Linzer Wins, Schmidt Self-Owns | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

Politico had a big get this week, announcing that Dafna Linzer will be taking over the role of executive editor. The veteran will be working with editor-in-chief Matt Kaminski out of Washington, D.C. starting on April 25.

The star journalist was most recently the managing editor for politics for MSNBC and NBC News, as well as the managing editor for NBC’s digital news.

Kaminski sent a staff memo with the news on Wednesday:

“Over the past months, we’ve talked to many of you about the publication’s current and future ambitions. Drawing on those conversations, we’ve looked broadly for people who will help us achieve them. Dafna’s appointment is one of the critical steps we are taking this spring to position POLITICO for a great new era.

“Following a national search, Dafna emerged as an ideal candidate to join the editorial leadership team in this essential role. Dafna’s mandate is to ensure that our journalism is best in class and ambitious, and that we have the talent here to deliver on that promise to our readers.”

Politico lauded Linzer’s extensive and widely varied experience in the industry.

“Dafna brings an unusually broad range of experience and record of achievement to POLITICO. She has worked in print, digital and television. She knows the political and Washington story as well as anyone, but has also excelled as a foreign correspondent and investigative reporter.”

“She’s succeeded at every professional stop,” said Kaminski, detailing her credentials which include the Associated Press, Pro Publica, and as “a must-read as a national security correspondent at the Washington Post.”

In a tweet, Linzer adds she is “Honored to join this stellar news organization at a time when POLITICO is expanding in scope and ambition.”

Ex-Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, formerly of the Lincoln Project, tried and failed to dunk on New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on Twitter Wednesday night. He shared private messages showing he messaged her eight times after she made it clear she did not wish to talk.

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, told Mediaite, “This is harassment and it is unacceptable.”

Schmidt shared four pages of emails on Twitter he had with Haberman, whose former beat was Donald Trump.

It isn’t clear what triggered Schmidt. He stated in a thread he was out to expose the “rot” of access journalism. His complaints focused on whether he knew Lincoln Project co-founder John Weaver sending unwanted messages to 21 young men before he stepped down. The gist of his private exchanges with Haberman, though, centered on long-dead Times reporter Walter Duranty for some reason.

Schmidt tweeted about a nearly century-old story about Duranty and Hitler, tagging Haberman in it without explanation.

According to private messages he shared Wednesday, Schmidt sent Haberman an unsolicited screenshot of the tweet.

What followed was an exchange of precisely 26 messages wherein Schmidt berated Haberman and droned on about subjects such as Rick Wilson, Duranty, Trump, and The Lincoln Project.

There was no part of the uncomfortable thread or wild screenshots he shared in which it looked like Schmidt came out ahead. Unhinged would be a closer description.

Schmidt believed he was dunking on Haberman, but the thread accomplished little other than to further a notion that Lincoln Project co-founders are incapable of staying out of other people’s inboxes.