22 ms·

To further what you're saying. Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting

by pdx 10y ago

To further what you're saying. Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. This level of premeditated collusion with the media is not even up for debate at this point, since the very emails they are trying to distract us from, detail instance after instance after instance of such collusion. I share your concern that we'll ever get honest reporting from the media again, and I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring.

droopybuns 10y ago
I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their face are actually stupid with conclusions that are unsupported by verifiable facts? (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cy...) Between the Sponsored Content, Native Ads and all of the investigative journalists who (according to DNC emails) are labeled as "friends," I have no choice but to say "I quit." They are pretty lies that don't nourish!
- skylan_q 10y ago
  I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence. For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.
  - novalis78 10y ago
    One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.
    - cmurf 10y ago
      Yes, this was something explicitly taught in political science. It's important to understand the paper and writer bias, by reading multiple sources it's possible to unwind the ideology to a fairly good degree - and triangulate.
    - shoehornhands 10y ago
      > One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate That's what's really depressing about this: it is absurdly easy to get to the bottom of whether a fricking blender is worth buying, but important events happening in the world? Get your researchin' shoes on. By the way, thank you very much for your input - your experience in that arena is unique and very valuable to the discussion.
- javajosh 10y ago
  It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position, I think it's useful to state what would undermine the credibility of an institution of journalism. It's actually really simple: if it persistently reports incidents for which there is no proof, or if it reports incidents in such a way that obscures the facts themselves (spin). Any institution that regularly confuses editorializing for journalism losses its credibility. By these rules there are many institutions that are not trustworthy (e.g. Fox) but there are many institutions that are (the NYT).
  - grandalf 10y ago
    How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.
    - snowwrestler 10y ago
      That is because the recent email leaks just validated what everyone already knew about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The fact that the emails were LEAKED OMG is not the newsworthy part. It is what is in them. And largely speaking, there's not much news in them. IMO a major problem in the U.S. today is that not many people understand how political campaigns or the federal government actually work. So a lot of people can be led to believe that boringly standard practices like revising talking points over email, and getting updates on court hearings, are actually proof of corruption. But they're not.
      - angry-hacker 10y ago
        And what don't we already know about Trump? Even if true, if this is serious journalism, why they keep printing she said he said? Wouldn't it be excellent time to print the stories of the alleged rape victims of Bill Clinton too? Since they publicly admit he and Hillary is a team? If you think media is not one sides, even if sided slightly more sane side, you're out of your mind.
- NumberCruncher 10y ago
  The funny thing is that news are mostly lies or half truths about events they would still be irrelevant to your life even if the news were 100% true: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
- dingbat 10y ago
  re: the example you give about VP Biden announcing secret cyber attacks against Russia during an NBC News interview, it isnt necessarily a waste to "burn processing cycles" keeping up with such news, when you consider that observing propaganda in action can itself provide information about "what" exactly the "powers that be" want people to believe, leading to further examination of "why". it is similar to reading financial news or watching CNBC with the mindset of reading between the lines, wondering who and why is interested in propagating such stories.
- gotchange 10y ago
  Do you consider this piece of journalism as propaganda too? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince-shatters-decades-of-royal-tradition.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince... I could be as much skeptic as you and I can draw my own conclusions for why this particular story might have been published now and not before, and for what purpose, but this doesn't stop me from enjoying reading it and absorbing its juicy details and knowledge. I'm still thankful for NYT for dedicating time and effort to expose this person as a fraud and hypocrite and I'm looking forward to reading more of these in the future for other despicable figures.
  - droopybuns 10y ago
    I read this and my first instinct was "what PR team pitched this story?" Maybe none. But one way the times could re establish credibility with me is to be transparent about how much the writer engaged with pr reps or communications teams in each story. It doesn't have to be exhaustive. By the way- Part of my journey to this level of skepticism was "Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285 https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...
    - gotchange 10y ago
      A PR/fluff piece that he bought a $500 mln yacht on a whim while calling for austerity in his own country cutting govt employees salaries and benefits? That would be the worst PR piece you could ask for, unless you mean that you suspect that his political foes were the ones behind this story which is not unlikely but again not a deal-breaker and what's only important to me is the question, were the details listed in the piece factual or not? Nothing more.
- lsh123 10y ago
  I grew up in USSR in the 80s and there were two major newspapers distributed across the whole country: "The Truth" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda) and "The News" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia). So the joke about these newspapers was: There is no truth in "The Truth" and there are no news in "The News". Update: Added links to wikipedia
- shoehornhands 10y ago
