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Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media
- CptFribble 8y agoI think the old guard media has misstepped on this, not for ideological reasons but for clicks. More banal certainly, but somehow worse, I think. Even the conservative media continued to talk about it, railing against, because it drives clicks. What we really need, and hopefully comes from this reckoning, is a new model of financing journalism that can be free to act in the public interest, and is built with that in its DNA. Unfortunately, ideas on what's in the public interest are so vastly separated, I wonder if such a thing even makes sense to hope for.
- db48x 8y agoNo, it's pretty clear that a lot of reporters have compromised their ethics, or never had any. The article quotes several; it is in fact the entire point of the article. Of course you might also say that the _owners_ of the media don't care about this lack of ethics as long as they're making money. That's probably true, but it's not the same thing at all. The blame goes to the people who have no ethical standards, or who compromised them in favor of politics.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoHow is covering one of the biggest scandals in modern American politics malpractice? Obama never had anything similar in scope over 8 years.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoIs it a scandal if it isn't true? And you're right, Obama never had anything in this scope, it's worse, because people died from things he perpetuated. 1) Fast and Furious: Continued program that caused a border agent to be murdered with one of the many guns the US sold to the cartels. 2) Benghazi: We all know this disaster that killed 4 Americans. Severely understaffed embassy that should have never even been there. No support when requested. Blamed the whole thing on a video. 3) Iran Nuclear Deal: Pallets of unmarked Euros flown over to a sponsor of terrorism in the dead of night 4) Spied on conservative reporters 5) IRS Scandal: Targeted conservatives with the IRS 6) Private Email Server: Lied about knowledge of her server, turns out he had a pseudonym on it and received emails from it. He said he found out about it from the media, woops. 7) NSA Spying: Obama forever known as the spying President.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoAll of those were less consequential (and with half of those unfounded) and didn't warrant a SCO investigation.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoWhich are unfounded, and how are deaths less consequential? The only reason a SCO investigation was pushed for in this case is because the media stoked for it.
- Fjolsvith 8y agoIt was an insurance policy in the highly unlikely event that Trump was elected. [1] 1. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/strzok-page-and-the-fbi-texting-scandal-explained https://www.foxnews.com/politics/strzok-page-and-the-fbi-tex...
- CptFribble 8y agoI must take issue with two of your points: 2) The State Dept. approved some requests for security upgrades, and denied others. If they had approved everything, would it have stopped the attacks? There's no way to know. Placing blame on Hillary or Obama specifically is problematic at best. 3) Before the revolution in 1979 the Iranian govt signed an arms contract with the US and paid money into a US account. Then the revolution happened and the equipment was never delivered. The cash flown over was just them getting their money back out of that account, with 30+ years of interest. The rest I either know nothing about, or are too general to get into here. For what it's worth, I'm not just an Obama apologist. I also think a lot of stuff he did was problematic, especially the unaccountable drone campaigns, and especially Anwar Al-Alwaki and his son, which should have been considered a major scandal.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago2) The problem wasn't stopping it, it was fighting it back. They were too understaffed to make a defense. Given how long they held out with what they had is a good indicator that they could have repelled it with more defenses. Air support would have sufficed. 3) Fair enough, but how it was done that wasn't appropriate.
- leereeves 8y agoThe gist of the news is: Trump never had anything similar in scope either. It was a fiction, invented by the Democrats and the media.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoHow many Obama campaign managers did they indict? How many Obama National Security Advisors did they indict and force to resign over Russian ties? How many times did Obama deny that the Russians attacked American interests during an election only to be rebut by the FBI with a string of foreign indictments?
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoWell, the Obama administration were the ones who ignored the Russia meddling. They knew about this for months. But President Obama opted to not call Russia out on it publicly or inform the American people. In fact, his administration didn’t even draw public attention to this until October, just weeks before the election. They also ignored violations of the nuclear treaty, various previous hacking attempts, cancelled missile defenses in Eastern Europe, allowed Russia to sell air defenses to Iran. The Obama Administration was extremely soft on Russia.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago> They knew about this for months. But President Obama opted to not call Russia out on it publicly or inform the American people. In fact, his administration didn’t even draw public attention to this until October, just weeks before the election. Except the reporting was clear about the source since June. The President wanted to publicize it earlier to but McConell refused to sign a bipartisan condemnation. Even then the intelligence community was unequivocal. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/23/mitch-mcconnell-russia-obama-joe-biden-359531 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/23/mitch-mcconnell-ru...
