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  • The media and Trump

    Great piece in the New York Post

    Source: The media are killing themselves with botched anti-Trump reporting


    ‘Our record as journalists in covering this Trump story and the Russian story is pretty good,” legendary reporter Carl Bernstein recently claimed. Pretty good? If there’s a major news story over the past 70 years that the American media have botched more often because of bias and wishful thinking, I’d love to hear about it.

    Four big scoops recently run by major news organizations, written by top reporters and, presumably, churned through layers of scrupulous editing, turned out to be completely wrong.

    Reuters, Bloomberg and others reported that special counsel Robert Mueller’s office had subpoenaed President Trump’s records from Deutsche Bank. Trump’s attorney says it hadn’t.

    ABC reported that candidate Trump had directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials before the election. He didn’t (as far as we know). The New York Times ran a story claiming that K.T. McFarland, a former member of the Trump transition team, had acknowledged collusion. She hadn’t.

    Then, CNN topped off the week by falsely reporting that the Trump campaign had been offered access to hacked Democratic National Committee e-mails before they were published. It had not.

    Forget your routine bias. These were four bombshells disseminated to millions of Americans by breathless anchors, pundits and analysts, all of whom are feeding frenzied expectations about Trump-Russia collusion that have now been internalized by many as indisputable truths. All four pieces, incidentally, are useless without their central faulty claims. Yet there they sit. And these are only four of dozens of other stories that have fizzled over the year.

    If we are to accept the special pleadings of journalists, we have to believe these were all honest mistakes. They may be. But a person might then ask: Why is it that every one of the dozens of honest mistakes is prejudiced in the very same way? Why hasn’t there been a single major honest mistake that diminishes the Trump-Russia collusion story? Why is there never an honest mistake that indicts Democrats?

    Maybe the problem is that too many people are working backward from a preconception. Maybe newsrooms have too many people who view the world through an identical prism — which is to say they believe he stole the election with the help of Russians.

    For instance, the CNN reporters who wrote the DNC story contend they had two sources who told them Donald Trump Jr. was offered encryption codes to look at hacked DNC emails. They both must have lied to them about the same date on the same e-mail. CNN says that the duo followed “editorial process” in reporting the piece. This brings three lines of questioning to mind.

    First: Do news organizations typically run stories about documents they’ve never authenticated? Can they point to a single story about the Obama administration CNN has written using a similar process?

    Second: Why would two independent sources lie about a date on the e-mail to Trump Jr. if they didn’t want to mislead the public? And how independent could they really be? How many stories regarding the Russian-collusion investigation has CNN run from these same sources?

    Three: If sources lie to you, why not burn them? There may be good reasons to avoid exposing a dishonest source. Perhaps it will scare away legitimate whistleblowers. Perhaps reporters want to preserve relationships with those in power — because they may help on other stories in the future. At the end of the day, you’re in contest for information.

    But these people have put the reporters’ reputation, even their jobs, in danger. Moreover, they have engaged in a serious abuse of the public trust and an abuse of power.

    Who knows how many of these mistakes, spread over numerous outlets, came from the same sources? This seems newsworthy.

    When honest mistakes are found, the reflex of many journalists has been portraying themselves as sentinels of free speech and democracy. Often they will attempt to do this by contrasting their track record on truth with that of Donald Trump. Yes, Trump is a fabulist. And maybe one day Robert Mueller will inform us that the administration colluded with Russia.

    What it has not done up to this point, however, is undermine the ability of the press to report stories accurately. Trump didn’t make your activist source lie.

    The fact that many political journalists (not all) have a political agenda is not new, but if they become a proxy of operatives who peddle falsehoods, they will soon lose credibility with an even bigger swath of the country. They will have themselves to blame.



    Source

    © Copyright Original Source



    While the left screeches and squawks that Trump is a dire threat to the First Amendment for what he said while they turned a blind eye to what Obama actually did (see HERE as well as HERE), they are doing more to discredit and destroy themselves than either Obama and Trump could ever dream of accomplishing.

