Brian Friedman on his efforts trying to uncover MEREDITH MCIVER mystery
AN EYE OPENING CONVERSATION WITH THE NY TIMES’ DEAN BAQUET
https://medium.com/brianrfriedman/an-eye-opening-conversation-with-the-ny-times-dean-baquet-fa40532b7399
SNIP/
Speaking of Meredith, some people like myself have been trying to find her for almost a year now. You remember her — she’s the woman who stepped forward to accept responsibility for plagiarizing Michelle Obama for Melania Trump’s GOP Convention speech. The New York Times — along with other ‘elite’ news organizations — wrote puff-pieces about this former ballerina (
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/politics/melania-trump-speech-meredith-mciver.html?mcubz=1&_r=0), but no one could seem to speak to her or even find her.
SNIP/
On Jul 13, 2017, at 9:29 AM, Brian Friedman wrote:
sure, i’m ridiculous to think trump invents people.
https://apnews.com/e18f254c4ac84e6bab4ceed56401cc65
To my surprise, Dean responded quickly:
Sorry Brian but what we are working in is more important right now.
I respond:
what could be more important than making sure your star reporters didn’t make a mistake that a high school newspaper wouldn’t make?
Dean answers fairly demonstratively:
Breaking a fucking story about whether russia influenced the election
My response: again Dean — this is about YOU and YOUR paper, not Trump.
Dean: You’ve lost it if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Me: of COURSE I know what’s going on with Trump and Russia — but that DOESN’T CHANGE THE FACT that if it comes out your reporters wrote a puff piece about a fake or incapacitated person, YOU and your ENTIRE PAPER will look SILLY. It will LESSEN your credibility when you do write about Russia, or anything else.
I then felt the need to add: and the fact that YOU don’t get THAT shows that the TIMES is under very poor leadership indeed.
(Okay, yeah, I went a little nuts with the CAPS LOCK.)
And Dean’s eloquent response:
From: Dean Baquet
Subject: Re:
To: Brian Friedman
Go away moron
SNIP/
So, to sum up, we really don’t know if Meredith McIver is real, alive, and well— she may very well be. But I know the explanations from Team Trump for what happened at the time were completely ridiculous — one involved Sean Spicer and a My Little Pony box (please, Google it); I know that other people searching for Meredith have received anonymous threats; I know that a phone conversation I had with Meredith’s alleged ex-boyfriend, Stephen Palitz, led to far more questions than answers; I know that fake social media accounts for Meredith popped up immediately after she accepted blame…and suddenly and inexplicably began communicating in Russian before disappearing again; and I know that, overall, more questions should’ve been asked — then and throughout the campaign — because Trump has definitely not provided anyone with a reason to give him the benefit of the doubt.
&t=4s
= new reply since forum marked as read
:thumb