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y ago
- db48x 8y agoThat's not what I was referring to. The article quotes journalists who thought about speaking up about something, but decided not to because it might help Trump. It sounds like they had a sense of ethics, but compromised that ethics because of politics. Or the journalists who spent weeks in Prague and failed to find any evidence there, and then failed to report on that failure. There's no evidence that this person ever had any ethical standards because they then joked about it while trying to sell their book. Perhaps this is less likely to be regarded as an ethical failure by journalists; even scientists are only recently pushing for pre-registration of medical trials in order to prevent unfavorable studies from being swept under the rug.
- bavanmub 8y agoHow about promising russians flexibility on national defense topics after election [1]? If Trump said this, he'd be destroyed in a moment. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medvedev-idUSBRE82P0JI20120326 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medv...
- DataWorker 8y agoThe entire notion of journalistic ethics has become totally self serving and delusional. It starts from the mistaken assumption that it’s possible to be free from the biases of one’s own ideology. The solution is embracing, and exposing oneself to, the opposing ideologies.
- astrodust 8y agoAll media owned by large, profit-at-all-costs organizations is conservative media, regardless of their branding.
- thucydidesofusa 8y agoIt seems ill-fitting to say the Washington Post, NYT, and Huffington Post are 'conservative', perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that they're entrenched in the status quo? You can see that pretty clearly when there newspapers write about companies that compete for attention. I don't think I've seen a favorable report about FAANGs out of the NYT since Tim Cook came out of the closet.
- astrodust 8y agoHuffington Post pretends to be very socially liberal, but really it's all about preserving the status quo which is ultimately a conservative position. Also have you read any of those New York Times "editorial" pieces they crank out? "Trump isn't so bad" and "Why I voted Trump and I'd do it again, gosh darn it, and you should too" are typical fare. The term "conservative" has shifted dramatically in the last 50 years. Some of today's "liberal" Democrats are further to the right of some Republicans in the 1960s. The most liberal of these large media institutions are at best hard-line centrists.
- leereeves 8y ago> Also have you read any of those New York Times "editorial" pieces they crank out? "Trump isn't so bad" and "Why I voted Trump and I'd do it again, gosh darn it, and you should too" are typical fare. I haven't seen those, and I can't find them with a search. Do you have links?
- npc_geroge123 8y agoYou can find them because they don't exist.
- 8y ago
- overwhelm 8y agoThe click reasons, ideological reasons, and hate/fear reasons (of Trump as an interloper in the political class) fused into an alloy. It's impossible to separate these.
- mark_l_watson 8y agoI agree with you. At least PBS news seems to honestly attempt to be impartial. Just my opinion but PBS is just on a higher level of honesty and fairness than MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc.
- xtracto 8y agoI am not from the USA, but regularly watch CNN and Fox News. For me they are entertainment and without informative value. They are not news, but political commentary. From outside It is amazing to see that if you watched only one or the other, the USA appears to be in opposite types of catastrophes. Similarly with r/politics and r/the_donald, the echo chamber in both of them is so strong, that it prevents rational conversation. Personally I have seen that CBS News seems more moderate. However I think the best news for any country are the ones provided outside the country (like Aljazeera, BBC, France24, MDR, etc)
- Logly 8y agoThe article looks like propaganda.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Logly 8y agoThis appears to be propaganda. Unfounded "conclusions" are drawn that support a given side and depricate another side.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoIs there anything specific you disagree about it?
- darkpuma 8y ago'Propaganda' isn't synonymous with 'wrong'.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoI was more directing my question to "unfounded". So let me clarify, what did OP see that was unfounded?
- pmoriarty 8y agoMueller's report could still recommend or build a case for impeachment, even if he does not formally charge Trump, since it's legally questionable whether a sitting President could be indicted for a crime while in office.
- overwhelm 8y agoTaibbi has mellowed, alas, but at least he can still do this: "Imagine how tone-deaf you’d have to be to not realize it makes you look bad, when news does not match audience expectations you raised. To be unaware of this is mind-boggling, the journalistic equivalent of walking outside without pants."