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

  • #2
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    While the left screeches and squawks that Trump is a dire threat to the First Amendment for what he said while they turned a blind eye to what Obama actually did (see HERE as well as HERE), they are doing more to discredit and destroy themselves than either Obama and Trump could ever dream of accomplishing.
    The "mainline" media is really blurring the line between themselves and the "Baby Born During Choir Practice - Comes Out Singing Amazing Grace" tabloids.
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
      Great piece in the New York Post

      Source: The media are killing themselves with botched anti-Trump reporting


      ‘Our record as journalists in covering this Trump story and the Russian story is pretty good,” legendary reporter Carl Bernstein recently claimed. Pretty good? If there’s a major news story over the past 70 years that the American media have botched more often because of bias and wishful thinking, I’d love to hear about it.

      Four big scoops recently run by major news organizations, written by top reporters and, presumably, churned through layers of scrupulous editing, turned out to be completely wrong.

      Reuters, Bloomberg and others reported that special counsel Robert Mueller’s office had subpoenaed President Trump’s records from Deutsche Bank. Trump’s attorney says it hadn’t.

      ABC reported that candidate Trump had directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials before the election. He didn’t (as far as we know). The New York Times ran a story claiming that K.T. McFarland, a former member of the Trump transition team, had acknowledged collusion. She hadn’t.

      Then, CNN topped off the week by falsely reporting that the Trump campaign had been offered access to hacked Democratic National Committee e-mails before they were published. It had not.

      Forget your routine bias. These were four bombshells disseminated to millions of Americans by breathless anchors, pundits and analysts, all of whom are feeding frenzied expectations about Trump-Russia collusion that have now been internalized by many as indisputable truths. All four pieces, incidentally, are useless without their central faulty claims. Yet there they sit. And these are only four of dozens of other stories that have fizzled over the year.

      If we are to accept the special pleadings of journalists, we have to believe these were all honest mistakes. They may be. But a person might then ask: Why is it that every one of the dozens of honest mistakes is prejudiced in the very same way? Why hasn’t there been a single major honest mistake that diminishes the Trump-Russia collusion story? Why is there never an honest mistake that indicts Democrats?

      Maybe the problem is that too many people are working backward from a preconception. Maybe newsrooms have too many people who view the world through an identical prism — which is to say they believe he stole the election with the help of Russians.

      For instance, the CNN reporters who wrote the DNC story contend they had two sources who told them Donald Trump Jr. was offered encryption codes to look at hacked DNC emails. They both must have lied to them about the same date on the same e-mail. CNN says that the duo followed “editorial process” in reporting the piece. This brings three lines of questioning to mind.

      First: Do news organizations typically run stories about documents they’ve never authenticated? Can they point to a single story about the Obama administration CNN has written using a similar process?

      Second: Why would two independent sources lie about a date on the e-mail to Trump Jr. if they didn’t want to mislead the public? And how independent could they really be? How many stories regarding the Russian-collusion investigation has CNN run from these same sources?

      Three: If sources lie to you, why not burn them? There may be good reasons to avoid exposing a dishonest source. Perhaps it will scare away legitimate whistleblowers. Perhaps reporters want to preserve relationships with those in power — because they may help on other stories in the future. At the end of the day, you’re in contest for information.

      But these people have put the reporters’ reputation, even their jobs, in danger. Moreover, they have engaged in a serious abuse of the public trust and an abuse of power.

      Who knows how many of these mistakes, spread over numerous outlets, came from the same sources? This seems newsworthy.

      When honest mistakes are found, the reflex of many journalists has been portraying themselves as sentinels of free speech and democracy. Often they will attempt to do this by contrasting their track record on truth with that of Donald Trump. Yes, Trump is a fabulist. And maybe one day Robert Mueller will inform us that the administration colluded with Russia.

      What it has not done up to this point, however, is undermine the ability of the press to report stories accurately. Trump didn’t make your activist source lie.

      The fact that many political journalists (not all) have a political agenda is not new, but if they become a proxy of operatives who peddle falsehoods, they will soon lose credibility with an even bigger swath of the country. They will have themselves to blame.



