Political media need a reality check

Published November 8, 2016 5:01am ET



The Washington Examiner reported last weekend on emails released by WikiLeaks. They suggest that CNN asked the Democratic National Committee’s staff for help last spring coming up with questions to put to Republican primary candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in particular.

Another leak shows CNBC’s John Harwood asking Hillary Clinton’s campaign team for advice on how to interrogate Jeb Bush. In an earlier WikiLeaks dump of DNC emails, Politico’s Ken Vogel was caught sharing a complete advance copy of a story for DNC flaks to review, a no-no for journalists in general. And of course, it was disclosed last month that someone at CNN gave Democratic operative Donna Brazile (who has since resigned her contributor slot at the network) questions that would be asked of Clinton in televised forums, so she could warn her party’s candidate in advance. Brazile duly leaked them, although she deflects questions about this disgraceful action with mumbo-jumbo excuses about the possibility of the emails having been alterered.

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