Liberal journalists rush to criticize reporter Matt Taibbi for releasing Elon Musk’s Twitter Files

Reaction has been sharply polarized following reporter Matt Taibbi’s release of files related to Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, with left-leaning journalists criticizing Taibbi’s work as “sad” and “bad.” reportage”.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, gave Taibbi access to the documents, which he began posting excerpts from on the social media site late Friday.

The documents included internal emails from Twitter that appeared to show employees deleting tweets featuring nude Hunter Biden at the behest of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

Taibbi, a podcaster and former correspondent for Rolling Stone, came under heavy criticism from top journalists at NBC News, MSNBC, the Daily Beast and elsewhere, who accused him of doing “public relations work” and committing journalistic crimes.

‘Matt Taibbi… what a sad and embarrassing fall. I swear kids he did a good job on his day,” Wajahat Ali, a columnist for the Daily Beast, tweeted.

NBC News reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny were among those who criticized Taibbi’s work, calling it “public relations work” and “really bad reporting.”

‘It should be a warning to everyone. Sell ​​your soul for the richest white nationalist on Earth. Well, I guess he’ll eat well for the rest of his life. But is it worth it?’ he added.

NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins wrote: ‘Imagine throwing it all away to do public relations work for the richest person in the world. Humiliating shit.

Mehdi Hasan, the MSNBC host, had a similar criticism, tweeting: “Imagine volunteering to do online PR work for the world’s richest man on a Friday night, serving brazen and cynical right-wing narratives, and then pretend you’re talking.” truth to power

NBC senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny offered a more nuanced critique of Taibbi’s analysis.

Zadrozny specifically noted Taibbi’s finding that Democrats had “more channels” to pressure Twitter employees to moderate content than Republicans, because political donations from staff went overwhelmingly to Democrats.

Jumping to political contributions as the reason the right was more often denounced for breaking the rules is just bad reasoning and really bad reporting. Good thing this guy doesn’t have an editor,” Zadrozny tweeted.

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan (left) and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali (right) also joined in the criticism of Taibbi’s work.

Widespread criticism of Taibbi’s report centered on a list of tweets that were apparently removed at the behest of the Biden campaign, which Taibbi did not disclose featured nude photos of Hunter, in violation of Twitter’s own policies.

Taibbi could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.

On the other hand, prominent journalist Glenn Greenwald, who is often critical of the mainstream media, hailed the files as “extraordinary documents” showing “extreme pressure and collusion between liberal Twitter executives and Democratic Party leaders to censor reporting on Biden.”

Greenwald criticized the journalists who criticized Taibbi’s release as “the little employees of the media corporations who don’t do any reporting, just ratting out powerless citizens for censorship.”

“The reason these people insist that the Taibbi story is trivial is that they will not and cannot acknowledge any behavior that is outrageous or unbecoming of leading Democratic politicians. Ask them to name one. Any criticism of Democratic leaders is automatically, for them, a fraud, a “lack of nothing,” Greenwald wrote.

‘All the sleazy liberal bunch NBC Daily Beast etc., all the censorship advocates who think that censorship advocacy is somehow compatible with journalism, are furious that their Dem Party’s acts are being team up to get the Biden story. censored are being exposed,’ he also tweeted.

Musk also criticized the way much of the media covered the files.

“Instead of admitting that they lied to the public, they are trying to pretend that this is a burger with nothing on it,” he said. ‘I am ashamed of them.’