Media Matters founder finds NY Times Hillary coverage 'worrisome

The New York Times made the move earlier this summer to have one reporter cover Hillary Clinton as a full-time beat, though Clinton is no longer in office and hasn't announced any plans to run for anything. It's a move that's bothering Media Matters founder David Brock.

"I am writing to express my concern about a recent string of reports and columns from your publication that have done nothing but use false pretenses to cast a shadow on Bill and Hillary Clinton," Brock wrote in an open letter to the New York Times. "This recent pattern is all the more worrisome in light of your political editor’s decision to assign a reporter to cover Hillary Clinton, now a private citizen with no announced political plans, more than three years before the next presidential election."

The Times has more accurately published a series of stories about New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D) and Hillary's relationship to Weiner's wife Huma Abein. Weiner is, as you likely know, embroiled in a sexting controversy. Questions have also been raised about Abedin's private business dealings while employed by the federal government.

And last week, the Times published a lengthy, in-depth story on the turmoil within the Clinton's charity organization, the Clinton Foundation.

"These recent developments raise the question of whether what we are seeing is an anti-Clinton institutional bias at the Times," Brock's letter says. It also makes a few requests of the Times, including to "resist the temptation to create purely speculative news in your new Clinton 'beat.'"

Full letter here via Politico.

@eScarry