It's harmful because it's manipulative. There's a world of difference between a media outlet publishing the news as it arrives and a media outlet carefully hoarding information until it's close to an election, then strategically releasing it in a schedule designed to browbeat the public into electing one particular candidate over another with maximum efficiency.
Do you think the mainstream media don't normally strategise their coverage of politics? That seems to fly in the face of the fact that most American media are extremely partisan. They all carefully select what to report and when, don't they?
Can you imagine if the media had sat on the "Grab them by the pussy" video until one or two days before the election, counting on the shock value to cost Trump the vote? You and Rushy would have furiously protested, and rightfully so.
Sorry, but I disagree in multiple ways:
I recall protesting that one regardless of the timing, because it bore no substance, in my opinion. To me, it was sensationalist drivel. Saying that you
can get rapey with woman when you're rich and famous is not evidence that he
did get rapey. I'm consistently a fan of due process - I generally won't accept that Trump (or anyone else!) is guilty of anything until the accusation has been properly dealt with. And, in this case, I believe no one even levelled an accusation.
Also, it was a tape from many years ago that was conveniently released just before a debate. The timing was obviously deliberate. It ended up backfiring because Trump turned it around on Bill Clinton (by presenting people actually willing to accuse him).
Also, the "Grab them by the pussy" story ran in October 2016. The DNC leaks were published in July 2016. Of these two, which one was timed closer to the actual election (November 2016)? Honestly, the more I look into it, the more it sounds like they
did sit on the story until just before the election. I don't know when the DNC attack took place (as opposed to when the data was published), so I can't comment on that one.
EDIT: Looking at the stolen e-mails, the most recent ones were from 25th May 2016. Assuming the actual data mining took place at that time, that gives us a 2-month turnaround, which is not unreasonable given the amount of data.