CNN spokesperson responded in the NYT article that when “those working on their behalf, threaten and retaliate against reporters as a means of suppression, it’s a clear abandonment of democracy for something very dangerous,” CNN’s Brian Stelter tweeted.
NYT politics editor, Patrick Healy, described it as an “orchestrated operation by allies of the White House to attack journalists by manipulating & exaggerating information.”
“This represents an escalation of an ongoing campaign against the free press. For years the president has used terms like ‘fake news’ and ‘enemy of the people’ to demonize journalists and journalism,” NYT publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote in a statement to staff.
"The Times will not be intimidated or silenced," NYT publisher A. G. Sulzberger said in a new story revealing an orchestrated operation by allies of the White House to attack journalists by manipulating & exaggerating information. https://t.co/haH07ZPT9g via @nytimes
— Patrick Healy (@patrickhealynyt) August 25, 2019
From a statement today that publisher A.G. Sulzberger sent to the staff of The Times: pic.twitter.com/yKaWJqHm5W
— Patrick Healy (@patrickhealynyt) August 25, 2019
But what happens is when you push out regular people’s names on a broad enemies list and then amplify it via the conservative industrial media, eventually someone will take action on the “Enemy of the People” rhetoric.
— Aki Peritz (@AkiPeritz) August 25, 2019
Someone will eventually be murdered.
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“Now, the political operatives behind this campaign will argue that they are ‘reporting’ on news organizations in the same way that news organizations reported on elected officials and other public figures. They are not.”
“And then Bannon, Schwartz, Breitbart etc will claim they had nothing to do with what happens next,” another tweet read.
MSNBC host Joy Reid wrote, “Welcome to the age of digital brownshirtism.”
But the tweet has since been deleted but was screenshotted by the executive editor of the Washington Examiner, Seth Mandel.
“If you’re a conservative journalist, you have been the target of this behavior by leftist ‘think tanks’ – which are the same ones spoonfeeding reporters their scoops," Madel said.
"So what these reporters are calling a ‘war on the press’ is an admission they’ve been waging this war for years,” he added.
“In Conservative Shoes, A Mile Walked,” Mandel added.
