Benjamin ArmbrusterVerified account

I was the national security news vertical editor (which no longer exists) at TP from roughly 2011 to 2014. In late 2011/early 2012, we were smeared by the right-wing pro-Israel lobby and their allies as pro-Iran anti-Semites b/c we were writing stories ... 2/16

... that were critical of Israeli gov't policies that make the two-state solution more difficult, and writing pieces critical of going to war with Iran and supportive of diplomacy with Iran. 3/16

Instead of vigorously defending our work, CAP, led by Neera Tanden, mildly backed us in public at first, but behind the scenes, Neera and others began monitoring and censoring our work on Iran and Israel. 4/16

That's been written about so you can google it, but I remember once a CAP senior staffer told me that Benjamin Netanyahu's name was not to appear in any stories I wrote or edited. 5/16

A few months before, in the Fall of 2011 (and this hasn't been reported before), a senior CAP nat sec staffer demanded that we stop writing about Saudi human rights violations b/c a Saudi prince was in town & this staffer was trying to solicit donations 6/16

Anyway, it was after that smear campaign against us that there seemed to be a steady campaign to portray -- in public and reality -- ThinkProgress as editorially independent from CAP. 7/16

.. but the Podesta emails revealed by WikiLeaks shows a 2016 email in which that very same EIC changed a headline that was critical of Hillary at the request of Neera Tanden (I'm not going to link to it). 9/16

Also, TP staffers both current and recent former strenuously object to claims that TP isn't independent from CAP. It seems they have negotiated this independence into their union contract, although I'm not really sure what that means. 10/16

... But the odd thing about pointing to this story is that it notes that BuzzFeed was first to report it (how did TP get scooped on its own internal meeting?). So effectively, given all this PR about how TP is independent, once BF reported it, TP HAD to as well. 12/16

If anything that story is kind of embarrassing for all involved: 1) Neera's own website doing hits on her and 2) TP getting scooped on its own meeting but 3) having to report it bc it would be embarrassing not to after claiming all this independence. 13/16

So as of today, I really have no idea whether ThinkProgress is truly editorially independent from CAP. It's clear that both sides have an interest in promoting this perception, so I'm not sure claims of independence from CAP or TP staffers is 100% credible. 14/16

Because at the end of the day, ThinkProgress still belongs to CAP and CAP Action. Its staffers share the same offices & get paid by CAP (at least I did when I was there). 15/16