Real estate mogul Donald Trump is furious that the Huffington Post declined to publish an interview he did with one of the left-leaning news organization’s bloggers.
“They refused to put it out,” Trump told the Washington Examiner media desk in an interview. “I said, ‘Wow, why?’ Because they hate me so much, they refused to put it out. It was a great piece. So, it’s very dishonest. It’s a very dishonest organization.”
The blogger, Melanie Batley, is a conservative writer and interviewed Trump for a story she submitted to the HuffPo in December. It was never published by Huffington Post, but Newsmax did eventually publish it. Bately told Trump’s handlers that she wasn’t given a reason why Huffington Post didn’t publish it, though she has 20 other blog posts published under her name at the HuffPo dating back to 2011.
“Ms. Batley submitted a blog post on this topic four months ago, in early December of 2014, and we declined to publish it at that time because it did not meet our editorial standards,” said HuffPo Executive Blog Editor Stuart Whatley. “Additionally, we don’t publish every post that’s submitted to us. We evaluate each blog post on an individual basis and make decisions daily on what to publish and what not to publish, similar to other news publications.”
Other news outlets do make editorial decisions on which written contributions to accept from outside journalists. But it is unusual for a new media outlet to decline an original piece that includes an exclusive interview with a newsmaker like Trump — especially since Trump is considering a run for president.
Batley’s piece, which was obtained by the Examiner, is highly complimentary of Trump and quotes him at length on his potential presidential ambitions. The businessman and reality TV figure has a long history of flirting with White House bids, only to back out after receiving considerable media attention.
“Why do people love him?” writes Batley at one point in the unpublished piece. “I have my own list of reasons, starting with his authentic style, but perhaps he was able to put it best.”
It goes on to quote Trump, who says, “I’ve been popular with a large group of people for a long period of time. Part of it is the success, part of it is what I say, and part of it is that they feel that I’m not somebody who can be ripped off and they’re tired of being ripped off as a country.”
Trump said he doesn’t want coverage of him in the HuffPo, anyway. “I hope they don’t cover me because they never cover me honestly,” he said.
Trump’s comments come days after Jason Linkins, an editor at the HuffPo, said he would not write about Trump “seriously” despite recent news that Trump had formed an exploratory committee for president.
The feud between the HuffPo and Trump goes back to 2012, when he wrote a series of messages on Twitter that were personally critical of Arianna Huffington, founder of the very popular site.
Asked if he’s pleased, otherwise, with the national media’s coverage of him, Trump gave a qualified yes. “Now more so in the last week,” he said, referring to his exploratory committee. “It’s being taken very seriously. It should be.”
UPDATE: This story has been changed to reflect that Newsmax did eventually publish Bately’s story.
