Reuters takes heat for sitting on Beto hacker story until after Senate race against Cruz
Reuters did not release information on Beto O'Rourke's hacking group ties until after Senate race; Kristin Fisher reports.
Reuters scored a fine scoop over the weekend with news that new 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke was once part of a hacker group, where he wrote at least one disturbing bit of fiction. Problem is, the reporter had the story long before last year’s election, when O’Rourke nearly beat Sen. Ted Cruz -- yet sat on it.
The reporter, Joseph Menn, justifies the delay because his main goal was to finish a book on the hacker alliance, “Cult of the Dead Cow.” Yet by his own account, he unilaterally offered in late 2017 to sit on the story until after Election Day, as long as O’Rourke did a full interview about it all.
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This, though others in the group had already given Menn enough info about the ex-member who’d moved on to Congress for the reporter to figure out it was O’Rourke.
And despite the fact that the candidate had spent part of his teens writing as “Psychedelic Warlord” surely would’ve interested Texas voters, particularly the story that aims to convey the thoughts of a psycho serial killer.
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