This is a small anecdote about a small news story (a scoop when the first Democratic debates are to be held), but an indicative one:
2. Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC.
Here's how this all started…
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
4. At first I thought it was just a fun tidbit that I could tweet out. But after I called several presidential campaign staffers I learn that all the Dem campaigns were desperate to learn what the dates were going to be. I decided to post the scoop as an item in my newsletter.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
6. So I won't share most of what was said but can tell you it's pretty run-of-the mill stuff. I asked the DNC if my tip was accurate and they asked if they could call me back in 10 minutes. A few minutes later they called back and asked if I could delay posting my scoop
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
8. I've never spoken to Dafna by phone. A couple years ago she reached out to me to see if I wanted to have coffee and talk about working at NBC News but I declined as I was actively investigating NBC matters and thought it would be strange if I discussed a job.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
10. After exchanging pleasantries, Dafna told me that she received a call from the DNC and was told I had a story. Now it's not strange that the DNC called her, they were coordinating an announcement. What was strange was that she was calling me and taking a menacing tone
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
12. I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn't calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC's position. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
14. I would lose a scoop. Dafna reminded me she was a nat sec reporter at WAPO for ten years and they would hold stuff all the time (note: so people wouldn't get killed). "Why can't you just wait, let them make their calls, then you'll be the first to put it into print," she said
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
16. I kept telling Dafna no, that I wasn't waiting. And she kept getting more frustrated. She was exasperated…she didn't understand why I couldn't wait for the DNC to make their state notification calls.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
18. 2/3 of the way into the conversation Dafna started a sentence with "this is off the record." She hadn't said it at the beginning of our conversation and most important at no point did I agree when she said "off record" to keep it off record.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
20. She said "off record" one more time later in the call and again I just let her keep talking, I did not agree to anything. I then told her I had to go talk to my editor and she got even more frustrated and said "No. I want to talk to you about this."
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
22. After the call with Dafna I published the stupid scoop. Then I did a gut check and over the next two hours I called 10 experienced prominent reporters and told them the story. They were all stunned by what Dafna did and encouraged me to share it publicly.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
24. There are plenty of times reporters will introduce people in politics to other reporters or TV people. I have done it many times, that is advocating for more coverage, not less. Dafna was advocating for me to not do something on behalf of a political party.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
25. What I can't figure out is (and no one else I spoke to could understand), why open yourself up to this for a stupid story? How was this worth it?
END
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
Instapundit called them “Democratic operatives with bylines,” and here we have a media figure asking a colleague to bury a scoop, not based on her organization’s needs, but because it might hurt the Democratic Party.
The amazing thing about this story is the tininess of the stakes. If one media operative was this insistent over such a trivial scoop, how many times has she or another MSM functionary gone to the mat over over far more important stories that might damage the Democratic Party? We know that most of the MSM has pursued the nothingburger of the Russian collusion fantasy for two years because it might damage Donald Trump and the Republican Party. How many stories damaging to the DNC has the MSM suppressed?
