Thread by @JuddLegum

1. For weeks, major media orgs — including @washingtonpost, @politico, and @nytimes — have possessed internal Trump campaign docs

But all 3 outlets have declined to publish or excerpt them

It's a radically different decision than the same pubs made when Clinton's campaign was hacked in 2016

🧵

2. @washingtonpost Executive Editor Matt Murray defended the decision: "The news organizations in this case took a deep breath and paused, and thought about who was likely to be leaking the documents, what the motives of the hacker might have been, and whether this was truly newsworthy"

@washingtonpost 3. But when hackers connected to the Russian government leaked internal emails from Clinton campaign officials and the DNC, @washingtonpost published dozens of stories based on the hack

popular.info/p/major-outlet…

@washingtonpost 4. The steady drumbeat of mostly unflattering articles in the @washingtonpost and other outlets was a major part of the election narrative in the days and weeks before election day.

@washingtonpost 5. Nor was the coverage limited to information that "was truly newsworthy." Any tidbit of information was fair game for coverage. One Washington Post article discussed Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's risotto recipe.

6. Similarly, @Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring said that Politico "made a judgment" and decided not to publish any of the leaked Trump materials because "questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how they came to our attention were more newsworthy than the material that was in those documents."

7. Politico made a different judgment in 2016. In addition to numerous standalone articles about the hacked materials from the DNC and Clinton campaign officials, Politico published a "live blog" to highlight the minutiae in the stolen emails.

The live blog included 50 entries published over less than three weeks.

8. The @nytimes has refused to comment on its decision not to cover the contents of any of the leaked Trump documents.

The New York Times' approach was quite different in 2016, when it published at least 199 articles about the stolen Clinton campaign emails between the first leak in June 2016 and Election Day

9. Pausing here to say if you appreciate the info in this thread, you should subscribe to the Popular Information newsletter

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10. The @nytimes Editorial Board wrote that any negative impact on the Clinton campaign was Clinton's fault for not voluntarily releasing the information in the emails obtained by Russian hackers

"Imagine if months ago, Mrs. Clinton had done her own giant information release," the New York Times Editorial Board wrote on October 22, 2016. "[E]veryone would have long since moved on."

11. Of course, the Washington Post, Politico, and the New York Times may believe they made a mistake in covering the hacked emails in 2016 and are now changing course. But none of these publications have acknowledged any errors in their 2016 coverage or acknowledged that they are taking a radically different approach to leaked internal Trump campaign documents in 2024.

@washingtonpost @politico @nytimes 12. Want to share the facts about the media's double standard for hacked emails? It's all right here, with links to primary sources.

popular.info/p/major-outlet…