Jake Tapper Called NBC "Slimy" In E-Mail To Mark Sanford's Office

In a series of emails recently released by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's office, ABC's Jake Tapper called out his colleagues at NBC News over their coverage of the Sanford affair.

The main email in question, which was released under the Freedom of Information Act, was sent by Tapper to Sanford's communications director Joel Sawyer on June 23, just one day before the governor's bombshell press conference, under the subject line "NBC spot was slimy". Tapper included a transcript of the NBC report in the email and called it "pretty insulting". Tapper also forwarded Sawyer a tweet from NBC's David Gregory.

ABC vice president Jeff Schneider said that Tapper was simply "carrying some water for producers who knew he had a relationship with the governor's office."

Tapper himself has apologized for the email, writing to Politico:

"Busted. In retrospect, the story I was referring to wasn't slimy enough -- at that moment the only ones who knew of the governor's affair were Sanford, his wife, his mistress, and the State newspaper. But I shouldn't have said that, and I'll try to leave the media criticism to others from now on."

Tapper also apologized to Gregory via Twitter this morning, calling his own actions "bad form".

Tapper's tactics are indicative of the jostling that went on in the media in the days before Sanford's press conference. Reporters from Fox News, CBS and CNN also reached out to Sawyer in an effort to gauge the governor's whereabouts.

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Comments

[ggaston706]

This is what is wrong with today's Media correspondents... they are childish and have no journalistic integrity. Jake Tapper should not be ABC's White House Correspondent; he should stick to reporting about chewing gum stuck to the bottom of his desk in the pre-school newspaper!

But he is not alone… Chuck Todd is out of his league at The White House, so is David Gregory, as Moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press… and let me not forget softball pitcher at CNN’s State of the Union – Jon King.

Where have all the journalist correspondents gone? You know the ones I am talking about – those men & women, who reported the news with facts, not bias catch phrases.
People like Eric Severeid, Daniel Schorr, Leisle Stahl, Roger Mudd, Mike Wallace, Nancy Dickerson, David Brinkley, Hugh Downs and the list goes on…

Today's viewer deserves better

[annefuller02]

Jake Tapper is an embarrasment to television journalism.

[DawnK]

I can't believe this childish fool is employed as a real journalist. He's terrible.

[ProFromOre]

Tapper is a zero as a journalist.

[InfinteShibumi]

Every once in a while Karma rears its head.

[helloworld2008]

Tapper needs to brush up on his ethics.

Also, his lazy petty "gotcha" style 'journalism' is pretty lame as well.

He's pretty glib all around.

[littlepuffycloud]

Not so smug now, are you Taproot?

[Materazzi]

Tapper....what a brown noser; and not very intelligent. glad to see he was caught in his own game.

[jonjon66]

Watching the supposed future stars like Jack Tapper is as bad as watching Morning Joe.

Tapper is done!

[TiffanyHusseinBanned]

This should actually be one of the main threads. Jake Tapper pretends to be a journalist and is currently a WH Correspondent.

[jazzman]

Tapper before you send another email, I have some advice for you. Do some investigative work before rendering a judgment. You know, like investigative journallism. I know this may come as a shock to you but actually doing investigative work is what they teach you in journalism school. Perhaps you slept through that class but its still relevant all the same.

[jk4]

He is just auditioning for a spot on Murdoch's team.

[jazzman]

He doesn't have to. Working for Disney amounts to the same thing. Have you ever watched Prime Time with Charlie (Bush's gold buddy) Gibson or John Stossel on Friday nights? This network is as conservative as it gets even if Mickey Mouse is their mascot.

[Cinnamonape]

"Carrying water"? So Tapper was the ABC News Producers "piss boy"?

If you look At the emails Murdoch's WSJ, the Washington Times, NYT, Tapper and even Colbert (though perhaps he was being cynically hyper-protective) were all trying to create some justification for Sanford's disappearance. After all, he's their next GOP Presidential prospect and they had a great chance to curry favor with him.

[dct1999]

Colbert doesn't belong on that list.

[bazokbros]

So Tapper who goes out of his way to slant stories unfavorable to President Obama and was flat out rude several times to President Obama has decided he needs to vouch for a Republican Governor and run a favorable story on the governors behavior who committed adultery, used taxpayer money for his affair, lied to his staff and did not follow protocol in case there was a state emergency during his absence because he was having passionate sex in a foreign country with his mistress, thinks he's in a position to call something slimy? All I can do is shake my head that there's more proof the media continually fails us and an accomplice as to why we are in a war in Iraq that was completely unjustified.

[JanSP1971]

I thought all the media but Fixed News Loved President Obama? Tapper please move on over to Fixed News were you belong, you have shown your true colors and there's no going back.

[MyTurn2020]

I happen to think Mr. Jake Tapper is among the slimiest of the network "news" personalities! This incident is the latest in a few "slimy" acts by the ABC News personality. Recall earlier this year, Mr. Tapper was called on the carpet on TWITTER for blocking anyone who didn't agree with his updates. The "journalist" was also called out by some bloggers during the most recent presidential campaign for his "smarmy" (my word) remarks about Barack Obama---leaving many to wonder if he could truly report objectively. He repeatedly makes biased inferences of subjects in his reporting versus allowing the videotaped subject simply...speak for him or herself.

As you can tell, I do not think highly of his ability to objectively report the news and filter out his own biases!

[nk007]

I second your sentiments. I have absolutely no respect for him as a journalist. I think would be a much fit with Fox. But then again, ABC is not that far behind FOX.

[1Troubles]

I agree wholeheartedly with your statement, but I've found ABC to be very biased for a very long time
every time I hear a conservative complain about the liberal press I have to laugh
they've done nothing but criticize him since election day, they were all sound assleep for the previous 8 years