      Source

      © Copyright Original Source



      While the left screeches and squawks that Trump is a dire threat to the First Amendment for what he said while they turned a blind eye to what Obama actually did (see HERE as well as HERE), they are doing more to discredit and destroy themselves than either Obama and Trump could ever dream of accomplishing.
      Hmmm, they're doing so much to discredit themselves that they're winning elections left and right. Virginia, New Jersey, Alabama, and many local legislature seats in the last few months.

      Comment


      • #4
        In Alabama, Jones barely beat a suspected child molester. New Jersey was related to Christie's incompetence and unpopularity.

        Still went 0 for 4 in special elections in the House.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by psstein View Post
          In Alabama, Jones barely beat a suspected child molester. New Jersey was related to Christie's incompetence and unpopularity.
          Yep, I guess republicans are doing more to discredit themselves than even their fearless leader, Trump.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by JimL View Post
            Hmmm, they're doing so much to discredit themselves that they're winning elections left and right. Virginia, New Jersey, Alabama, and many local legislature seats in the last few months.
            Virginia and New Jersey are heavy Democrat states where Christie was quite unpopular and Jones won by the skin of his teeth and could lose next if he always votes in favor of his party. I do see though that you don’t want to address the MSM falling on its face over and over again as they are caught in lie after lie. Why not?
            "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
            GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by JimL View Post
              Yep, I guess republicans are doing more to discredit themselves than even their fearless leader, Trump.
              I don't dispute that the GOP has to mediate between a significant white nationalist presence (Bannon and a few others) and the "Establishment," which is comprised of people who realize the importance of not being a firebrand.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                Virginia and New Jersey are heavy Democrat states where Christie was quite unpopular and Jones won by the skin of his teeth and could lose next if he always votes in favor of his party. I do see though that you don’t want to address the MSM falling on its face over and over again as they are caught in lie after lie. Why not?
                Excuses, excuses. And so silly. Yeah, the republicans are losing because they and their policies weren't as popular as the democrats and their policies. That's generally how it goes.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by psstein View Post
                  I don't dispute that the GOP has to mediate between a significant white nationalist presence (Bannon and a few others) and the "Establishment," which is comprised of people who realize the importance of not being a firebrand.
                  Well it's a monster of their own creation.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by JimL View Post
                    Hmmm, they're doing so much to discredit themselves that they're winning elections left and right. Virginia, New Jersey, Alabama, and many local legislature seats in the last few months.
                    So, exactly how many seats does the New York Times and the Washington Post, for instance, hold in Congress or in state governments? Or are you saying that they are indistinguishable from, and essentially an arm of, the Democrats?

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                      Virginia and New Jersey are heavy Democrat states where Christie was quite unpopular and Jones won by the skin of his teeth and could lose next if he always votes in favor of his party. I do see though that you don’t want to address the MSM falling on its face over and over again as they are caught in lie after lie. Why not?
                      Jones will hold onto his Senate seat about as long as Scott Brown held on to Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat.

                      I'm always still in trouble again

                      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by JimL View Post
                        Excuses, excuses. And so silly. Yeah, the republicans are losing because they and their policies weren't as popular as the democrats and their policies. That's generally how it goes.
                        Barely winning against Roy Moore is about as bad as it can get Jimmy. Winning in blue states is hardly anything to take home either. Remember all the gains the Democrats made in 2006 and 2008? I also notice you ignored the elections that were lost too. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch because the democrats are more open to losing in the senate vs Republicans and Democrats still need to gain 25 seats to take the house and current projections don’t play out too well (you can only wreck so many campaigns by sex scandals).
                        "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                        GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                          Jones will hold onto his Senate seat about as long as Scott Brown held on to Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat.
                          We’ll see if the Democrats are playing Chess vs Candy Land soon enough.
                          "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                          GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                            We’ll see if the Democrats are playing Chess vs Candy Land soon enough.
                            It's not necessarily all about the Democrats game Lilpix, it's people and issues. A whole lot of republicans in Alabama either voted for Jones or stayed home and didn't vote at all.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Another liberal journalist grudgingly admits that Trump is winning.

                              https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/1...-policy-great/
                              Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                              But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                              Than a fool in the eyes of God


                              From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                              Comment

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