Left-leaning journalist Yashar Ali was pressured by MSNBC/NBC’s managing politics editor Dafna Linzer, “on behalf of the DNC,” to delay a scoop on dates for the 2020 Democratic primary debates so that they could scramble to notify state parties before the story hit, according to Ali.
Prior to contributing to the Huffington Post, Mother Jones and New York magazines, the Chicago-born journalist worked on Democrat Steve Westley’s California Gubernatorial campaign, and would later work for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. He also served as then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s deputy chief of staff.
He’s also gotten some of the biggest scoops in political journalism, while growing his Twitter following from 6,600 in October 2016 to 366,000 today.
Along with HuffPost’s editor-in-chief, Lydia Polgreen, he uncovered NBC News’ stringent opposition to Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein exposé, which ultimately ran in The New Yorker. He reported that former President George W. Bush said President Donald Trump’s inauguration was “some weird s—,” a description Hillary Clinton has taken on her book tour. –Business Insider
In a Friday twitter thread, Ali outlined this “highly inappropriate and unethical” call, which came after he told the DNC he would not delay the scoop. Two minutes later, MSNBC’s Linzer called Ali and pressured him on behalf of the DNC.
As Ali notes, it wasn’t entirely unexpected for the DNC to have reached out to MSNBC since they were coordinating an announcement – “what was strange was that she was calling me and taking a menacing tone” so that the DNC could get their act together and make phone calls first.
2. Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC.
Here’s how this all started…
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
4. At first I thought it was just a fun tidbit that I could tweet out. But after I called several presidential campaign staffers I learn that all the Dem campaigns were desperate to learn what the dates were going to be. I decided to post the scoop as an item in my newsletter.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
6. So I won’t share most of what was said but can tell you it’s pretty run-of-the mill stuff. I asked the DNC if my tip was accurate and they asked if they could call me back in 10 minutes. A few minutes later they called back and asked if I could delay posting my scoop
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
8. I’ve never spoken to Dafna by phone. A couple years ago she reached out to me to see if I wanted to have coffee and talk about working at NBC News but I declined as I was actively investigating NBC matters and thought it would be strange if I discussed a job.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
10. After exchanging pleasantries, Dafna told me that she received a call from the DNC and was told I had a story. Now it’s not strange that the DNC called her, they were coordinating an announcement. What was strange was that she was calling me and taking a menacing tone
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
12. I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn’t calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC’s position. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
14. I would lose a scoop. Dafna reminded me she was a nat sec reporter at WAPO for ten years and they would hold stuff all the time (note: so people wouldn’t get killed). “Why can’t you just wait, let them make their calls, then you’ll be the first to put it into print,” she said
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
16. I kept telling Dafna no, that I wasn’t waiting. And she kept getting more frustrated. She was exasperated…she didn’t understand why I couldn’t wait for the DNC to make their state notification calls.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
18. 2/3 of the way into the conversation Dafna started a sentence with “this is off the record.” She hadn’t said it at the beginning of our conversation and most important at no point did I agree when she said “off record” to keep it off record.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
20. She said “off record” one more time later in the call and again I just let her keep talking, I did not agree to anything. I then told her I had to go talk to my editor and she got even more frustrated and said “No. I want to talk to you about this.”
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
22. After the call with Dafna I published the stupid scoop. Then I did a gut check and over the next two hours I called 10 experienced prominent reporters and told them the story. They were all stunned by what Dafna did and encouraged me to share it publicly.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
24. There are plenty of times reporters will introduce people in politics to other reporters or TV people. I have done it many times, that is advocating for more coverage, not less. Dafna was advocating for me to not do something on behalf of a political party.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
25. What I can’t figure out is (and no one else I spoke to could understand), why open yourself up to this for a stupid story? How was this worth it?
END
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
We wonder how closely the MSM and DNC will be “coordinating” efforts going into 2020.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2OGcz2F Tyler Durden