NYT Takes CIA Pre-Clearance Before Criticizing POTUS

US media knickers in a twist: Does the Free Media of the Free World need CIA clearance, before criticizing the GOTUS?

For 2ndlook readers. Not surprising!

This has happened for decades – if not longer.

Newly available CIA records obtained by Judicial Watch, the conservative watchdog group, reveal that New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti forwarded an advance copy of a Maureen Dowd column to a CIA spokesperson — a practice that is widely frowned upon within the industry.

Mazzetti’s correspondence with CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf, on Aug. 5, 2011, pertained to the Kathryn Bigelow-Mark Boal film “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the killing of Osama bin Laden, and a Times op-ed column by Dowd set to be published two days later that criticized the White House for having “outsourced the job of manning up the president’s image to Hollywood.”

According to Judicial Watch, Mazzetti sent Harf an advance copy of Dowd’s column, and wrote: “this didn’t come from me… and please delete after you read.  See, nothing to worry about!”

POLITICO has just reached out to the Times for comment, as it was unable to do so prior to Judicial Watch’s decision to lift the embargo on the files. (See update).

Judicial Watch obtained the files through a formal Freedom of Information Act request. The full email can be viewed here.

New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter.

“The optics aren’t what they look like,” he went on. “I’ve talked to Mark, I know the cirucmstance, and given what I know, it’s much ado about nothing.”

Baquet would not provide further details, which means his statements amount to a plea to readers to take it on faith that Mazzetti’s leak was ethically sound.

via NYT reporter leaked advance copy of Maureen Dowd column to CIA – POLITICO.com; wikipedia links supplied.

It is fashionable in the US to moan over how powerful ‘secret police’ has become of late.

But remember! This is nothing new.

For 48 years, Edgar Hoover headed FBI. No POTUS (President of the US), no GOTUS (Government of the US), no SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) could touch him. He had a file on everyone. Starting with someone like John Lennon to many Hollywood starlets.

The modern USA has the largest secret police in the world has ever seen. An estimated 3 million strong. Civilian police which is the largest in the world – at one million. The GOTUS at any time has more than 2 crore (20 million) people under prosecution, parole, probation or in prison.

No State has taken so much offence against its own citizens as the GOTUS.

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Related Articles

• NYT reporter leaked advance copy of Maureen Dowd column to CIA (politico.com)
• New York Times Reporter Gave CIA Flack a Sneak Peak at Maureen Dowd’s Column [Journalismism] (gawker.com)
• Judicial Watch Obtains Stack of ‘Overlooked’ CIA Records Detailing Meetings with bin Laden Filmmakers (judicialwatch.org)
• Times Reporter Leaked Dowd Column to CIA (newser.com)