What if Iranian hackers had targeted Harris?

Last August, at least three major American media outlets – the New York TimesTHE Washington Post And Politico — received emails containing internal communications from Donald Trump’s campaign that were stolen in June by Iranian hackers. Two months later, none of those outlets has published a single line about the documents, which included a dossier on the former president’s running mate, J.D. Vance, and polls. Why?

The media outlets in question have never explicitly answered this question. It is understood that the communications do not contain any information that the public could not do without in order to be well informed about the issues at stake in the 2024 presidential election. It is also understood that the same media outlets do not want to repeat their mistake of 2016 by thoughtlessly publishing information about Democratic Party emails stolen by Russian hackers.

“That seems reasonable,” said Margaret Sullivan, a former ombudsman for the New York Timesin American Crisis, his newsletter. “But I found myself doing this thought experiment: What if the hack hadn’t hit Trump’s campaign, but only Harris’ (or, earlier, Biden’s) campaign? Would the same editorial restraint have been applied, especially if the media and right-wing politicians had started shouting from the rooftops that the press, by not publishing, was protecting Democrats and was on Harris’ side? I’m not sure the same conclusion would have been drawn—not because the bigwigs of journalism want Trump to win, but because they are so defensive about being portrayed as liberals.”

Sullivan returns to this theme in the final paragraph of his reflection: “So while I’d like to think that what we’re seeing in the media’s silence on the Iranian hacks is mostly a ‘lesson learned,’ I’m not convinced. It’s probably one element among many, with the absence of urgent news playing a larger role, combined with a desire—even if unacknowledged, even by themselves—to avoid inflaming right-wing criticism.”

Before reaching this conclusion, Sullivan notes that “there has been very little introspection about the coverage of the 2016 campaign, particularly about how Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server was greatly exaggerated, to her detriment.”

My conclusion? The media may have learned their lesson since 2016, but it is Donald Trump who is most likely to benefit from it in 2024. Such is life.

(Photo Reuters)