The Media-Democrat Complex
WikiLeaks has revealed a rogues gallery of compromised journalists, and institutions that enable them.
Last month, Gallup revealed Americans’ trust in the media dropped to the lowest level in the organization’s polling history. Yet because media malfeasance would require an honest media to expose it, Americans have little knowledge of how extensive the rot truly is. Fortunately an avalanche of emails released by WikiLeaks has revealed a rogues gallery of compromised journalists, and institutions that enable them.
We begin with a column titled “News Gate 2016,” in which reporter Sharyl Attkisson curates the sordid details:
—Associated Press reporters Matt Lee and Bradley Klapper were labeled “friendlies” by the State Department for their efforts to “blunt the June 2015 news that Clinton had failed to provide Congress certain required emails,” Attkisson explains.
—Marc Ambinder, a reporter for The Atlantic who formerly worked at ABC, CBS and National Journal, asked a Clinton aide for a text of a Clinton speech. The aide demanded that Ambinder frame it a certain way (“muscular”). He complied.
—New York Times and CNBC reporter John Harwood — who moderated a GOP primary debate — shared praise for Clinton and helpful suggestions for her campaign with campaign manager John Podesta and Director of Communications Jennifer Palmieri.
—At CNN, Clinton’s traveling press secretary, Nick Merrill, described the relationship of CNN Politics Producer Dan Merica and Clinton as one where they were “basically courting each other at this point.” Another email reveals CNN contributor and DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile fed a question to Clinton’s campaign prior to a March town hall co-hosted by CNN. Brazile denies it — but the question was asked nonetheless.
— A source from Media Matters, the left-wing propaganda outfit run by Clinton shill David Brock and financed in part by George Soros, revealed other useful idiots. They included Los Angeles Times reporter Jim Rainey, who “took a lot of our stuff,” MSNBC president Phil Griffin who would take negative assertions about Fox published by Media Matters and present it “verbatim” on MSNBC news broadcasts, and former New York Times reporter and current CNN employee Brian Stelter who was “helpful” in promoting Media Matter narratives.
—NY Times reporter Mark Leibovich allowed Hillary to veto her own quotes as part of a deal to gain access to the candidate. Danielle Rhoades Ha, the paper’s vice president of communications, defended the deal, insisting the paper was “transparent with our readers and disclosed the arrangement in the story.”
—Politico is also in the bag for Clinton. Former Politico employee and current editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed Ben Smith was someone who would “take stories and write what you want him to write,” for Media Matters. Politico’s chief investigative reporter Ken Vogel emailed DNC official Mark Paustenbach a story — before showing it to his own editor — to get Paustenbach’s input. Politico’s chief White House political correspondent Glenn Thrush did likewise with the Clinton campaign.
State Department emails reveal Politico’s chief political reporter Mike Allen’s efforts to get an interview with Chelsea Clinton included assuring Clinton aide Philippe Reines that “no one besides me would ask her a question, and you and I would agree on them precisely in advance.” Former Politico scribe and current NY Times employee Maggie Haberman is equally compromised. “We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed,” revealed a Clinton staffer in an email.
—The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent is someone who “will write anything you give him. He was the go-to guy to leak stuff,” the Media Matters leaker explained, further boasting the organization “pushed stories” to Wapo reporters Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne.
There’s a further rogue’s gallery:
—Univision Chairman Haim Saban, who urged the Clinton campaign to take a tougher stance on Trump’s immigration policy. Bloomberg news subsequently revealed Saban could be favoring Hillary because he needs a “supportive administration” in Washington for Univision to facilitate a plan “to enable Televisa, which now owns almost 10 percent of the company, to increase its position to as much as 40 percent.”
—Politico editor-in-chief John Harris, who sent an email to Communication Director Palmieri suggesting he should be hired as Bill Clinton’s “minder,” inferring he would keep the former president focused on Hillary’s messaging.
—Boston Globe Op-Ed editor Marjorie Pritchard, who sent the Clinton campaign an email suggesting the best time to run an editorial to help Clinton. “It would be good to get it in on Tuesday, when she is in New Hampshire,” Pritchard writes. “That would give her big presence on Tuesday with the piece and on Wednesday with the news story.”
—Heat Street blogger Louise Mensch who portrayed herself as a “right wing” writer, until WikiLeaks revealed she tried to assist Clinton by composing a campaign advertisement script. Since she was outed, she has often tweeted using the hashtags #RepublicansForHillary and #ImWithHer.
It is critical to note that Heat Street is backed by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox News and several other media entities. Despite his ostensible conservatism, a 2015 New York Magazine article revealed Murdoch wanted Fox GOP debate moderators to “hammer Trump on a variety of issues.”
Mudoch is not alone. Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the ostensibly conservative Newsmax operation, donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation, and WikiLeaks reveals he was working with Podesta.
“When you accept the clearly evidenced ideology behind the UniParty you also begin to understand the terms ‘conservative media’, or, ‘liberal media’, are programming distinctions only,” writes Conservative Treehouse blogger Sundance. “Both media wings are part of Corporate Media in the same way that both Democrat and Republican political franchise wings are distinctions within the UniParty.”
It is a corporate media dedicated to the globalist contempt for national sovereignty, and the elevation and protection of the globalist financial agenda. Murdoch himself promoted comprehensive immigration reform that included a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegals in a 2014 WSJ column. That aligns perfectly with Clinton’s WikiLeaks-revealed vision of “open borders” that should have been one of the defining news stories of the current campaign.
What do we get instead? Politifact and the Miami Herald labeling Trump’s assertion he was right about Clinton’s position “mostly false,” and “difficult to discern,” respectively, while most of the other mainstream media outlets ignored the story completely.
Moreover, America’s paragons of journalistic integrity put their money where their collective mouths are. As the Center for Public Integrity reveals, of journalists who have donated to presidential campaigns, more than 96% have given $382,000 to the Clinton campaign, compared with the less than 4% who have given $14,000 to Trump.
Presidential endorsements in major newspapers with a circulation of at least 50,000 are also a tad lopsided — as in 68 for Clinton and zero for Trump.
“If 2016 taught us anything, it is that if the establishment’s hegemony is imperiled, it will come together in ferocious solidarity — for the preservation of their perks, privileges and power,” writes Pat Buchanan. “All the elements of that establishment — corporate, cultural, political, media — are today issuing an ultimatum to Middle America: Trump is unacceptable.”
Trump may be “unacceptable” on a number of levels. But the critical question Americans must ask themselves is this: compared to what? A borderless nation oppressed by a corrupt government pushing the globalist/corporate agenda, totally protected by a Leftmedia echo chamber?
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” Ronald Reagan once remarked.
One election may be more like it.