The reaction was sharply polarized after reporter Matt Taibbi released files related to Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, with left-leaning journalists criticizing Taibbi’s work as “sad” and “poor reporting”.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, gave Taibbi access to the documents, excerpts of which he began posting to the social media site on Friday night.
The documents included internal Twitter emails that appeared to show employees removing tweets showing a naked Hunter Biden at the behest of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Taibbi, a podcaster and former Rolling Stone correspondent, has been heavily criticized by top journalists at NBC News, MSNBC, Daily Beast and elsewhere, who have accused him of doing “public relations work” and committing journalistic misconduct.
“Matt Taibbi… what a sad, shameful demise. I swear kids he did a good job back then,” tweeted Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali.
Matt Taibbi, a podcaster and former Rolling Stone correspondent, has been heavily criticized by top journalists at NBC News, MSNBC, the Daily Beast and elsewhere for publishing files related to Twitter’s censorship of Hunter Biden’s laptop story
NBC News reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny were among those who criticized Taibbi’s work, calling it “PR work” and “really bad reporting.”
“Should be a cautionary tale for everyone. Sell your soul for the richest white nationalist in the world. Well, he’ll eat well for the rest of his life I think. But is it worth it?” he added.
NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins wrote: “Imagine throwing away everything to do PR work for the richest person in the world. Degrading shit.’
Mehdi Hasan, the MSNBC host, had a similar criticism, tweeting: “Imagine volunteering online PR work for the richest man in the world on a Friday night, serving naked and cynical right-wing narratives, and then pretend you’re speaking truth to power.’
NBC senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny was more nuanced about Taibbi’s analysis.
Zadrozny specifically pointed to Taibbi’s conclusion that Democrats have “more channels” to lobby Twitter staffers for content moderation than Republicans do, since staff political donations overwhelmingly go to Democrats.
“To cite political donations as the reason the rights have been reported for breaking the rules more often 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 criticizing Taibbi’s work
A widespread criticism of Taibbi’s report focused on a list of tweets, apparently deleted at the behest of Biden’s campaign, that failed to disclose Taibbi and showed Hunter’s nude photos, in violation of Twitter’s own policies.
Taibbi could not be immediately reached for comment on Saturday.
On the other hand, prominent journalist Glenn Greenwald, who is a frequent critic of the mainstream media, hailed the files as “extraordinary documents” that “show the extreme pressure and collusion between liberal Twitter executives and Dem party leaders to to censor reporting on Biden”.
Greenwald slammed journalists who criticized Taibbi’s release as “petty corporate media employees who don’t do reporting – just rant about powerless citizens to have them censored.”
“The reason these people insist that Taibbi’s story is trivial is that they will not and cannot acknowledge scandalous or inappropriate behavior by Dem leaders. Ask them to name which ones. Any criticism of leading Dems is automatically a scam, a “nothingburger,” for them, Greenwald wrote.
“The whole sleazy liberal gang of NBC, Daily Beast, etc. — all pro-censorship advocates who think that advocating censorship is somehow compatible with journalism — are furious that the actions of their Dem Party allies the Biden story expose censored be debunked,” he also tweeted.
Musk also criticized the way many media outlets reported on the files.
“Rather than admitting they lied to the public, they’re trying to pretend this is a non-burger,” he said. ‘Shame on you.’