![](\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/thumbnail\/5c9ea175dda4c81c138b4598.jpeg\")
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A freelance journalist has gone public about a bizarre intimidation attempt by a senior MSNBC editor who tried to “bully” him into keeping a story under wraps \u2013 on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, not the network.<\/p>\n
MSNBC politics managing editor Dafna Linzer tried to pressure Yashar Ali, a journalist who has written for the Huffington Post and New York Magazine, into holding back the release of the Democratic primary debate dates, Ali has claimed in a series of tweets. Linzer wasn’t trying to beat him to the story, or calling on behalf of her own network at all \u2013 she was acting wholly on behalf of the DNC, according to Ali.<\/p>\n
\n1. Yesterday, I received a call from @DafnaLinzer<\/a> who serves as managing editor of NBC\/MSNBC politics. Dafna’s conduct during the call was highly inappropriate and unethical. So what was the purpose of her call? <\/p>\n
She called me to bully me on behalf of the DNC.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 29, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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Ali got wind of the Democratic primary dates, information even the candidates didn’t have, on Thursday morning and called the party to verify them before publishing. They asked him to hold back the information while they made a few calls \u2013 which he refused, not wanting to lose the scoop \u2013 and then things got weird.<\/p>\n
Linzer then called Ali and asked him to hold the story in order to give the DNC time to “make a few phone calls<\/em>” to state party leaders, informing them of the debate dates. While her own network was planning to break the news later on that day, she spent the call “menacing<\/em>” Ali, threatening to call his editor and trying several lines of reasoning to convince him to sit on the story \u2013 even bringing up her own history as a national security reporter at the Washington Post, when they “would hold stuff all the time<\/em>.”<\/p>\n
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\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhile MSNBC generally favors the Democratic Party in its news coverage, the network isn’t a party organ \u2013 not officially, at least \u2013 and Linzer’s “unethical<\/em>” behavior, conspiring with party leadership to quash another journalist’s story, set off alarm bells in the journalist. Several other reporters he spoke to urged him to go public.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \n23. I’m not naive to the fact that this incident is going to be twisted by some with an agenda to discredit the media and say they collude with political parties. But I think its more important to expose bad behavior then keep it under wraps. What Dafna did was unethical<\/p>\n