Todd M. Siebert: For media, questioning Clinton’s health is a fireable offense

Tuesday 30 August 2016

For media, questioning Clinton’s health is a fireable offense

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is a 68-year-old woman who’s suffered a serious brain injury, frequently stumbles when moving about and who has on several occasions had uncontrollable coughing fits. But let’s not talk about that.

That’s the message coming from mainstream media outlets despite a desire from a majority of Americans to know whether she’s physically up for the job of commander-in-chief and serious questions about her health raised by prominent medical experts.

But it’s evidently become increasingly dangerous to question Clinton’s health in public forums.

Television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky said he was “gravely concerned” about Clinton in a recent interview.

“She released her medical records some time ago, and if you listened to my show … I just called a friend of mine, Dr. Robert [name unclear], who’s an excellent internist-pulmonologist, and we just dispassionately sat and evaluated the medical record that she had released, he said. “And based on the information that she has provided and her doctors have provided, we were gravely concerned not just about her health, but her health care.”

The doctor said that Clinton’s records show that she’s received a number of treatments that are out of date and that she obviously has serious side-effects related to her 2013 fall.

“It’s bizarre. I got to tell you. Maybe they have reasons, but at a distance, it looks bizarre. There ought to be some sort of standard for people that are going to lead the country or are going to making these important decisions. Again, Hillary may be fine with all of this,” he said. “I mean, it’s dangerous and it’s concerning, but you can see—and by the way, there were two other things that gravely concerned us. When she hit her head, she had to wear these prism glasses when she came out.

“That is brain damage, and it’s affecting her balance,” he said.

Days later, Pinsky’s show on CNN-owned HLN was cancelled due to “rebranding” at the network.

Huffington Post contributor David Seaman has similarly lost his gig after questioning Clinton’s wellness.

The writer published two posts about Clinton’s health, “Hillary’s Health Is Superb, Aside From Seizures, Lesions, Adrenaline Pens,” and “Donald Trump Challenges Hillary Clinton To Health Records Duel.” Both have since been removed from the site by Huffington Posts all-female team of editors.

He later uploaded a video explaining what happened.

His sin, it seems, was reporting on a wildly popular video from Infowars on the candidate’s health.

“Whenever a video concerning a presidential candidate’s health is viewed more than 3.5 million times, somebody under contract to the Huffington Post should be able to link out to that, especially as a journalist living in the U.S. without having their account revoked,” he said.

“I’ve filed hundreds of stories over my years as a journalist and pundit and I’ve never had anything like this happen,” he continued.

Noting that he is spooked by the situation, the blogger added: “[I’m]not suicidal right now, I’m not a particularly clumsy person, I don’t own a car at the moment… so if I am to slip in the shower over the next couple of days or something silly like that, we have to really employ probability and statistics here. Because I’m not a clumsy person, and I’m also not a depressed person right now. I’m a person who’s spooked out, though.”

As for the rest of the journalists out there, here’s how you’re supposed to report on Clinton: