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Comment by monfrere | Hacker News Reader

I read the leaked emails referred to in these articles, and I don't see much that is troubling about NYT's behavior.

This is just how journalism works: the reporter has to request/negotiate access to the source. The PR folks will obviously try to spin everything positively to the reporter; that's their job. Afterward, the reporter writes up a story as objectively as possible. When some part of the story happens to be flattering, the PR people will obviously high-five themselves. When some part of the story is negative, the PR people will be disappointed and try to get the reporter to see their side.

See this article [1] from Mark Leibovich for an NYT reporter's account of one of the issues addressed in your links.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a-medi...

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However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing. There's lots of evidence that reporters colluded with the Clinton campaign. That's not 'negotiating access.' Reporters ethically are bound to not give sources the ability to approve stories. Otherwise those stories might as well be press releases.

I went to journalism school and giving sources prior-review over a story is about as unethical as it gets.

Getting access to a source doesn't mean softballing everything for the benefit of the source. With the email scandal for instance, those stories could be written with or without cooperation from Clinton -- you simply say: we're running this story, care to respond? If they are 'mad' at you, they are the ones that miss out on getting their side represented. Reporters ought not be 'negotiating' anything. We have a story, we're going to run it; if you want to respond, here's your chance, if you don't want to respond, we can report that as well.

Journalists in many organizations have sold themselves out. It's no surprise that most of them are Clinton supporters. The days of Walter Cronkite objectivity have seemingly passed.

The media colluded against Sanders not even to mention all of the Republican candidates.

> email scandal

On this topic, I find it mildly amusing that, for all the accusations of bias, it was actually the New York Times that broke the story of Clinton's private email server.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clinto...

Some reporters can break stories too, and the same newspaper can have cronies too.

There is a good email in wikileaks where Jake Tapper is pushing back against a slanderous story published against him. Made me respect him for that. There is also another one, where a buzzfeed reporter is introducing a collegue cordially and professionally.

It would be a strange newspaper business indeed that sat quietly on a story like that.

> However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing.

Since you don't say which instance you are talking about, I assume you are talking about this email [1]. Which is kind of curious because it resulted in one of the most negative articles about Clinton in the primaries [2] and widely shared among Bernie and Trump supporters to attack Clinton and now this is supposed to be example of Politico being in bed with Trump? It seems more like Vogel gave the Clinton camp to comment on it.

> I went to journalism school and giving sources prior-review over a story is about as unethical as it gets.

Is it? Even our local paper gave us the chance to comment prior to publishing an article about the little company I am working at.

[1]https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/10808 [2]http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-le...

>Even our local paper gave us the chance to comment prior to publishing an article about the little company I am working at.

Oh that is why you are defending the shitty aspect of journalism. There is a difference between handling all of the story and asking for a comment. Asking for a comment is a normal journalism practice and handling the whole story is the shitty nepotism. It is amazing you are defending this aspect of journalism. Handing over whole story before publishing it. It helps the campaign to plan mitigation efforts, and even can do to editor to edit out the story due to Clinton campaign pushback.

Here is the thing. The email exchange with Politico actually proves to me that the Clinton campaign has a lot less influence over the press than people assume. Politico sent an article that is very critical of Clinton to her campaign. They were trying to push back. Then Politico published the article anyway. If the Clinton campaign had any influence over Politico they would've been able to stop the article. You have to see the context. This was THE big critical story about Clinton during the primaries (besides the millions articles about emails) and I couldn't find anything essential that the Clinton campaign was able to prevent from publishing.

That's an interesting spin. Ignore the fact that Politico gave a candidate a "head's up" about a damaging piece and be happy that at least they still published it despite push back. It's less terrible than you thought it was!

There is nothing illegal (or even unethical in my opinion) to give someone an article before publishing so they can comment on it. It's ridiculous to infer collusion when the result is such a negative article about Clinton. Which piece of information did not make it into the article because it was first send to Paustenbach? Please be specific.

I didn't say it was illegal. I do think it is unethical. It's what we call in legal world an ex parte communication. It's an off-the-record communication with the subject of the article. At the very least, it gives the subject advance warning to spin or do damage control in response--a courtesy I suspect is not granted to everyone.

