Politico Admits ‘Mistake’ After Reporter Sent Article to DNC Before Publishing
Politico said in a statement to the Huffington Post Sunday that their reporter made a mistake when he sent an email to a Democratic staffer before publishing time.
Buried in the hacked DNC emails released by Wikileaks recently was an email chain between Politico’s Ken Vogel and DNC national press secretary Mark Paustenbach. Vogel’s email had the subject line “per agreement … any thoughts appreciated” and contained the entire body of his upcoming story. “Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn’t share it,” Paustenbach told another DNC staffer.
That admission sparked criticism from many on the right, who saw it as evidence of collusion. In his statement to HuffPo, Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring said sharing the piece went against company policy, but it was perfectly reasonable to check facts and figures with knowledgeable sources:
Politico’s policy is to not share editorial content pre-publication except as approved by editors. In this case the reporter was attempting to check some very technical language and figures involving the DNC’s joint fundraising agreement with the Clinton campaign. Checking the relevant passages for accuracy was responsible and consistent with our standards; Sharing the full piece was a mistake and not consistent with our policies. There were no substantive changes to the piece and in fact the final story was blasted out by the both RNC and the Sanders campaign, and prompted Politifact to revise its rating on the issue in question.
Dayspring is right on one count: Vogel’s finished story was less than flattering to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, showing that a large majority of the “joint fundraising” Clinton did on behalf of other Democratic candidates was going to her own campaign’s coffers. Other leaked emails showed that the top DNC brass favored Clinton during the primary process.
[Image via screengrab]
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