Thread by @rod_inanimate

So @salenazito blocked me and I couldn’t figure out why. All I’d done was ask her a simple question about a piece of reporting in her book. Then I ran into people in twitter threads who she’d done the same thing to.

We were talking about the correction @nytimes had to run for @secupp’s column because Zito in her book had hid the fact that Amy Giles-Maurer was a Republican party official. Cool.

So we decided to google the rest of the names in her book. And then we started a twitter account to tell y'all about it.

Six - SIX! - of the “lifelong Democrats” and “former Obama voters” in her book are actually elected Republicans

Cupp isn’t the only reporter to fall for her shtick. @wjlester’s book review says David Rubbico is a longtime Democrat who “liked Obama.” He’s really an elected Republican committee member who said Obama “decimated” the country. eriecountypa.gov/media/645546/2…
goerie.com/opinion/201701…

There’s Dawn Martin, whose vote was totally up for grabs even though she’s the elected secretary of the Lake County GOP and a Republican candidate for county commissioner. touch.facebook.com/Dawn4LakeCo/ab…

Rural Howard County's Neil Shaffer is chairman of the Howard County Republican Party. iowagop.org/iowa-county-go…

Cynthia Sacco, an “independent-minded suburban voter” who “spent most of her life voting mostly Democrat” was elected GOP delegate in 94 and is married to a current elected GOP delegate.
Cynthia’s on page 14 here: m-clerk.macombgov.org/sites/default/…
Here’s her hubby: newsroomsolutions.com/m17/1270-REP_1…

Zito describes Patti Bloomstine as a Democratic donor. She’s on the Republican committee with Dave Rubbico. She’s also secretary of the Erie Republican Independent Conservative PAC, which totally sounds like a thing for Democrats. facebook.com/permalink.php?…

Michael Martin is the “grandson of the late Democratic mayor,” who “did not care for" Mitt Romney. He hated Romney so much, he gave him $2,000 and threw a few grand more to Pat Toomey and Mike Kelly. But yeah, Democratic mayor’s grandkid is probably the most honest description.

She pulls the same shit outside her book, too. She wrote a column about Jill Gillmore without mentioning she’s a Republican politician.
Here’s the column: washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/column…
And here's this: facebook.com/KenoshaCountyR…

If Zito actually traveled to (the oddly specific) 719 cities and towns, and conducted (the hilariously made-up number of) 4913 interviews, it feels weird that half the people she quotes are elected Republicans. It feels even weirder that she hides that detail every time.

So she's presenting the views of elected Republicans in a flattering way. There's a job for that. It's called “Republican spokesperson.”

But when hosts like @donlemon, @brianstetler, @jaketapper and @jejohnson322 bring her on, they don’t call her a spokesperson. They call her a journalist. Maybe they don’t know. Maybe they didn’t check. But it’s not hard to figure out. We used google.

Same with the @nypost, @dcexaminer and @penguinrandom. Maybe @SethAMandel and @jimantle and her book editor know about this. Maybe they don’t. Either way, it feels like a problem.

And we’re not even starting with all the made-up shit that @cnn94cnn, @UrbanAchievr and @KT_So_It_Goes have been posting.

Or the plagiarism.

Or the laziness.

Sigh

what a week. ICYMI @salenazito replied to us. t.co/5rUVL05ekP

@SalenaZito She gets into more detail in @ashleyfeinberg's story huffingtonpost.com/entry/columnis…

@SalenaZito @ashleyfeinberg We're not going pointby point. This isn't our day job. Look at what we said, look at what she said, figure it out for yourself.

@SalenaZito @ashleyfeinberg One thing though, she claims she didn't block this account. That isn't true. She blocked it and then unblocked it. The screenshot's real. Gotta wonder why someone would fib about that. #Bye y'all.