  > The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. To borrow a phrase that usually makes me think of a milennial with a punchable face, "This^100." I always held those news organizations skeptically in the back of my mind as Every Educated Person Ought To, but this is just...unbelievable.
- anonbanker 10y ago
  I know it's a rather sad state of affairs when I'm now reading /pol/ on 4chan to get my news nowadays. Once you filter out the noise, there's some intensive research and unbiased news there. Is anyone else doing this?
  - alva 10y ago
    Yup. Significant signals amongst the noise. Lots of references to primary sources.
- khattam 10y ago
  >The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. Why would you trust them? You think they would go through all that shit to give you information and work for you for a few pennies or for free? When they could be working for the rich and powerful to become one of them... all while getting your pennies?
spaceheeder 10y ago
> Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. Was it actually week(s) plural? I thought they only came out about a week late. > The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. I think this is a little much. Some cast and crew from The Apprentice made some noise about how generally unpleasant Donald Trump was, and multiple parties started seeking unused footage from that show. NBC also had the Access Hollywood video and were preparing it for release, but got scooped when someone leaked it to the Washington Post reporter who investigated the Tump Foundation. No event in the chain happened without precedence and, to be perfectly frank, none of the information that has come out has been a genuine shock. The overwhelming majority of the damage done by the Access Hollywood footage has been because Donald Trump a) did a very poor job in delivering his apology, strategically speaking and b) from a), set himself up to have yet more sunlight disinfect his past. > This level of premeditated collusion with the media is not even up for debate at this point Ooh, me, me, I debate it. This is a dumb thing to say and you should feel dumb for saying it. It makes no sense and is not based on anything. > I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring. Probably ever since the industry started to consolidate. Just because it happens doesn't mean that it happening means what you think it means, if that makes any sense [1]. [1] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/477656-when-you-re-young-you-look-at-television-and-think-there-s http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/477656-when-you-re-young-you...
- r_smart 10y ago
  >Ooh, me, me, I debate it. This is a dumb thing to say and you should feel dumb for saying it. It makes no sense and is not based on anything. Insults do not qualify as debate. His claim is based on, or should include, the portions of the Podesta emails that have showed a dismaying amount of coordination with the press. Approving quotes, approving stories, printing talking points. Compare their behavior against the guidelines set out by the Society of Professional Journalists. It's a disgrace.
  - spaceheeder 10y ago
    You and I must understand entirely different things when we read the phrase "premeditated collusion with the media." Those media organizations and those journalists may have editorial and personal opinions on who they would prefer to win the election, but there's one thing they care more about than any of those preferences: access. The idea that the press wouldn't or shouldn't care about vacuuming up every talking point that a campaign is willing to spit out, no matter how obviously-canned it is, is to fundamentally misunderstand the operations of the 24 hour news cycle. This isn't happening because journos care about Hillary Clinton. This is an alignment of the incentives of politicians and journalists that ultimately reduces transparency and harms public discourse. The fact that the same thing likely isn't happening with the Trump campaign says more about the peculiarities of that campaign than it says anything about the same media companies' willingness to play the same game of ball with Generic Q. Republican.
DominikR 10y ago
After reading this stuff I now doubt there has been a real election for decades in the US. You see what happens when a guy appears to have a real shot who isn't fully controlled by the elite. I have no doubt that they will rig the election if the media doesn't get the job done. How else could they let Hillary run? They must be pretty confident that it doesn't matter that most people hate her.
bduerst 10y ago
>The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day WashPo released it on the same day that they got it, after several hours verifying it's authenticity. That's not evidence to fit your claim of premeditated collusion.
dingbat 10y ago
> I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring. another way in which Trump is a political tsunami... to paraphrase Warren Buffett: when the tide goes out, you can see who's been swimming naked
gotchange 10y ago
This is not premeditated, this is October Surprise and they had the Trump video in store for that round of the fight, nothing sinister. Regarding the media, all are culprits in biased news coverage whether those on the right like Breitbart or Fox News or on the left like NYT or Washington Post but this held belief that you should expect nothing less than 100% impartial coverage of the elections when they endorse their favorite candidate publicly is also a bit misplaced.
erispoe 10y ago
A distraction from what? There is nothing incriminating in the released emails. We learned that: DNC personnel liked Hillary Clinton better than Bernie Sanders and that Hillary Clinton was saying to bankers what she is saying in public. Where's the scoop that we are supposedly being distracted from?
- drumdance 10y ago
  Not to mention that Sanders was not a Democrat until he became a candidate for president. Politics is about building coalitions. Maybe if Bernie had nurtured closer relations with the DNC he would have gotten more favorable treatment. And it's not like the nomination process is sacrosanct. For many years primaries were ignored altogether in favor of smoke filled rooms. That only started changing in 1968. It was made more democratic in 1972, which resulted in the nomination of George McGovern, who got his clock cleaned in the general. Sometimes party elites do know better.
pjlegato 10y ago
Er. Again? When was the media ever honest? At least they pretend to be so now. Traditionally, newspapers were not terribly concerned with that, and didn't even bother much to hide this fact. It's actually better than it's ever been. Not that it's good now; it was just much worse before.

