The executive suite corporate media are making moves of journalists who all circle around the recently indicted senate intelligence committee staffer James Wolfe. The motivation for the moves is transparent.
James Wolfe has pleaded not guilty. A trial seems likely. It is virtually guaranteed that many, if not all, of James Wolfe’s media contacts will become part of the trial record if he takes his defense all the way to criminal court without copping a plea deal. That means there are potentially dozens of reporters, and corporate media outlets, who might find themselves -and their contacts with Wolfe- in the headlines as part of the evidence.
Anticipating this possibility, yesterday Brian Ross departed ABC and today the New York Times begins dealing with deep throat journalist Ali Watkins.
(Via NYT) The New York Times demoted a reporter who acknowledged a romantic relationship with a Senate staffer who is suspected of leaking information to journalists.
Times editor Dean Baquet said Tuesday he would reassign the reporter, Ali Watkins, from the paper’s Washington bureau to New York in the wake of revelations that she had been involved with James Wolfe, the former head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee. Watkins covered the committee for a number of publications, although not the Times.
Interestingly, the Times is upset with Watkins not revealing the executed search warrant that seized her records.
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