David Brock: NY Times Is a 'Megaphone for Conservative Propaganda'

David Brock, top attack dog at progressive site Media Matters, is unleashing an attack on a surprising target.

In a forthcoming book titled, “Killing the Messenger: The Right-Wing Plot to Derail Hillary Clinton and Hijack Your Government,” Brock alleges the NY Times is out to get Hillary Clinton.

Politico reports Brock accuses NY Times‘s senior political editor Carolyn Ryan of having it out for Clinton. Brock also claims he has spoken to members of the Times’s staff who confirmed it. Specifically, these sources claim Ryan refused to run a full statement from Hillary’s spokesman Nick Merrill because she believes the Clintons (Bill and Hillary) are liars. Apparently none of the sources in the book are identified by name.

Many who have observed Hillary’s revised and re-revised statements about her email server since March have suggested she is not being completely truthful. Bob Woodward even suggested the spectacle was reminiscent of Watergate. But according to Brock, the NY Times has become a “megaphone for conservative propaganda.” He reportedly also writes that the Times, “will have a special place in hell,” for its biased coverage of the candidate.

The NY Times‘s Eileen Murphy responded to Brock’s attack, telling Politico, “David Brock is an opportunist and a partisan who specializes in personal attacks. We’ve seen him lash out at some of our aggressive coverage of important political figures and it’s unsurprising that he has now turned personal. He’s wrong on all counts.”

Amy Chozick, who covers Clinton for the Times, defended Ryan’s work and fairness. She told Politico, “She has always been a fair-minded, inspiring and brilliant editor who has never shown even a hint of bias (for or against) any candidate we cover.”

The NY Times has published several pieces on Hillary which have apparently had an impact on her campaign. In April, a story by Jo Becker and Mike McIntire noted an unusual Uranium mining agreement made after a visit to Kazakhstan by Bill Clinton (and some large donations to the Clinton Foundation which followed).

More significantly, the Times was first to report Clinton had exclusively used a private sever for all of her email while Secretary of State, a story which continues to dog her campaign. David Brock and Media Matters have led the pushback against coverage of the email story since March.

The Times took heat, including from Media Matters, for a July story claiming the FBI had opened a criminal investigation on Hillary. Though the DOJ initially confirmed the story, they later corrected to say the FBI had opened a “security investigation” which did not target Hillary specifically. The referral to DOJ was made by the Intelligence Community Inspector General who believed classified information on Clinton’s private server may have been mishandled.

The FBI collected Clinton’s blank server and several thumb drives she had given to her attorney after the IC IG reported finding two instances of Top Secret information in a small subset of her emails. This week, the CIA confirmed that the information in the two emails identified by the IG is in fact classified at the Top Secret level.