NBC News and MSNBC reporter formerly with the LA Times, Associated Press (and from 1997-2007 the Philadelphia Inquirer) — shared stories prior to publication with CIA press office seeking their approval, according to a story at the The Intercept. While it is not uncommon for national security reporters to vet facts with government functionaries, the emails indicate Dilanian went much further than that, not only sharing stories prior to publication but he also entered into discussions about how the CIA could bend public opinion their way.
On at least one occasion he re-wrote a lede as per their dictates. He also reported as fact, in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, a CIA claim that there was no collateral murder in a 2012 drone strike on Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi. An Amnesty International report disputes that sanitized version of events, citing eyewitnesses that claim upwards of 15 people, including Afghan tribesmen unaffiliated with Al Qaeda, were killed in the drone strike. Obviously, a drone strike that only kills the bad guys is much more palatable to the American people than a drone strike that kills 15. But that’s not journalism, that’s propaganda.
There’s no telling how much of his national security reporting was compromised by the CIA press office, or for how long, because the emails only cover a few months in 2012. The emails were released by the CIA as per a FOIA request by The Intercept for Agency email exchanges with journalists. Dilanian acknowledges sending stories to the CIA prior to publication and now says it was wrong. It was also in violation of the L.A. Times’ ethical guidelines. Perhaps that explains why the L.A. Times misleadingly refers to Dilanian as a “Tribune reporter” in its reporting on the scandal. Tribune Publishing is the L.A. Times’ parent company. However, Dilanian’s Linkedin page clearly says he was a Los Angeles Times reporter. Shameful all around. This is not a good day for journalism.
Russia Collusion Propagandist
Doing double duty for NBC and MSNBC, so-called reporter Ken Dilanian kept the collusion conspiracy going, even if it meant reporting fake news, such as the bombshell “that Russian-linked operatives had approached the Trump team in 2016 with access to a looming email dump.” False.
Lee Smith wrote at The Federalist:
In his explosive July 27 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Browder, the 53-year-old CEO and founder of Hermitage Capital Management, alleged Fusion GPS may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by spreading Russian state propaganda. Washington DC journalists, Browder added, were in on the game—getting stories from the company that first tried to torque American law to benefit Putin and his cronies then spread the salacious Steele dossier.
“I suspect that a number of journalists,” Browder testified, “and one in particular here in Washington was operating so far outside the bounds of normal journalistic integrity that there must have been some incentive for them to be doing it coming from Fusion GPS.
The journalist Browder alluded to is NBC News’ intelligence and national security reporter: Ken Dilanian. In extensive interviews, Browder alleged to me that a number of journalists, including Dilanian, were beholden to Fusion GPS and its principals, including former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, for supplying them with stories in the past.
During the 2020 Election Coup to steal the election from President Trump, Dilanian had a major blooper live that garnered attention:
REFRESH: In 2014 Ken Dilanian was fired as national security reporter at the LA Times when he was caught sending his drafts to a ClA handler, to clear his stories.¹
WHAT I WANT TO KNOW: What were Dilanian’s handlers texting him in this video.😉
cite [1]: https://t.co/5PcKz36Qun pic.twitter.com/367iVwanxx
— 𝓓𝓪𝓿𝓲𝓭 🕊 (@JustFollowingP3) November 10, 2020
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