In the 2015-2016 Democratic Party presidential primary, the network became a de facto Hillary Clinton campaign operation against Sen. Bernie Sanders, a commitment continuing this cycle as Clintonites, Juanita Tolliver and Zerlina Maxwell, emit character assassinations against Sanders from their paid positions in occasional appearances on MSNBC.
The intimate connection between MSNBC/NBC News and the Democratic National Committee became more clear this week after a story from Yashar Ali, contributor to the New York Magazine and Huntington Post, was posted on Twitter.
Glenn Greenwald gave the story needed juice. The mainstream media is blacking out coverage.
Below are the 25 posts from Yashar Ali in which he recounts the story of Dafna Linzer, Managing Editor, Politics for NBC News and MSNBC, taking the position of the DNC to delay Ali's scoop on DNC debate scheduling, though Ali has no connection to either NBC News and MSNBC.This is stunning. Yes, some Fox hosts are often arms of the Trump WH, but this proves - not that it should surprise snyone - that NBC/MSNBC = DNC. Equals. MSDNC. NBC = DNC News. Read this: https://t.co/WbDkBB62Qw— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 29, 2019
Ali doesn't care about his scoop. What concerns Ali is MSNBC/NBC News' Linzer interceding and trying to delay the story on behalf of the DNC.
1. Yesterday, I received a call from @DafnaLinzer who serves as managing editor of NBC/MSNBC politics. Dafna's conduct during the call was highly inappropriate and unethical. So what was the purpose of her call?— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
She called me to bully me on behalf of the DNC.
3. Yesterday morning I received a tip from a trusted source. The source told me the DNC would be announcing the dates of the first 2020 primary debates later that day. The source gave me the dates they would be announcing: June 26 and 27.— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
5. This wasn't a huge scoop but it was a decent one so I quickly called the DNC to fact-check the tip as I was running out of time: the dates would be announced on MSNBC in the 4:00 PM hour. It's important to note that almost of all of my communication with the DNC was off record— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
7. For another hour so they could go through their important notification calls to the state parties. I told them I couldn't wait as the news would leak and leave me without a story. That's all I can say about the call. Two minutes later I received a call from Dafna.— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
9. So when I saw Dafna calling I assumed she would ask me to consider delaying my post so that MSNBC could announce it first. Given that this was an innocuous scoop and not some investigative story I wouldn't have lost sleep if I had delayed. But that's not why she was calling.— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
11. She asked if I could hold the story and I said I couldn't. She was agitated, "why not?" I said I'm not going to lose a scoop. Then she got angrier and said "Why not? It's not a big deal, let them make a few phone calls."— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
My jaw dropped.
13. I thought to myself "this is how people think it works." It's not. But Dafna was doing it. She kept pressing me. Now I acknowledged, for stuff that isn't about serious investigative reporting, there is no problem holding something. But I knew once others got the call— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
15. I couldn't believe what she was saying. Again, it was fine for me to print the story an hour later, beat her own network by three hours, she just wanted me to let the DNC inform state party leaders. Why the hell did she care?— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
17. I was so surprised me that she was talking this way with a total stranger. The head of the political division was trying to bully me at the behest of the DNC over a dumb scoop (even though they may not have asked her to)— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
19. I'm not one of those gotcha reporters, I think it's bad for sourcing relationships to make people like they constantly feel like they have to say "off record." But Dafna isn't a source and she was calling to intimidate me, so she doesn't get the benefit.— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
21. I said "no, I want to go talk to my editor." Then she sent me over the edge and said "What's your editors name, I want to talk to them." She was trying to intimidate me..on behalf of the DNC. I ended the call.— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
23. I'm not naive to the fact that this incident is going to be twisted by some with an agenda to discredit the media and say they collude with political parties. But I think its more important to expose bad behavior then keep it under wraps. What Dafna did was unethical— 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?— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019
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