One of Hillary Clinton’s top allies wrote in 2015 that they should consider deploying “the brown and women pundits” to pressure the New York Times into giving them friendlier coverage, according to a series of private emails published by the hacking group WikiLeaks.
The Clinton campaign was particularly unhappy with the Times during the summer of 2015 as the paper reported at length on the federal investigation of Clinton’s use of an unauthorized and unsecured private email server when she worked at the State Department.
In response to those stories, Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden wrote an email to Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, passing along advice which reportedly came from Howard Wolfson, former Clinton communications chief and former senior advisor to Michael Bloomberg.
Tanden noted in an email dated July 9, 2015, that when Bloomberg felt the Times’ coverage of his office had become unfair, he complained directly to the paper’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger. The Times’ coverage changed almost immediately after that meeting, she wrote.
Tanden also wrote that “Howard” believed “the brown and women pundits can shame the times and others on social media.”
The pundits, she added, should include Vox.com’s Matt Yglesias, the Nation’s Joan Walsh, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent and NBC News senior political reporter Perry Bacon.
when bloomberg was having problems w the times he called Arthur schulzburger and asked for coffee. He made the case that they were treating him like a billionaire dilettante instead of Third term mayor. It changed the coverage moderately but also aired the issues in the newsroom so people were more conscious of it. But Arthur is a pretty big wuss so he’s not going to do a lot more than that.
Hillary would have to be the one to call. He also thinks the brown and women pundits can shame the times and others on social media. So cultivating Joan Walsh, Yglesias, Allen, perry bacon, Greg Sargent, to defend her is helpful. They can be emboldened.
Tanden’s note comes from Podesta’s hacked personal email account that was published by WikiLeaks. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, said last week that they won’t attempt to verify whether the emails published by WikiLeaks are authentic.
