John Solomon

[Sage_Rat]

There’s no good omnibus thread to drop this in but here’s the Hill’s article of contrition around their Ukraine “opinion pieces”:

The Hill’s review of John Solomon’s columns on Ukraine

They describe what all Solomon did wrong, technically, starting pretty far down the page. They mildly state what they did wrong as editors of his work, but never mention anything like “not publishing”. They do not cover how they got into the predicament nor how to stay free from it again, other than saying that the editor has changed.

Given the issue appears to be the owner of the company, one presumes that a change in editors is largely irrelevant.

The Hill’s owner seeks potential buyers, investors

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Bit of background would have been helpful; Sage Rat. I wasn’t aware of this at all and I suspect I’m not the only person in that position.

On Nov. 18, 2019, The Hill announced it was reviewing John Solomon’s opinion columns on Ukraine after State Department diplomats criticized several of those columns during House impeachment hearings.

Solomon was hired July 10, 2017, as The Hill’s executive vice president for digital video and led the company’s effort to launch Hill.TV, an online streaming channel that focuses on the politics of the day. Solomon left The Hill on Oct. 4, 2019.

Solomon also wrote numerous news articles for The Hill in 2017 and 2018. An editorial decision was made to label Solomon’s work as opinion as of May 14, 2018.

Starting in March 2019, Solomon wrote a series of columns on Ukraine, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, as well as U.S. diplomats in Ukraine. Solomon discussed his columns on television, most notably on Sean Hannity’s opinion show on Fox News. These appearances amplified the reach of Solomon’s work at The Hill.

That’s enough to see where this started and where it’s all going.

You’re welcome.

[Lance_Turbo]

They missed this one: Key figure that Mueller report linked to Russia was a State Department intel source

A couple useful idiot posters around here ate that one up with a big spoon.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Did you let The Hill know that they may have missed something that needed correction or clarification in that article? What was it that caught your eye?

[Lance_Turbo]

@Snowboarder_Bo

What was it that caught your eye?

This part…

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.

[Sage_Rat]

Thank you.

@Snowboarder_Bo

You’re welcome.

I was in a rush to get out the door this morning and the article seemed to be dropping off the end of The Hill’s page on my phone so, I wanted to post it before it became impossible to find again.

It now seems to be back at the top again.

@Lance_Turbo

They missed this one: Key figure that Mueller report linked to Russia was a State Department intel source

A couple useful idiot posters around here ate that one up with a big spoon.

To be fair, they reviewed Solomon’s Ukraine articles. That one is another faux-report but not dealing with Ukraine.

@Snowboarder_Bo

Did you let The Hill know that they may have missed something that needed correction or clarification in that article? What was it that caught your eye?

Minus better information from Robert Mueller, the best assumption as to the status of Kilimnik would be that he operates as a Russia-aligned free agent who will sell information so long as he doesn’t feel like it will get him in trouble with the homeland, is a double agent who can’t really be trusted, or is someone who the FBI and CIA put the squeeze on to get info out of every once in a while on threat of locking him up for being part of some scheme that they have uncovered.

Having given information to the US, at some point in the past, is not the same thing as being a reliable and loyal agent of America.

Solomon acts like the guy is unimpeachable, at the same time as Kilimnik is working with a person in the slammer for laundering money from Russia into the United States. You don’t even need to ask anyone whether he’s trustworthy, there’s enough public information available to show that he isn’t.

[Lance_Turbo]

@Sage_Rat

To be fair, they reviewed Solomon’s Ukraine articles. That one is another faux-report but not dealing with Ukraine.

The word Ukraine appears ten times in that fairy tale.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

The AP has a write-up.

The Washington publication The Hill issued a lengthy report on Wednesday finding fault with several articles by journalist John Solomon that it published last year and were used as discredited narratives by President Donald Trump and many of his supporters in their fight against impeachment.

The Capitol Hill publication, in an internal review, found fault with how its own journalists failed to point out distinctions between news and opinion pieces and didn’t disclose conflicts of interest to readers.

The Hill stopped short of retracting or apologizing for Solomon’s work. It has not erased the pieces from its website but added editor’s notes that questioned the credibility of some of his sources and what they told him.

From the sound of this, he knows he’s cut his own throat:

Solomon, who had worked at The Associated Press, Washington Post and Washington Times, joined The Hill in 2017 in an executive role but also wrote stories that the publication began identifying as opinion, not news stories. He has defended his work in the past, but didn’t immediately return messages Wednesday from the AP.