Reporters have a symbiotic relationship with elected officials and their staffs. The pols can’t get their message out without press and the media, even conservative websites, can’t get stories directly or indirectly without some cooperation or confirmation from the people in power. It’s the way the game works.

But like any game, it has rules. We on the media side can’t burn sources or misquote a source to make a story. If we do sources stop talking to us. The political types can’t give us false information to settle scores or threaten us with career consequences if a story takes a turn against them. And that brings us to New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo. He broke the rules.

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Back in 2014, a reporter for a publication on New York state politics, Morgan Pehme, had a run in with Cuomo staff. But it was clear, the heat was coming from Cuomo himself.

Pehme: “It was 4:30 a.m., so I pulled the bathroom door shut in my one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment to answer the phone without waking my then-5-year-old. On the line was Melissa DeRosa, Gov. Cuomo’s then-communications director, now his second-in-command. She was threatening to destroy me. By now, thanks to Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim blowing the whistle on the threats he received in a call from Cuomo, the public has a glimpse of the bullying practiced by the governor and his top brass. Many Americans are shocked, having bought into the compassionate persona Cuomo conveyed in his pandemic briefings. But Kim’s revelations came as no surprise to anyone who has dealt with the governor. As one Albany insider texted me last week, ‘everyone has an Andrew Cuomo story.’ ”

Not to contradict this guy, but only the gullible bought into the warm and fuzzy Cuomo act. It was obvious to anyone outside of New York, that guy was a bottom feeder.

“There are many reasons the media don’t expose the governor’s bullying. Albany reporters fear that if the governor freezes them out, they won’t be able to do their jobs effectively. Some journalists see speaking up as a violation of the unwritten code of ‘off-the-record’ conversations. Others just assume that ‘everyone knows’ how Cuomo operates, so it isn’t worth reporting. Until last week, most New Yorkers didn’t know about Cuomo’s despicable ways. But they should have. Journalists are agents of accountability. It’s time for New York’s reporters to step up and tell their own Cuomo stories.”

This piece was written by David Kamioner on February 23, 2021. It originally appeared in DrewBerquist.com and is used by permission.

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