According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama's relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama's conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, "Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists."

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: "Listen folks -- in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn't about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people."
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Thomas Schaller, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun as well as a political science professor, upped the ante from there. In a post with the subject header, "why don't we use the power of this list to do something about the debate?" Schaller proposed coordinating a "smart statement expressing disgust" at the questions Gibson and Stephanopoulos had posed to Obama.
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Chris Hayes of the Nation posted on April 29, 2008, urging his colleagues to ignore Wright. Hayes directed his message to "particularly those in the ostensible mainstream media" who were members of the list.
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Hayes urged his colleagues -- especially the straight news reporters who were charged with covering the campaign in a neutral way -- to bury the Wright scandal. "I'm not saying we should all rush en masse to defend Wright. If you don?t think he's worthy of defense, don't defend him! What I'm saying is that there is no earthly reason to use our various platforms to discuss what about Wright we find objectionable," Hayes said.
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Katha Pollitt -- Hayes's colleague at the Nation -- didn't disagree on principle, though she did sound weary of the propaganda. "I hear you. but I am really tired of defending the indefensible. The people who attacked Clinton on Monica were prissy and ridiculous, but let me tell you it was no fun, as a feminist and a woman, waving aside as politically irrelevant and part of the vast rightwing conspiracy Paula, Monica, Kathleen, Juanita," Pollitt said.

"Part of me doesn't like this shit either," agreed Spencer Ackerman, then of the Washington Independent. "But what I like less is being governed by racists and warmongers and criminals."

"Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid posses limited charms. Their ability to get what they need to get done is because they?re doing, they're carrying the water of the media."

"By aiming everything at the media, I've pretty much done the one thing they ask you not to do: 'please accept the premise that we're fair and let's move on.' No, I'm not going to accept that premise."

"The difference between me and Rush is Rush is accused of being uncivil with these people, when in fact he's polite with them. I'm not. Because I've had enough with the type games they play. I've had enough of them rigging the system so that they win every single time."

"I want it to be an international movement. This is the same battle that Ronald Reagan and millions of other people fought in the 20th century; it just has a 21st century New Media battleground. The Cold War is now a New Media War."

MSNBC's Chris Matthews

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