Bernie Sanders (and now Donald Trump) face off against Hillary Clinton with a major handicap, the media has been in the bag for Clinton from the start. In Bernie Sanders case, he faced a DNC that was already hostile to his nomination. And everyone had already assumed the media was at least tacitly favoring a Clinton nomination, but with the release of John Podesta’s hacked emails by WikiLeaks, the depth of media-Clinton Campaign collusion is coming to light. The NY Post reports multiple instances of media collusion and favoritism here.
Some of the e-mails showed:
- Hillary Clinton’s campaign coordinated with The New York Times, which gave it approval on quotes for a long profile on the candidate. Times reporter Mark Leibovich e-mailed campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri on July 7, 2015, seeking approval on the Clinton quotes.
- Boston Globe editorial writer worked with the Clinton campaign to give her a “big presence” in coverage during the candidate’s swing through the area amid the Democratic primary. Marjorie Pritchard, the Globe’s op-ed editor, e-mailed campaign chair John Podesta to tell him, “It would be good to get it in on Tuesday, when she is in New Hampshire. That would give her a big presence on Tuesday.”
- New York Times reporter and CNBC anchor John Harwood bashed the GOP primary candidates in a December 2015 e-mail to Podesta. After saying to Trump at December 2015 debate, “Let’s be honest, is this a comic-book version of a presidential campaign?” Harwood sent an e-mail gloating about his query to Podesta, saying, “I imagine . . . that Obama feels some (sad) vindication at this demonstration of his years-long point about the opposition party veering off the rails.”
Emails leaked from the DNC show collusion between Univision and the Democratic Party early on in the race. McClatchy DC reports:
The clashes between presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Spanish-language Univision television network began within days of Trump’s announcement last year that he was seeking the Republican nomination.
Now, a series of emails pirated from the Democratic National Committee and published in the past week by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks show that within days of Trump’s June 16, 2015, announcement of his candidacy, Univision’s chairman, Haim Saban, was urging the Clinton campaign to take a tougher stance on Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
“Haim thinks we are underreacting to Trump/Hispanics. Thinks we can get something by standing up for Latinos or attacking R’s (Republicans) for not condemning,” Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta wrote July 3, 2015, in an email to other Clinton staffers.
The email drew an immediate response from Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House spokeswoman who is communications director for the Clinton campaign: “Haim is right – we should be jamming this all the time.”
Will leaked Podesta emails hurt Clinton’s campaign?
