When Project Veritas released an embarrassing sting video displaying New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg denouncing the "woke" youngsters at his newspaper and talking about which reporters are terrible writers, CNN's Oliver Darcy knew just how to handle it. He wrote a story defending the liberal paper on Friday headlined:
Right-wing group targets New York Times reporters who have aggressively reported on its spy tactics
As usual, the political battle is between right-wingers and those non-ideological nonpartisans. Here's how Darcy summarized his piece in the Reliable Sources newsletter (emphasis in the original):
This week, Project Veritas released undercover videos capturing NYT's Matthew Rosenberg making a number of disparaging comments about his colleagues and the news media writ large. The videos caused a stir inside NYT due, in part, to the inappropriate comments Rosenberg made about his fellow reporters. But, according to sources I spoke with, it was seen by many NYT journalists as part of a broader harassment and intimidation campaign Project Veritas has waged against the paper for reporting extensively on the inner-workings of the group.
The right-wing group, headed by conservative activist James O'Keefe, has over the past year targeted three reporters in particular: Adam Goldman, Mark Mazzetti, and Michael Schmidt. Those three reporters stand out because they are the journalists at The Times who have authored a series of exposés revealing how Project Veritas employs spy tactics and relies on ethically dubious reporting strategies to target perceived liberals....
>> Of note: Sources told me that the NYT reporters have faced a "barrage" of "constant" harassment over their reporting on Project Veritas. And I'm told the Project Veritas campaign has resulted in heightened vigilance among NYT reporters...
Notice one side is a "right-wing group" and the other side is "perceived liberals." One side is conducting a "harassment and intimidation campaign" and the other side is "reporting extensively on the inner workings." Obviously, the targets of negative Times reporting end up feeling like they're facing a "harassment and intimidation campaign."
Everything in this story had the working assumption that journalism equals liberalism, and conservative attempts at reporting on liberal media outlets are mere propaganda.
One can certainly question the ethics of this kind of undercover journalism, how Veritas can dupe reporters and producers into saying embarrassing things at a bar with some presumably fetching young woman. One can also certainly question just how smart liberals look to the world when they fall right into this trap.
But most of all, it's fascinating for media reporters like Darcy to hate this kind of reporting on liberal media outlets. They have no interest in any reporting that makes liberal media outlets look bad. At least the Veritas source is obviously on the record and on video (albeit tricked). That's unlike the sources that CNN often uses when attacking Fox News. With their level of loathing for Fox, why should we trust their anonymous sources? Especially the many anonymous sources in Brian Stelter's gossipy and profane anti-Fox book Hoax.
