From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

Brooke Gladstone is away this week.

I'm Bob Garfield.

We begin this week with a story of journalistic principle and political dirty work.

Emily Styliani is an editor at the Burlington Free Press, Vermont's largest daily newspaper.

Several weeks ago, she was contacted by the pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC,

Correct the Record.

I got an email from Daniel Wessel,

who was a spokesperson with them,

saying that he had a news tip for me off the record.

The tip was about the governor of Connecticut questioning Bernie Sanders' record on guns,

and it wasn't especially explosive, but correct the record was determined.

I said, don't tell me, I don't go off the record. If you have something to tell me, I'm going to attach your name to it.

And then it switched to, we don't like to criticize Democratic candidates. So if it's a tip for you about Republicans, then we'll go on the record.

But if we give you a tip that brings to light something negative about one of the Democratic candidates,

we would like our name not to be attached, and you have to seek permission to attach our name.

And I said no again, and eventually we got to a point where, so I'll call you when we have something on the record to report to you.

Styliani was so shocked by the dirt peddling by a candidate's surrogates that she wrote a story about the episode.

Man bites dog, it wasn't.

This stuff is classic opposition research, that political dark art of unearthing and leaking any fact likely to damage a rival campaign.

For instance, the campaign of 2008 Democratic hopeful John Edwards.

Remember his commitment to fight global warming?

...