The New York Times is reporting that its reporter Ali Watkins, who was dating James Wolfe, a “former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with journalists,” had “multiple” relationships with sources she covered:
The @NYTimes says its reporter @AliWatkins had not just one relationship, but multiple relationships, with political sources she covered https://t.co/OHp3vBuSBI
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) June 25, 2018
From the New York Times:
By August, Ms. Watkins told friends that she and Mr. Wolfe had broken up. He had been spooked by her meeting with Mr. Rambo, and was refusing to disclose their relationship to his own employers in the Senate
In the fall, Ms. Watkins started dating a different staff member from the committee. She told others that she had informed a Politico editor who did not object. But Mr. Dayspring, the Politico spokesman, said: “Politico editors were not made aware of this relationship.”
And she even shared chocolates from a different source with the newsroom!
On Feb. 15, two days after the Justice Department sent the letter notifying her that it had seized her records, Ms. Watkins sent an email to her colleagues in the Washington bureau. She had brought in chocolates for sharing — “from an old source who somehow thought it wouldn’t be creepy to bring them to a dinner, stupidly and unintentionally scheduled on valentine’s day,” she wrote.
According to a person familiar with the source, the dinner companion was not Mr. Wolfe, but a different Washington national security veteran.
“Sigh,” Ms. Watkins wrote at the end of her note about the chocolates. “Eat them!”
And it appears she was lying to her editors about all of this:
Times reporter @AliWatkins told editors at the Huffington Post, including Amanda Terkel (@ATerkel), and editors in other newsrooms where she worked that James Wolfe was not a source.
The government says that’s not true. https://t.co/OHp3vBuSBI https://t.co/GlVJMrO1Nt
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) June 25, 2018
This is straight up out of “House of Cards”:
Everyone loved @AliWatkins because she was a reporter who could get scoops.
She misled editors in her newsroom about her personal relationship with a source.
Some are, confusingly, still coming to her rescue. https://t.co/OHp3vBuSBI
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) June 25, 2018
And the next time someone asks why you don’t trust the media, feel free to refer them to this post:
And if you wonder why people are generally distrustful of the media, pick-and-choose ethics might have something to do with it. https://t.co/3v77xkKrf1
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) June 25, 2018
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