WikiLeaks drop of the day: Politico reporter ran story by Hillary's campaign chair before publishing

We don't call it the Worst Web Site In The World for nothing, folks. There are two ways you can read this. Neither one is good for The Worst Web Site In The World and its White House reporter, Glenn Thrush. The worse of the two is that Politico is shamelessly writing campaign propaganda for Hillary, and that they're running copy by the campaign just like a marketing writer would run copy by a client. Because Hillary is the boss. The less damning but still completely awful explanation is the one that Thrush gave - that he ran the passage in question past John Podesta so as to confirm its accuracy, but not to give him an editorial veto over how the story was written. That one might sound a little more understandable, but if you've ever worked as a reporter, you know it's totally unacceptable to do it.

Here's what WikiLeaks uncovered, as reported by Fox News:

A Politico reporter called himself a “hack” when he asked Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aide John Podesta to look over sections of his unpublished report on the Democratic presidential candidate before publication, a recent email revealed by WikiLeaks shows. The May 2015 story, written by Glenn Thrush, Politico’s chief White House correspondent, was titled, “Hillary’s big-money dilemma.” The article focused on early difficulties Clinton's campaign would face to raise money during the 2016 White House run. But the language used in his email raised eyebrows, especially in the conservative blogosphere.

---

My goal in emailing Podesta: TO GET HIM TO CONFIRM STUFF I HAD FROM LESSER SOURCES. It worked. Nobody controls my stories but me. Troll on!

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) October 17, 2016

“Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u [sic],” Thrush wrote to Podesta. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this…tell me if I f---ed up anything.” Podesta responded and gave the section his blessing. Brad Dayspring, Politico’s vice president of communications, defended Thrush as “one of the top political reporters in the country” who makes sure he dots his i’s and reaches out to sources on both sides of the aisle. Dayspring, apparently referring to the “hack” comment, said Thrush is “self-deprecating.”

---

Support Canada Free Press

---

Now let's say for the sake of argument that Thrush really did e-mail the passage to Podesta only to get him to confirm facts. That may seem innocuous, but it's totally verboten in the world of journalism. All you have to do to understand why is think a little. First, if you need to confirm facts, you don't first write your story and then send it to your source to make sure it's accurate. You ask the source directly about the facts. I realize that can be time-consuming. But you have to do it. If you want to do it over the phone, over e-mail or in person, it makes no difference. I prefer to do it via e-mail because not only do I have the source's answers in writing, I also don't have to worry that I heard something wrong over the phone. (I recently had a source tell me she went to the FCI. I thought I heard FBI. She was talking about a culinary school. Fortunately I followed up via text to check on that.) But however you do it, you get all your facts confirmed (or denied as the case may be) by your sources before you write your story. Now there are several other reasons you don't run a story by a source before you publish it. You might make it very clear that it's being done for factual accuracy only, but I guarantee you, if that source doesn't like the way you've written something, the source will want to raise the issue with you. Now you're defending your copy to your source and it's not even in print yet, and you've given the source the opportunity to pressure you to change the way you've worded it. Especially when you're writing about a political race, it's extremely unfair to give one side the chance to do that and not the other side. I know what Thrush said about how no one but him controls his copy. Yeah, bro. You can say that all you want, and I suppose in the sense that it's ultimately you who writes it, that's true. But when you run copy by a source, you at least give the source the opportunity to pressure you to change it. That's why you're never supposed to do it. And Thrush obviously knew he wasn't supposed to do it or he wouldn't have asked Podesta not to tell anyone about it. The "hack" comment may very well have been self-deprecating humor, but the request to keep it hush-hush was serious. Now, what about the far more odious possibility that Thrush is knowingly doing the bidding of Hillary's campaign and that's why he's running copy past Podesta? Do I think that could be what happened? Here's what I think: I think the entire political class is all very cozy with each other, and Politico is very cozy with certain political figures - and with very few (if any) exceptions, that does not include conservatives. The decision to run copy by Podesta was against policy, and Thrush knew it, but it didn't seem all that bad because, hey, it's John Podesta, and they're all totally comfortable with each other. That's not quite writing propaganda under orders. But it's yet one more piece of proof that the press and the Democrats are basically playing two sides of the same game. And Glenn Thrush can stop with the righteous indignation over people questioning him on this. Dude, when you do something you're not supposed to do and ask that it be kept quiet, you did wrong. Just admit it for crying out loud.