TEL AVIV – A draft media policy memo requested by Hillary Clinton recommended that the State Department utilize “Specialty Media” to get its foreign policy message across, a newly released State Department email reveals.
The 2009 memo urged Clinton to use her star power and singled out shows including Oprah, Ellen, The View, and others to be used to “amplify and deliver messages that advance policymaking.”
The memo stated that Ellen DeGeneres is “a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and is willing to use her platform to help promote the agenda of the new Secretary of State.”
The memo did not explain how it obtained the purported information about DeGeneres’s alleged willingness to use her show to promote Clinton’s agenda.
“The line between daytime talk shows and hard news becomes more and more blurred as headlines in one realm make headlines in the other,” wrote Jin Chon, in a three-page memo dated January 18, 2009. Chon served as spokesman for specialty media for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The memo, marked as a draft, was addressed to “Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Clinton Transition Team” and was titled, “Draft Memo: Specialty Media in the Age of Secretary Clinton.” It was contained in a February 5, 2009 email Chon sent to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
The email was part of a new batch of State emails released last week in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit. The emails were reviewed in full by Breitbart Jerusalem.
Chon informed Abedin that Clinton personally requested the memo. “I mentioned the memo below to HRC last night and she asked me to get it to her,” he wrote.
In the memo, Chon highlighted the importance of specialty media as opposed to more political news outlets.
He wrote:
Unlike the elite, Inside-the-Beltway reporters who are constantly on the hunt for controversy and internal friction within the administration, specialty media outlets are more focused on substantive policy issues and want to find ways to connect these complex issues to a human face.
Further, the thirst for access from these outlets puts the State Department in a position of strength in negotiating amount of coverage and topics to be discussed. …
These outlets can create vital support for official policy or pending legislation among key domestic constituency groups but also create momentum for policy abroad. As the media environment continues to become more and more globally interconnected, it will be critical for the leadership of the State Department to leverage all of these media opportunities to amplify and deliver messages that advance policymaking.
Chon recommended that Clinton utilize daytime talk shows with large female audiences.
He singled out the following shows:
Oprah – In the world of daytime talk, Oprah continues to dominate and in the past few years, she has tackled many important foreign policy issues that are often ignored by mainstream press.
Ellen – While Ellen does not spend many shows dealing with serious foreign policy issues, she does use her show to support important causes and raise money for them. Further, her show is syndicated internationally to ten countries, including Canada, Australia, and India. She is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and is willing to use her platform to help promote the agenda of the new Secretary of State.
The View – What The View lacks in international distribution, it makes up for it by creating a media echo chamber based on the intense discussions that take place every weekday during the Hot Topics segments. While foreign affairs have only been an occasional topic on the show, now with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, that level is expected to spike dramatically.
The 2009 reference to The View as “creating a media echo chamber” may be telling. Two weeks ago, a New York Times article quoted a senior Obama administration official who used similar phraseology in describing the alleged use of the news media to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the American public.
That plot was referenced in a New York Times Magazine profile of President Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes entitled, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru.”
Robert Malley, senior director at the National Security Council, was quoted saying “experts” were utilized to create an “echo chamber” that disseminated administration claims about Iran to “hundreds of often-clueless reporters” in the news media.
Meanwhile, the memo to Clinton also highlighted the importance of entertainment shows like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, EXTRA, and Inside Edition. Also mentioned were late night talk shows such as Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show, and The Daily Show.
On Tuesday, Ellen announced in a Tweet that Clinton will join her show this month along with the cast members of the new all-female Ghostbusters remake.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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