Clinton ally's advice: Meet with NYT publisher to try to improve coverage

In July 2015, Hillary Clinton ally Neera Tanden, who is head of the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress, passed along advice that Hillary Clinton should try to set up a meeting with The New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., to get more favorable coverage from the newspaper.

In the e-mail, which was released Oct 26 as part of the WikiLeaks’ ongoing release of e-mails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, Tanden said that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the tactic to “[change] the coverage moderately.” Tanden said in the e-mail that the advice came from “Howard,” presumably a reference to former New York City Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, a longtime Democratic strategist who is now a senior adviser to Bloomberg. “[W]hen Bloomberg was having problems w the times he called Arthur Schulzberger (sic) and asked for coffee,” Tanden wrote in an e-mail to Podesta, dated July 9, 2015 and labeled as “Howard’s advice” in the subject line. “He made the case that they were treating him like a billionaire dilettante instead of Third term mayor. It changed the coverage moderately but also aired the issues in the newsroom so people were more conscious of it." Tanden added this caveat: “But Arthur is a pretty big wuss so he’s not going to do a lot more than that.”