- nkkollaw 8y agoI think a lot of critique of events can be done with much better results by independent journalist (ex. on YouTube). At least they put their own reputation on the line. For instance, I regularly watch Tim Pool and he seems to be completely unbiased and covers culture-related news for the US.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoSo Viacom purchasing ad space on a video billboard in Times Square to push the 10 year old drag queen kid named Desmond, fits your version(definition) of conservative?
- l24ztj 8y agoBy conservative he meant NWO.
- astrodust 8y ago"Conservative" here meaning "content permissible within the narrow window of generally accepted social standards" and not "conservative" as in "the most extreme position expressed by religious firebrands". In any case, what's wrong with ten year old drag queens? That sounds no worse than any typical beauty pageant and probably a lot more fun.
- patrickg_zill 8y ago“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all. "
- lamarpye 8y agoYou are right sounds like a good thing to do to a child.
- vowelless 8y agoI wanted to dislike this piece. But it’s a fantastic write up. It covers all the bases I was anticipating that it won’t. The HN community might find this interesting: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
- 0xDEFC0DE 8y agoAll respect to Aaron's memory, but it hasn't aged that well. There's an implicit trust in books for authority, but those have been used on both sides of the Trump press war for political reasons. News is how you find out the candidate you might want to vote for is actually a hypocrite through undeniable audio/video evidence. By the time a book is written, printed, and distributed, most elections will have likely been decided already (except for Presidential election activities which seem to never end these days). You can't just bury your head in the sand on this but there are no good alternatives yet. I still think I'm going to follow that prescription though: establishing trust has become even more difficult as fake accounts can establish a thin authority by pretending to trust each other. Information complexity and volume has only gone up and there is more information to digest, and establishing someone as a trustworthy source by yourself is time consuming. The only way this changes is a) humans manage electronic volume/complexity more easily (enhanced brain and more available time) or b) by coincidence we happen to get news sources that are all unbiased and social media platforms with good moderation. (a) is far more likely IMHO. It's going to be a hell of a ride if there's nothing more in Mueller's report. And yeah, I'm exhausted. I'm giving up my news habits either way it goes.
- montalbano 8y agoAlthough I agree with many of the points here, unfortunately the piece itself has made the same mistake as the media it criticises: it's jumping to conclusions a little prematurely. Why read so much into the lack of indictments when Mueller's team have agreed to the standard that they cannot indict a sitting president? [1] Let's just wait and see -- I'm fed of speculation at this point. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/muellers-team-told-trumps-lawyers-the-special-counsel-cannot-indict-a-sitting-president/2018/05/16/cf4d5700-5961-11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html?utm_term=.69151ddb2c5b https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/muellers-team-told-t...
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoBecause to have collusion you need to have multiple parties colluding. They haven't indicted anymore Russians or any other members of the Trump campaign, and no existing indictment has been due to collusion. So even though the President can't be indicted, the indication that no other indictments means that collusion is not a part of the report. There may be other offenses that Trump have committed, but that is even MORE speculation.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoYou can tie the loose ends together. No matter what the final report has the Stone indictment is incredibly damning with regard to his communication with Wikileaks in addition to the Trump tower meeting.
- jasonlotito 8y agoNot to mention that you can't be indicted for colluding, even if you give evidence and admit to collusion.
- int_19h 8y agoYou can't indict anybody for collusion, since it's not a crime. What is a crime is, for example, conspiracy to hack DNC computers - for which several people, mostly Russians, were already indicted. Another example would be conspiracy to "impair, obstruct, or defeat the lawful function of any department of government", which is what the Internet Research Agency was indicted for.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoDisclosure: I deeply loathe Trump, and I think he is unfit for office; very glad to see Mueller investigation initiated, because there was a lot of smoke and it needed to happen. But the author is very correct. A 'free press' is the 5th estate - an important part of civil society. ... but it only works if they have integrity. Over the last two years it has become clear how narrow and biased they have become in their contempt for Trump and of course in search of 'more clicks'. This is a deep wound for America that I do not think we can blame on Trump himself, however much some of us may loathe him. Trump is a Loki who exposed a serious degradation in another part of the system and it has to remedied. Sadly, I do not think they will admit their failures, and they will not reform, and as a result, we're going to be having wars over 'fake news' for a long time. Post-Edit: I don't want this to take away from critiquing Trump for some of the awful things that he's said, or some of his questionable policies - my only point is 'the press broke' on this, and it's a legitimate concern. If the press lacks integrity, we lose the ability to hold people to account.
