Following up on a story Kevin blurbed yesterday: the Philadelphia Bulletin (making its second appearance here today) is reporting allegations that the New York Times suppressed a potentially “game-changing” story about the Obama campaign’s ties to ACORN in the lead up to the 2008 election:

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”
Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee’s litigation against ACORN, she had been a “confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.”
Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN’s election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.
During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office.
Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel:
“Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, “it was a game changer.”’

There are several troubling elements to this story. As Ed Morrissey points out, the alleged collaboration between Obama’s campaign and ACORN would constitute a violation of federal law, which prohibits campaigns from colluding with outside groups during an election season. The pattern continues: Liberals sing the praises of “electoral reform” (McCain-Feingold, and the like) until said reform proves inconvenient to their own political ends. Remember, Obama loved public financing of elections until he realized he could make a fortune by abandoning the paradigm he had pledged to uphold.

Also, if true, this accusation–which was leveled under oath before Congress–would once again expose the mind-bending journalistic malpractice of the New York Times. This is the same paper that had no qualms about rushing a thinly-sourced, discredited hitpiece to its front page when the target was Republican John McCain.

Journalism students are taught that when a politician obfuscates and fudges, that’s their cue to press harder and investigate even more zealously. Yet when the Obama campaign repeatedly tried to downplay the candidate’s connections to the controversial community-organizing group during election season, most media outlets simply took them at their word. Even when damaging details emerged that Team Obama had inaccurately reported $800,000 in payments to an ACORN get-out-the-vote branch, we were told the revelation was a distraction from the “real issues.” Nothing to see here, folks. Just an honest mistake.

The press, led by the Times, had turned remarkably incurious.

But wasn’t Obama an attorney and “leadership trainer” for ACORN back when the group was agitating on behalf of the devastating Community Reinvestment Act, which helped fuel the mortgage crisis? Shut up, character assasins! Cease your hyper-partisan smearing of Obama. “We just want it to stop.”

Given ACORN’s extensive history of voter registration fraud and the Obama campaign’s multiple evasions and denials about their candidate’s ties to the Leftist group, a bombshell story in a leading newspaper detailing active fundraising and logistical cooperation between the two organizations could have really resonated. Apprently, from the pro-Obama/Times perspective, an anti-Obama “game-changer” simply wasn’t acceptable. The Left had already seen one recent presidential candidate ”swiftboated” by his own past actions, and they were determined to prevent another Democratic loss. Thus, the process of reporting a significant, meaningful scandal was aborted, and a story with all the makings of a textbook J-school expose was buried.

The best denial the Times could muster?

“…We do not discuss our newsgathering and won’t comment except to say that political considerations played no role in our decisions about how to cover this story or any other story about President Obama.”

ACORN, for its part, says the whistle-blower is merely a disgruntled former employee. And who wouldn’t trust an organization under investigation in multiple states with a national spokesman who just oozes credibility?

This alleged abandonment of journalistic duty for the purpose of partisan advocacy is the latest, scandalous chapter in the ongoing story of why print journalism is inching ever closer toward its grave.