The Drudge Report’s Matt Drudge lamented the fact that few editor and reporter year-end lists didn’t include the IRS scandal as a highly placed story.
“Note how none of the yearender ‘lists’ rank IRS scandal as a top story,” he wrote on Twitter. “Reporters and editors are scared [expletive].”
The IRS scandal he’s referring to broke earlier this year when the agency revealed that it went after political groups that were going to tax-exempt status. Many of the groups that were targeted were “Tea Party”-oriented organizations, and the scandal became a lightning rod for Drudge, Fox News, The Blaze, and other conservative media outlets.
However, there was evidence that liberal and left-wing groups like the Occupy Wall Street movement were also targeted--but at a lower rate.
According to the Washington Examiner, the IRS targeted about 300 Tea Party groups, while about six progressive groups were targeted.
Days after the story broke, Steven Miller, the acting director of the IRS, resigned from his post.
The Washington Examiner ranked the story highly on its year-end list.
Time magazine also ranked the story highly on its list.
“When a report surfaced in May that the IRS was targeting nonprofits with words like ‘Tea Party’ in their name for increased scrutiny, it looked, momentarily, like President Obama was facing a major political scandal,” the Time summary reads.
“Within days, the IRS’ acting commissioner resigned and Republicans were calling for Obama’s impeachment. But things didn’t unfold as expected. Obama maintained he had no knowledge of the policy, and it soon became clear that the IRS also targeted liberal groups seeking nonprofit status. Instead, the revelations served as a reminder of the bureaucracy’s potential to overstep its bounds and spurred an internal review that found ongoing malpractice within the agency,” it continued.
Also, Joseph Farah of the conservative website WND, tweeted to Drudge: “It’s on WND’s top 10 list of under-reported stories, which has not yet been published.”
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