Schwartz starts off by culling renewed questioning, in the wake of the Mitt Romney/Mother Jones bombshell, of the LA Times’ refusal to release a recording of some controversial 2003 remarks made by Senator Barack Obama at a dinner honoring departing Chicago Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. She then shares the response theblaze.com received from Nancy Sullivan, vp of communications for the LA Times:

In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported first, and in explicit detail about the dinner event and the tape of it. More than six months later, just days before the November 2008 election, the McCain campaign demanded the public release of the tape. As we stated then, the Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided for review by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not publish the tape itself. The Times keeps its promises to sources and nothing has changed in that regard.

continued…

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We (and apparently everyone else on the planet) have gotten “anonymous tips” about the supposedly video the LAT is supposedly suppressing about Barack Obama‘s relationship with Rashid Khalidi.

Our sources told us it was a non-story, but it has clearly become enough of a story (a push has even been made to urge LAT advertisers to pressure the paper into releasing the video) that the paper of record felt the need to report on itself.

“The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it,” said the newspaper’s editor, Russ Stanton. “The Times keeps its promises to sources.”

Jamie Gold, the newspaper’s readers’ representative, said in a statement: “More than six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite — the L.A. Times brought the matter to light.”

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