How much pull does Hillary Clinton have with the press?

Politico's Dylan Byers noticed a subtle but monumental change to an article in the New York Times this morning that altered the thrust of the piece.  The State Department's inspector general is requesting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's outside email accounts because he suspects that hundreds of classified documents were stored on the server.  Without explanation or notice, the Times changed the focus of the article.

The New York Times made small but significant changes to an exclusive reportabout a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's State Department email account late Thursday night, but provided no notification of or explanation for of the changes.

The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."

That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new headline.

As of early Friday morning, the Times article contained no update, notification, clarification or correction regarding the changes made to the article.

One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

“It was a response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought were reasonable, and we made them,” Schmidt said.

Brian Fallon, the press secretary for Clinton's presidential campaign, declined to comment on the article.

If a Republican candidate had complained to the Times, do you think they would have found the request "reasonable" or laughed in that candidate's face?

The inspectors general request comes after their assessment that Clinton’s private email account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The Times' report notes that it is not clear whether the contents of the emails were marked as classified by the State Department when then-Secratry of State Clinton sent or received them.

It's ridiculous that the New York Times is maintaining the fiction that it's an independent media source and not an enthusiastic booster of Hillary Clinton in this campaign.  And it's a fiction that the rest of the media is eagerly playing along with.  The fact that the Times isn't even bothering to hide its contempt for its readers and the rest of the country when it bends over backwards to satisfy the Clinton campaign on a negative story speaks volumes about the rank partisanship and ideological bias contained in most of the Times' news coverage.

This story comes on the heels of a report in The Federalist that a NY Times editor praised Hillary Clinton's strategy of stonewalling the press:

“How do you think this crazy pack of Republican candidates and the level of their conversation has made the race for Hillary?” Susan Lehman, the podcast’s host, asked editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal about six minutes into their discussion.

“I think she’s basically ignoring it, which is extremely intelligent,” heresponded. “And this is going to sound rather strange coming from a journalist,” Rosenthal added, apparently referring to himself, “but she’s also ignoring the press which I don’t think is such a terrible idea.”

“I don’t think [Hillary Clinton’s] not talking to the press is an issue,” Rosenthal continued. “Sincerely, who cares?”

When Lehman asked Rosenthal to give his opinion on the “most ridiculous” Republican candidates in the race, Rosenthal named Donald Trump and “Ben Nelson.”

“Everything Ben Nelson says is ridiculous,” said Rosenthal.

Rosenthal is probably referring to Dr. Ben Carson.

No surprise that the Times would try to take the heat off Hillary when they cheer on her stonewalling the press.