WaPo hacks offer up brazenly bogus excuses for ignoring and dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story

Ever since “The Twitter Files” dropped on Friday, the MSM have been tripping all over themselves to minimize the revelations contained within them. OK, perhaps “minimize” is the wrong word; “outright dismiss” is probably more suitable.

And then there’s the Washington Post, who, via Philip Bump and Glenn Kessler, is in the process of contending that they didn’t try to dismiss the story at all; they were just practicing journalism, you see.

This is also a major reason why other outlets didn’t match the NY Post’s original laptop story: they weren’t given access to the laptop data! https://t.co/EwAbda5ouE

— Philip Bump (@pbump) December 5, 2022

Oh, OK.

I didn't know the Washington Post handed over all the data and sources from its scoops to other newspapers. https://t.co/yYtdQRC9bY

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) December 5, 2022

You didn't know that other outlets won't run a report on a Post scoop without confirming it themselves? You seem surprisingly underinformed about how actual journalism works, which I suppose isn't really a surprise.

— Philip Bump (@pbump) December 5, 2022

Sure, ~~Jan~~ Philip.

That's not true at all. Like, not even a little bit. https://t.co/3GUt3WaPYD

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 5, 2022

What it is is — dare we say it? — misinformation. Actually, given its deliberate nature, we’d have to call it disinformation.

No, I didn't, because it's complete nonsense. Do you not know that media outlets run scoops from other organizations all the time – they simply credit the other outlet. Would you like a few dozen examples from your own paper?

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) December 5, 2022

Not until mid-2021 did a source provide The Washington Post a copy of the hard drive. Then my colleagues went immediately work on it. We hired experts to assess the veracity and produced articles based on material that could be verified. https://t.co/ERaFoPLwel https://t.co/330JZculDa

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) December 5, 2022

Somebody put that man’s face on a can of stew. What a hero.

They’re still desperately trying to justify their lockstep decision not to report on it in order to help Biden.

The latest excuse is that they don’t report on anything unless they have the original material in their personal possession. Calvinball. https://t.co/uRIX1SIIeF

— Sunny McSunnyface (@sunnyright) December 5, 2022

Which is really interesting, because, if you’ll recall, they didn’t have any hesitation whatsoever about reporting that the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Trump/Russia disinformation campaign despite having no evidence whatsoever to support that claim.

And if you don’t recall, other people do:

Glenn, Philip & WaPo were very cautious to give any opinions on the @nypost Hunter Biden laptop story until they could verify it… Oh wait pic.twitter.com/NG3DjUBaxH

— TheRightWingM 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@TheRightWingM) December 5, 2022

WaPo wasn’t waiting for “experts to assess the veracity” of the material when they proclaimed that the story was a nothingburger made of disinformation. The MSM as a whole weren’t waiting.