Katie Robertson has a must-read piece up at The New York Times about the reaction inside the New York Post‘s newsroom to its shoddy hit piece on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter earlier this week. Here are some of the key takeaways:
- The report was mostly written by a staff writer who refused to put their name on it, per two Postsources.
- Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says he gave the material to the Post because he was worried other outlets would practice actual journalism: “either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out.”
- Top figures at the paper were involved in deciding how to proceed, including editor in chief Stephen Lynch, digital editor in chief Michelle Gotthelf, and adviser Colin Allan.
- Editors at the Post pressed people there to add their name to the byline, according to two sources who spoke to Robertson.
- Of the two bylines on the piece, we had known that Emma-Jo Morris had worked at Sean Hannity’s Fox News show recently, and that her Instagram had pictures of her with figures like Hannity, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon. Robertson adds that Gabrielle Fonrouge, who had the other byline on the piece, did not know that she had a byline until after the piece went live. Robertson writes that three sources told her that Fonrouge “had little to do with the reporting or writing of the article.”
The one outlet that embraced the report wholeheartedly from the get go was Fox News, which ran over 100 segments on the story in the first two and a half days, despite all the red flags. Continue reading.