Silverman Adds Anti-CEN Guardian Tweet As Article Moves Towards Legal Review

This document is a 23 March 2015 email exchange between Craig Silverman, Alan White and Tom Phillips with the subject “Re: Update”, sent just over a month before BuzzFeed published its article about Central European News. It records Alan White saying he was working on the draft that day and that the article would hopefully soon be at the stage of being “legalled” and then used to approach Michael Leidig and others, while Silverman says he had added “a bunch of examples” and then notes that he had “just found and inserted another anti-CEN tweet” from a Guardian subeditor. It is relevant because it shows that, even as the article was moving towards legal review and pre-publication approach, the team was still adding online examples and hostile social-media material to the draft, rather than relying only on settled original reporting or completed source checks. It should also be read alongside other March 2015 draft documents showing unresolved proof, language and source-chain issues, because this email places those edits in the late pre-publication phase when the narrative was being polished, expanded and prepared for legal sign-off.

Source

Part of Central European News & Mike Leidig v BuzzFeed (US Second Circuit Libel Case) – BF Case Documents

Europe Media Published 1 May 2026 at 21:09 Source: 1 November 2016