- pmoriarty 8y agoHalf the reason Trump got elected was that the media just couldn't shut up about him. They're his best friends. If anything, all this media coverage shows is that the US mainstream media is now spectacularly ineffective and irrelevant. They might have brought down Nixon, but they can't bring down Trump. Everybody on all sides already has their minds made up, and they only read the news for entertainment, to confirm their biases, and to find talking points.
- mellow-lake-day 8y agoThe media also chose to spread the emails stolen by Russian intelligence instead of covering the Hollywood access tapes.
- oh_sigh 8y agoIt's 'acccess hollywood', and they were extensively covered in the last 4 weeks before the 2016 election. Maybe it would have had a bigger impact if it dropped earlier. One wonders if it was intentionally held back to be a last minute kill-shot, or if it was truly just discovered in October 2016: > An NBC source said that an Access Hollywood producer remembered the conversation on Monday, October 3, and located it in the show's archives.[4][11] The celebrity news website TMZ reports a different chronology: when senior executives at NBC learned about the video, they thought it was too early in the presidential campaign season to release it with maximum effect, and (according to TMZ) those executives publicly said they learned of the video long after they actually learned about it.[12][13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_...
- abrahamepton 8y agoThis is...utterly delusional, and totally disconnected from the evidence on record. The President's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, personal lawyer and National Security Advisor have either pled guilty or been convicted of felonies. Despite denying any contacts with Russia, we now know he'd been offered a deal to build the biggest tower in Europe, a payout worth $300 million, during the campaign. During the transition, his son-in-law met with the Russian ambassador and asked to use the Russian government's communication system to evade scrutiny by the American intelligence community. During sentencing, a federal judge told the President's former NSA that "arguably, you sold out your country". On what earth does Taibbi live? I grant that perhaps the media built up the Mueller report to a point that no actual product could satisfy. But what we know is so outrageous that it's quite strange to conclude that the people doing the irresponsible misleading are the news media. This is such a strange, bizarre, consequential, unprecedented story cloaked in classified details that it's pretty odd to expect a media to do a great job of contemporaneously reporting on it. I used to have a lot of respect for Taibbi, and I suppose I still do, but this is deranged on his part.
- lamarpye 8y agoNone of the people were convicted on charges related to Russian collusion. Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. I won't accuse of you of trying to mislead people, but the judge apologized for making the treason claim against Flynn: https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apologizes-after-floating-crazy-idea-michael-flynn-committed-treason/ https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apo...
- abrahamepton 8y agoYeah, he walked back the "treason" comment that I didn't mention, and said nothing to retract the "sold your country out" comment, because the two are in fact distinct claims. "Collusion" isn't an actual crime, so of course nobody was convicted for it. But convicting people for illegal activity proximate to the collusion is exactly what happened. Al Capone was convicted for tax fraud, not being a gangster, because that was what they could prove in court.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago>For years, every pundit and Democratic pol in Washington hyped every new Russia headline like the Watergate break-in. Now, even Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is out, unless something “so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan” against Trump is uncovered it would be worth their political trouble to prosecut Genuinely confused - is it not worse than Watergate? At least Watergate was done by Americans. The Mueller investigation confirmed the source of the hacks and the propanda effort in nauseating detail that was denied and dismissed during the campaign.
- lamarpye 8y agoIt is worse than Watergate. The FBI spied on a Presidential campaign using evidence supplied and paid for by the another candidate. If the names were changed, Hacker News people would be outraged. They would be mad at the FISA court, mad at the FBI, mad at the media. Look in the mirror and decide, do you have consistent principles or do they own apply in certain situations.