by pdx 10y ago

droopybuns 10y ago

I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their face are actually stupid with conclusions that are unsupported by verifiable facts? (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cy...) Between the Sponsored Content, Native Ads and all of the investigative journalists who (according to DNC emails) are labeled as "friends," I have no choice but to say "I quit." They are pretty lies that don't nourish!

skylan_q 10y ago
I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence. For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.
- novalis78 10y ago
  One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.
  - cmurf 10y ago
    Yes, this was something explicitly taught in political science. It's important to understand the paper and writer bias, by reading multiple sources it's possible to unwind the ideology to a fairly good degree - and triangulate.
  - shoehornhands 10y ago
    > One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate That's what's really depressing about this: it is absurdly easy to get to the bottom of whether a fricking blender is worth buying, but important events happening in the world? Get your researchin' shoes on. By the way, thank you very much for your input - your experience in that arena is unique and very valuable to the discussion.
javajosh 10y ago
It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position, I think it's useful to state what would undermine the credibility of an institution of journalism. It's actually really simple: if it persistently reports incidents for which there is no proof, or if it reports incidents in such a way that obscures the facts themselves (spin). Any institution that regularly confuses editorializing for journalism losses its credibility. By these rules there are many institutions that are not trustworthy (e.g. Fox) but there are many institutions that are (the NYT).
- grandalf 10y ago
  How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    That is because the recent email leaks just validated what everyone already knew about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The fact that the emails were LEAKED OMG is not the newsworthy part. It is what is in them. And largely speaking, there's not much news in them. IMO a major problem in the U.S. today is that not many people understand how political campaigns or the federal government actually work. So a lot of people can be led to believe that boringly standard practices like revising talking points over email, and getting updates on court hearings, are actually proof of corruption. But they're not.
    - angry-hacker 10y ago
      And what don't we already know about Trump? Even if true, if this is serious journalism, why they keep printing she said he said? Wouldn't it be excellent time to print the stories of the alleged rape victims of Bill Clinton too? Since they publicly admit he and Hillary is a team? If you think media is not one sides, even if sided slightly more sane side, you're out of your mind.
NumberCruncher 10y ago
The funny thing is that news are mostly lies or half truths about events they would still be irrelevant to your life even if the news were 100% true: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
dingbat 10y ago
re: the example you give about VP Biden announcing secret cyber attacks against Russia during an NBC News interview, it isnt necessarily a waste to "burn processing cycles" keeping up with such news, when you consider that observing propaganda in action can itself provide information about "what" exactly the "powers that be" want people to believe, leading to further examination of "why". it is similar to reading financial news or watching CNBC with the mindset of reading between the lines, wondering who and why is interested in propagating such stories.
gotchange 10y ago
Do you consider this piece of journalism as propaganda too? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince-shatters-decades-of-royal-tradition.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/world/rise-of-saudi-prince... I could be as much skeptic as you and I can draw my own conclusions for why this particular story might have been published now and not before, and for what purpose, but this doesn't stop me from enjoying reading it and absorbing its juicy details and knowledge. I'm still thankful for NYT for dedicating time and effort to expose this person as a fraud and hypocrite and I'm looking forward to reading more of these in the future for other despicable figures.
- droopybuns 10y ago
  I read this and my first instinct was "what PR team pitched this story?" Maybe none. But one way the times could re establish credibility with me is to be transparent about how much the writer engaged with pr reps or communications teams in each story. It doesn't have to be exhaustive. By the way- Part of my journey to this level of skepticism was "Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285 https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...
  - gotchange 10y ago
    A PR/fluff piece that he bought a $500 mln yacht on a whim while calling for austerity in his own country cutting govt employees salaries and benefits? That would be the worst PR piece you could ask for, unless you mean that you suspect that his political foes were the ones behind this story which is not unlikely but again not a deal-breaker and what's only important to me is the question, were the details listed in the piece factual or not? Nothing more.
lsh123 10y ago
I grew up in USSR in the 80s and there were two major newspapers distributed across the whole country: "The Truth" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda) and "The News" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia). So the joke about these newspapers was: There is no truth in "The Truth" and there are no news in "The News". Update: Added links to wikipedia
shoehornhands 10y ago
> The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. To borrow a phrase that usually makes me think of a milennial with a punchable face, "This^100." I always held those news organizations skeptically in the back of my mind as Every Educated Person Ought To, but this is just...unbelievable.
anonbanker 10y ago
I know it's a rather sad state of affairs when I'm now reading /pol/ on 4chan to get my news nowadays. Once you filter out the noise, there's some intensive research and unbiased news there. Is anyone else doing this?
- alva 10y ago
  Yup. Significant signals amongst the noise. Lots of references to primary sources.
khattam 10y ago
>The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. Why would you trust them? You think they would go through all that shit to give you information and work for you for a few pennies or for free? When they could be working for the rich and powerful to become one of them... all while getting your pennies?

