For some unexplained reason, major news sites, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico, have generally ignored the blockbuster story published last Thursday and Friday by The Wall Street Journal about Republican operative Peter Smith who claimed to be working with former National Security Adviser Michel Flynn to collude with Russian hackers to find Hillary Clinton emails to help the Trump presidential campaign.
Internet sites, including Talking Points Memo, VOX, and Salon, featured the stories, as did the Guardian’s web site. Rachel Maddow gave significant attention to the startling news.
But why the lack of coverage by others?
An obvious answer is that the news organizations don’t want to give publicity to their competition. Or as Philip Bump, a correspondent for The Washington Post, dismissing the news on Twitter, wrote: “This is a good scoop, but campaigns *abound* with people freelancing on weird pet projects/claiming big contacts.”
Or maybe there has been too much Trump Twitter fog.
But the WSJ articles clearly deserve serious attention and follow-ups.
You would think that such blockbuster news would be highlighted by every major news organization. What happened?