On Thursday (March 9), Democrats forced journalist Matt Taibbi to disclose his sources in connection to the ‘Twitter Files’ expose but the latter refused to give in to the intimidation.
During a Judiciary Committee Hearing, Democratic Party Representative (Texas) Sylvia Garcia sought to know when the new Twitter owner Elon Musk approached Taibbi with the internal communications of the micro-blogging platform.
“You are asking a journalist to reveal his sources…You are trying to get me to tell you that he (Elon Musk) is the source,” the journalist pointed out. Taibbi had earlier made it clear that he is not going to reveal who approached him to work on Twitter Files.
BREAKING: Matt Taibbi refuses to reveal his sources after Democrats try to intimidate him over the Twitter Files.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 9, 2023
Taibbi is an American hero 🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/pAfLuWvNyq
Rep Sylvia Garcia said, “If you are telling me that you can’t answer because he is your source, then the only logical conclusion is that he is in fact your source.”
“You are free to conclude that,” Taibbi hit back. The Democrat House Representative told the journalist that he can’t have it both ways. This led to a heated discussion among the Judiciary Committee members about a journalist’s right to withhold the name of his sources.
“He can, he’s a journalist…He is saying that he is not going to reveal his source…The fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a violation of the First Amendment,” responded Committee Chairman and Republican Representative (Ohio) Jim Jordan.
🔥 EPIC Exchange At Today’s #TwitterFiles Hearing Where Stacey Plaskett Slams Elon Musk & His ‘So-Called Journalists’
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) March 9, 2023
“Ranking Member Plaskett, I’m not a ‘so-called journalist’. I’ve won the National Magazine Award, the I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I’ve… https://t.co/BWYuLDTGEz pic.twitter.com/VdAvZ9KNs2
During the hearing, a non-voting delegate to the United States House of Representatives named Stacey Elizabeth Plaskett tried to downplay the credentials of Matt Taibbi by deliberately referring to him as a ‘so-called journalist.’
“…My name is Matt Taibbi. I’ve been a reporter for over 30 years, and a staunch advocate for the First Amendment. Much of that time has been spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Ranking Member Plaskett, I’m not a ‘so-called journalist'”, he had said.
“I’ve won the National Magazine Award, the I.F. Stone Award for independent journalism, and written ten books, including four New York Times bestsellers. I’m now the editor of the online magazine Racket, on the independent platform Substack,” he emphasised.
Which journalists a company or its executives talks to is not remotely the government’s business. This is an insane overreach https://t.co/87JdDQ2s0P
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 7, 2023
Earlier on Wednesday (March 8), Taibbi slammed the mainstream media for not raising its voice against the insane overreach of the Biden administration.
“Which journalists a company or its executives talk to is not remotely the government’s business. This is an insane overreach,” he said after Federal Trade Commission demanded names of journalists, from Twitter, who worked on ‘Twitter Files.’
The ‘Twitter Files’ (as it is now called) story was initially broken by independent journalist Matt Taibbi. It exposed how the Twitter moderation team justified the censorship of the Hunter Biden story, under the guise of the ‘hacked materials policy,’ by the likes of Vijaya Gadde.
The subsequent editions of the ‘Twitter Files’ gave a glimpse into the high-handedness of a ‘select few’ employees at the social media platform, who routinely censored right-wing accounts and non-mainstream narratives with complete disregard for Twitter’s rules.