spaceheeder 10y ago

> Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. Was it actually week(s) plural? I thought they only came out about a week late. > The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. I think this is a little much. Some cast and crew from The Apprentice made some noise about how generally unpleasant Donald Trump was, and multiple parties started seeking unused footage from that show. NBC also had the Access Hollywood video and were preparing it for release, but got scooped when someone leaked it to the Washington Post reporter who investigated the Tump Foundation. No event in the chain happened without precedence and, to be perfectly frank, none of the information that has come out has been a genuine shock. The overwhelming majority of the damage done by the Access Hollywood footage has been because Donald Trump a) did a very poor job in delivering his apology, strategically speaking and b) from a), set himself up to have yet more sunlight disinfect his past. > This level of premeditated collusion with the media is not even up for debate at this point Ooh, me, me, I debate it. This is a dumb thing to say and you should feel dumb for saying it. It makes no sense and is not based on anything. > I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring. Probably ever since the industry started to consolidate. Just because it happens doesn't mean that it happening means what you think it means, if that makes any sense [1]. [1] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/477656-when-you-re-young-you-look-at-television-and-think-there-s http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/477656-when-you-re-young-you...

r_smart 10y ago
>Ooh, me, me, I debate it. This is a dumb thing to say and you should feel dumb for saying it. It makes no sense and is not based on anything. Insults do not qualify as debate. His claim is based on, or should include, the portions of the Podesta emails that have showed a dismaying amount of coordination with the press. Approving quotes, approving stories, printing talking points. Compare their behavior against the guidelines set out by the Society of Professional Journalists. It's a disgrace.
- spaceheeder 10y ago
  You and I must understand entirely different things when we read the phrase "premeditated collusion with the media." Those media organizations and those journalists may have editorial and personal opinions on who they would prefer to win the election, but there's one thing they care more about than any of those preferences: access. The idea that the press wouldn't or shouldn't care about vacuuming up every talking point that a campaign is willing to spit out, no matter how obviously-canned it is, is to fundamentally misunderstand the operations of the 24 hour news cycle. This isn't happening because journos care about Hillary Clinton. This is an alignment of the incentives of politicians and journalists that ultimately reduces transparency and harms public discourse. The fact that the same thing likely isn't happening with the Trump campaign says more about the peculiarities of that campaign than it says anything about the same media companies' willingness to play the same game of ball with Generic Q. Republican.

DominikR 10y ago

After reading this stuff I now doubt there has been a real election for decades in the US. You see what happens when a guy appears to have a real shot who isn't fully controlled by the elite. I have no doubt that they will rig the election if the media doesn't get the job done. How else could they let Hillary run? They must be pretty confident that it doesn't matter that most people hate her.

bduerst 10y ago

>The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day WashPo released it on the same day that they got it, after several hours verifying it's authenticity. That's not evidence to fit your claim of premeditated collusion.

dingbat 10y ago

> I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring. another way in which Trump is a political tsunami... to paraphrase Warren Buffett: when the tide goes out, you can see who's been swimming naked

gotchange 10y ago

This is not premeditated, this is October Surprise and they had the Trump video in store for that round of the fight, nothing sinister. Regarding the media, all are culprits in biased news coverage whether those on the right like Breitbart or Fox News or on the left like NYT or Washington Post but this held belief that you should expect nothing less than 100% impartial coverage of the elections when they endorse their favorite candidate publicly is also a bit misplaced.

erispoe 10y ago

A distraction from what? There is nothing incriminating in the released emails. We learned that: DNC personnel liked Hillary Clinton better than Bernie Sanders and that Hillary Clinton was saying to bankers what she is saying in public. Where's the scoop that we are supposedly being distracted from?

drumdance 10y ago
Not to mention that Sanders was not a Democrat until he became a candidate for president. Politics is about building coalitions. Maybe if Bernie had nurtured closer relations with the DNC he would have gotten more favorable treatment. And it's not like the nomination process is sacrosanct. For many years primaries were ignored altogether in favor of smoke filled rooms. That only started changing in 1968. It was made more democratic in 1972, which resulted in the nomination of George McGovern, who got his clock cleaned in the general. Sometimes party elites do know better.

pjlegato 10y ago

Er. Again? When was the media ever honest? At least they pretend to be so now. Traditionally, newspapers were not terribly concerned with that, and didn't even bother much to hide this fact. It's actually better than it's ever been. Not that it's good now; it was just much worse before.