Reuters ran a bombshell story this past Friday about Democrat Beto O’Rourke belonging to a hacker group but admitted withholding the report until his Senate race against Ted Cruz had concluded.
Now, the reporter is facing questions over ethics for covering up the story.
O’Rourke’s hacking career was revealed when reporter Joseph Menn ran an adaptation from his upcoming book which noted that the 2020 presidential candidate “belonged to the oldest group of computer hackers in U.S. history.”
More startling is the reporter’s admission that he withheld the story for years, agreeing not to discuss Beto’s membership in the hacker group “Cult of the Dead Cow.”
Menn complied, noting “that the information would not be made public until after his Senate race against Ted Cruz in November 2018.”
Reuters admits they had the story on all of Beto O’Rourke’s old writings and interviewed him about it in 2017 and agreed to sit on the story until after O’Rourke’s Senate run against Ted Cruz.
This is why people do not trust the media.https://t.co/gZXgZmI5Bt
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) March 17, 2019
This isn’t some two-bit wannabe news outlet like CNN. This is a Reuters reporter agreeing to withhold news relevant to the public to protect a Senate candidate. Would they have done the same thing for a Republican? For Ted Cruz? For Donald Trump?
Aside from being a prolific computer hacker, the report also notes that as a teenager, Beto wrote bizarre fiction stories under the name “Psychedelic Warlord,” on the drug harm reduction website Tripsitter.com including a story about running over children with a vehicle while under the influence of ketamine and LSD.
Justification
Reuters defended their actions and those of their reporter in a statement to Fox News.
“While he was on leave from Reuters and writing a book on the Cult of the Dead Cow, Joe Menn made an agreement regarding the embargo date of his interview with Beto O’Rourke,” they said. “This is a common arrangement between journalists and sources, which we described in detail in a Reuters Backstory article on Friday.”
Senator Ted Cruz, who prevailed in a hard-fought campaign against O’Rourke, isn’t so sure.
So Reuters had evidence in 2017 that Beto may have committed multiple felonies—which Beto confirmed on the record—but deliberately withheld the story for over a year to help him win his Senate race? But when he’s running against Bernie etc, NOW it’s news? https://t.co/dUfrRPw1By
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 16, 2019
“This is — yet again — a chilling example of just how pervasive the liberal media bias is today,” Chris Barron, a conservative strategist, said. “It’s not just in how they report stories, but when and the standards they use to employ for that coverage.”
What the media is now shrugging off as a “common arrangement was the subject of their disdain not too long ago.
Double Standard
It was no more than three months ago that the mainstream media went apoplectic over news that a tabloid reached a “non-prosecution” settlement with the federal government over a $150,000 payment made to a woman who alleged she had an affair with President Trump.
Do you think the outrage will be equally as loud for Reuters protecting Beto?
The mainstream media sure didn’t seem to care when former president Barack Obama benefitted from the intentional burying of two stories that could have tarnished his campaign – a damaging photo of him palling around with noted bigot Louis Farrakhan, and an alleged $150,000 payment to Jeremiah Wright to make him go away.
Democrats always get the benefit of a compliant and obedient media.
