I’ve usually never found myself on the same side of the ideological divide as Glenn Greenwald. I don’t know him, but his leftist bent has never been hard to understand.
But for sure he is a thorough investigative reporter. Thus the interesting news that he has parted ways with The Intercept, the news site he helped found. What’s interesting is the reason for his departure — namely the decision by the editors to censor an article Glenn wrote that was critical — oh no! - of Joe Biden. Glenn has now posted the article he wrote, un-edited and in its original form, replete with the occasional typo.
This was the headline:
THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER’S EMAILS
And what did Greenwald say in his piece? Among other things, this:
“Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.
One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions -- the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election -- journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence.”
Greenwald was 100% correct. And yes, The New York Post and Tucker Carlson have been thorough and accurate in their reporting on the details of what has been found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. In fact, Glenn’s unpublished article for The Intercept was itself both detailed and lengthy, naming names of those in the mainstream media.
First, he he said this:
“The few mainstream journalists who tried merely to discuss these materials have been vilified. For the crime of simply noting it on Twitter that first day, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman had her name trend all morning along with the derogatory nickname “MAGA Haberman.” CBS News’ Bo Erickson was widely attacked even by his some in the media (sic)simply for asking Biden what his response to the story was. And Biden himself refused to answer, accusing Erickson of spreading a ‘smear.’”
Then he provides examples of the journalists who had no time for the story:
“The NPR Public Editor, in an anazing statement (sic) representative of much of the prevailing media mentality, explicitly justified NPR’s refusal to cover the story on the ground that “we do not want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories . . . [or] waste the readers’ and listeners’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
Among the names Glenn lists as those giving the story short shrift were Lesley Stahl of CBS and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Brian Stelter.
After a detailed investigation of his own, Glenn concludes this way:
“The publicly known facts, augmented by the recent emails, texts and on-the-record accounts, suggest serious sleaze by Joe Biden’s son Hunter in trying to peddle his influence with the Vice President for profit. But they also raise real questions about whether Joe Biden knew about and even himself engaged in a form of legalized corruption. Specifically, these newly revealed information suggest Biden was using his power to benefit his son’s business Ukrainian associates, and allowing his name to be traded on while Vice President for his son and brother to pursue business opportunities in China. These are questions which a minimally healthy press would want answered, not buried — regardless of how many similar or worse scandals the Trump family has.
But the real scandal that has been proven is not the former Vice President’s misconduct but that of his supporters and allies in the U.S. media. As (reporter Matt) Taibbi’s headline put it: “With the Hunter Biden Exposé, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than the Actual Story.”
And what was the response of The Intercept to the Greenwald story. It included this:
“While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle the dubious claims of a political campaign — the Trump campaign — and launder them as journalism.”
Say what? The “dubious claims of a political campaign — the Trump campaign.” As can be plainly seen, Glenn Greenwald simply committed an act of serious journalism. As has The New York Post, Tucker Carlson and, as Glenn notes, The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel. The Biden laptop is nothing but a fountain of detailed information, information that has been vouched for by the ex-Biden associate Tony Bobulinski.
It is crystal clear with it’s response, and a reading of the Greenwald article its editors rejected, that The Intercept is itself now nothing more than an arm of the Leftist State Media, utterly uninterested in any facts that are perceived as damaging to the Biden campaign and the larger drive to defeat Donald Trump.
Glenn Greenwald was right. And because he was right he is now gone from the site he helped bring to life. But as he has clearly recognized, The Intercept is the one that has seriously damaged its own credibility.
In the vernacular, what The Intercept has done in its zeal to suppress Glenn’s column is called shooting one’s self in the foot.