> a courtesy I suspect is not granted to everyone.

It's worth pointing out that since we don't have a dump of the Bernie emails, we don't know what their press interaction was like. I'd be shocked if they did not participate in this article. They certainly pushed it pretty hard once it published.

>-a courtesy I suspect is not granted to everyone.

It is standard practice in every bit of journalism I've ever seen to ask the subject for comment.

> However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing.

Did they show the story to get 'approval' or did they check elements of the story before publication?

The latter. Vogel was about to publish a piece of investigative journalism on the Hillary Victory Fund (one that the Sanders camp celebrated at the time). He asked the Clinton team for their explanation and sent a preprint to make sure he didn't misrepresent it in any way, which would have damaged his piece if it were immediately followed by the Clinton camp saying he was wrong and that they had told him why but he hadn't printed it. ttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/07/25/lay-off-politicos-ken-vogel/

If you get all of an organization's emails, you are bound to find an email that looks like some conspiracy on the surface. The people who think this email is an issue are simply not inclined to challenge their biases, so they display their ignorance proudly.

> I read the leaked emails referred to in these articles, and I don't see much that is troubling about NYT's behavior.

Imagine if judges gave litigants pre-publication copies of opinions.

Vogel isn't a judge though. He is a journalist. Was the Clinton campaign able to change the article in any meaningful way?

Imagine if judges had no power to compel cooperation or even communication at all. They might have to work in a different way.

Journalists would work very differently if they could use armed cops to force sources to come talk to them and tell the truth.

If you were correct, then the spin would be spinning the other direction from time to time.

Doesn't seem like that has happened with the Times.

If the bias is because they are systematically getting information from one side of the story, then it's still bad journalism.

You have very conveniently sweept it under normal PR behavior. And even used NYtimes link to debunk it all. Lovely. Nytimes pandered Iraq war hard to US masses, never believing in any political position they push.

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/exclusive-new-email-leak...

Nytimes sending out first draft to John Podesta:- https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/844

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213#efmDVTDWd Mark Leibovich giving veto power on a clinton piece.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7524#efmA9fBAI

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9416#efmATHAXN

I have left out all the normal questions which journalists ask.

Donna Brazile leaking CNN questions:- https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/57027

DNC directing questions to Wolf Blitzer to ask to Donald/Cruz/Fiorina:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/25846 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/25284 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/23570 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/23554

NBC news first draft:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/26390

https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/42191 (Don't know what he/she is talking about here)

Newsweek story:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/41392

DNC Chairman having meeting with MSNBC predisent:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/8867

Sharing story before sharing with editor:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/10808

Jake Tapper questions:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/4077

Journalists have been giving the campaign full stories before being published, will Clinton team not push back on any negative aspects?

There are 2 3 other emails; one from a batch released a month ago and one around last week. Form your own opinions if they are journalists asking for a genuine access, or...

Sorry for bad formatting...

> Nytimes sending out first draft to John Podesta:- https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/844

Stopped reading there. This is why we need journalism. People like you are unable to interpret the content of these emails. He is subscribed to the NYtimes First Draft blog [1]. Everyone with an NYTimes subscription can get the newsletter. As you can also tell by the sender nytdirect@nytimes.com [2]This isn't an actual first draft. Stop spreading misinformation and take your bs back to reddit.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/21/today...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/faq/aboutsiteqa17.ht...

Good thing, atleast you read this one before ignoring:- https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/exclusive-new-email-leak...

Don't give me your attitude. I got one wrong and admit the mistake on that one. That does not really refute any other emails.

> Don't give me your attitude.

You are right. I apologize for the dismissive tone of my comment.

The trouble is, when you get the first one wrong, it doesn't encourage people to take the time to read the rest.

> https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213#efmDVTDWd Mark Leibovich giving veto power on a clinton piece.

You got the second one wrong as well, so I stopped there instead. He was giving veto on what to use on off-the-record questions, which I hope you agree, is a very good practice.

Someone else can deal with your third, and fourth...

But if you want apples to apples, it's unfortunate that you can't dig through Trumps emails [1].

It's sad that politics is no longer about politics.

[1] http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-...

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