Accuracy in Media

In a Wikileaks email dump, Clinton campaign chairman and longtime Clinton ally John Podesta told the campaign to “dump all those emails”. Specifically, he was e-mailing Cheryl Mills and changed the tone of the e-mail thread to suggest an e-mails dump.

How did the liberal media react? They defended Podesta’s phrasing in that Podesta was supposedly referring to making the e-mails public.

The Washington Post headline read as follows: “Why ‘dump all those emails’ doesn’t mean what Drudge thinks it does”

Here is one excerpt from the Post’s defense of Podesta:

But from context, it’s clear that Podesta was talking about whether to make the emails public — not to delete them. His usage of “dump” resembled the typical D.C. usage of “Friday news dump,” a release of troves of documents that dares reporters to spend precious weekend hedonism time hunting through them.

A Huffington Post article said the following:

So, what does “dump the emails” mean, exactly? Well, once you’ve ruled out the idea that Podesta is encouraging the Clinton team to break off a romantic relationship with some emails, the basic question becomes, “Does he mean delete or or does he mean disclose.”

The answer is “disclose.” The first indication that Podesta is not suggesting that the emails should be deleted is that he does not say, “Delete the emails,” a thing you would say if you wanted some emails deleted. Instead, he uses a bit of Beltway parlance: “dump,” as in “news dump” ? as in, get it out there, “sooner,” as opposed to “later.”

Here’s how we know this. The full email from Podesta reads: “On another matter….and not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later.”

CBS News’ article, entitled, “Hillary Clinton campaign chairman: “We are going to have to dump all those emails””, said:

A Clinton campaign aide clarified that by “dump,” Podesta meant to release to the public—like in a document dump—and not deleting or getting rid of them.

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