A colleague’s social media post sent me to a shitty web site called “The Freethought Project” to read a shitty post entitled “WikiLeaks’ 10 Most Damning Clinton Emails that Prove Mainstream Media is Scripted & Controlled.” (I’m not linking to this piece of shit). Most of this article is spent pontificating on the horrible corruption of the media, complete with a sobering reference to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent. The actual list is drivel that would drive Chomsky into a rage, as he does not suffer fools gladly, and these people are classic fools.
Several items in the list are emails from journalists seeking comment on stories about the campaign from the Clinton campaign. This is not only routine, but getting a comment from the subject of a story prior to publication is the duty of an ethical journalist. Some of the items describe routine public relations (PR) activities, such as preparing “on the record” remarks. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that these clowns have no concept of how journalism works, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at their confusion.
One item, however, epitomizes the vacancy of this list. The item below is in the “Top 10” albeit only at #7. The fact that it is on any list of “damning Clinton emails” proves that there are some tremendously stupid people at The Freethought Project. (At least Freethought is half right — it doesn’t cost anything.)
7. John Podesta receiving drafts of New York Times articles before they’re published.
If you follow the link, it takes you to a Wikileaked email entitled, “First Draft on Politics: Rivals Can No Longer Ignore Donald Trump's Long Shadow.” Unlike other items, there was no request for comment, just an HTML-formatted email containing a news article. Perhaps a mole inside the NYT was secretly forwarding Podesta draft articles?
No, it wasn’t a mole. It was a service called “NYT Direct,” as clearly indicated by the “From:” header on the email. NYT Direct is a service that directly emails articles to subscribers based on some preferences they set. Podesta clearly had an interest in campaign coverage and this was an article about the campaign.
But why a first draft? Because that’s the name of the section of the paper in which the article appeared. The words “First Draft” were part of the title, not a description of the contents. This is a play on the observation that newspapers are a “first draft of history.”
Here is a link to the article:
www.nytimes.com/…
If you look at the article URL, you’ll notice it starts with “politics/first-draft” implying that “first draft” is a subsection of politics.
That’s right. These moralizing imbeciles called out John Podesta for signing up for email alerts available to any NYT subscriber. This post is damning, indeed, but not for John Podesta or any of his associates.