Some journalists are irate over a New York Times story about allies of President Donald Trump collecting damaging information on reporters from “news organizations deemed hostile” to the president.
This is “the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting,” according to the article. It adds that the group responsible has previously released information about journalists from The Washington Post, NYT and CNN, “three outlets that have aggressively investigated” Trump.
“This is an extremely alarming piece and should worry anyone who cares about independent journalism,” Lydia Polgreen, editor-in-chief of Huffpost, tweeted. Polgreen previously worked at the NYT.
A CNN spokesperson replied in the NYT article that when “those working on their behalf, threaten and retaliate against reporters as a means of suppression, it’s a clear abandonment of democracy for something very dangerous,” CNN’s Brian Stelter tweeted.
Patrick Healy, a NYT politics editor, called it an “orchestrated operation by allies of the White House to attack journalists by manipulating & exaggerating information.”