NYT, D.C. corrections department brawl over logistics of Pizzagate suspect interview
By Erik Wemple
December 20 at 6:23 PM
New York Times reporter Adam Goldman scooped all of journalism with his stunning Dec. 7 interview with 28-year-old Edgar M. Welch, the suspect in the Pizzagate affair. Welch had entered Comet Pizza and fired a gun as he was “self-investigating” a fake news story in which the establishment’s owner and various Democratic Party bigwigs were running a child sex ring. “I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way,” Welch told Goldman.
Other details were just as compelling. Or more so: “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” said Welch in a videoconference with Goldman. That sentiment pretty well sums up the fake-news scourge of 2016 with great word economy. Welch’s visit to Comet, after all, was propelled by the most vile and baseless of Internet rumors.
How did that interview come about? Not via approved and formal D.C. Department of Corrections policies, according to a spokeswoman for the department. Here’s a statement provided to the Erik Wemple Blog via spokeswoman Sylvia Lane:
The Department of Corrections (DOC) media/public relations policy requires any media interview of an inmate to be coordinated with the agency’s public information officer. The policy specifically prohibits any media interviews at the Video Visitation Center under the guise of it being a visit between the inmate and a friend.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/12/20/nyt-d-c-corrections-department-brawl-over-logistics-of-pizzagate-suspect-interview/?utm_term=.c73ec70384d5