- abrahamepton 8y agoMultiple senior members of a Presidential campaign have either pled guilty or been convicted of serious felonies, and you think the ones to blame are the FBI? I mean I think the FBI has a lot to answer for, here and on plenty of other issues, but... I don't know how to tell you this, because you won't believe it, but if you're sincere and not a troll then you have a very unhealthy media diet. Your take here is very disconnected from reality. I'm sure you disagree. Alas.
- dang 8y agoWould you please not cross into incivility and personal swipes, regardless of how wrong someone else is or how strongly you feel? Your comments have been increasingly breaking the site guidelines in this thread. I know this is an issue on which views are both polarized and fixed. But that's why the guidelines say that comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ForrestN 8y agoThis is an incredibly backwards hot take. The media has made many mistakes and continues to do so. But in the opposite direction. In addition to the extraordinary number of people already indicted as part of the Special Counsel’s work, there is already ample documented public evidence of “russiagate.” Marcy Wheeler, the best reporter on this story, says “We know of at least five conversations at which various people entered into what I describe as a quid pro quo conspiracy.” 1 Russia and the Trump Campaign worked together to elect Trump as part of a quid pro quo conspiracy. The media’s error was in anointing Mueller and his report as the savior and sword that would slay our villainous leader. The media has failed to convey reality to the public: in addition to crimes related to Russia, the president and his family have been shown to be awash in many, many kinds of crimes. He cheated the non-profit system, lied about assets to secure loans, defrauded participants in his “university,” confessed on tape to a pattern of sexual assault corroborated by multiple credible first person accounts, committed tax fraud, helped his parents commit tax fraud, committed campaign finance violations, skirted White House anti-nepotism and ethics rules, publicly threatened witnesses, and has done many other things that are obviously disqualifying. The failure of the press to convey the extent of Trump’s prolific criminal behavior before and after the 2016 election is this generation’s War in Iraq coverage. 1 https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/02/24/quid-pro-quo-redux-part-two-russian-government-involvement-in-all-three-conspiracy-agreements/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/02/24/quid-pro-quo-redux-par...
- areoform 8y agoIt is bizarre when an opinion piece on the death of the American news media, makes the same mistakes as the news media i.e. blending facts and opinion as one and treating editorials as news. For E.g. “There will be people protesting: the Mueller report doesn’t prove anything! What about the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.? The financial matters! There’s an ongoing grand jury investigation, and possible sealed indictments, and the House will still investigate, and… Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is making it worse.” This is actually factually wrong. It is persuasive but wrong because while Mueller isn’t pursuing more prosecutions, he has referred people on for more prosecutions and investigations. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/politics/mueller-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/politics/mueller-repor... Also no one is actually saying that the mueller report doesn’t prove anything, because no one has read it yet. And that position is a rhetorical flourish that makes no sense given that all of the indictments, prosecutorial referrals etc were done by Mueller. The next few sentences aren’t true either; “The biggest thing this affair has uncovered so far is Donald Trump paying off a porn star. That’s a hell of a long way from what this business was supposedly about at the beginning, and shame on any reporter who tries to pretend this isn’t so.“ First of all, he plead guilty to charges by the SDNY. AFAICT, The WSJ broke the story, Common Cause then filed a lawsuit followed by Stormy Daniels, and then the FBI raid happened. So this claim is actually inaccurate. He has a point to make and he is willing to throw facts into the blender to make it. He is also a part of what’s wrong with the media and seems to be unable to recognize that. Edit: given the downvoting here are some citations; WSJ breaking the story - https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lawyer-arranged-130-000-payment-for-adult-film-stars-silence-1515787678 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lawyer-arranged-130-000-p... Common Cause’s lawsuit - https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/608291878/watchdog-questions-whether-trumps-reimbursement-is-a-campaign-finance-violation https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/608291878/watchdog-questions-... SDNY and Cohen - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5453401-SDNY-Cohen-sentencing-memo.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5453401-SDNY-Cohen-s...
- ForrestN 8y agoYes. I agree completely. The part of the media committed to appearing savvy at all costs is definitely part of the problem.
- pmoriarty 8y ago"even Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is out, unless something "so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan" against Trump is uncovered it would be worth their political trouble to prosecute." You know why impeachment is out? Because Republicans control the Senate, and because there are plenty of conservative Democrats too, so impeachment doesn't stand a chance. If anti-Trump politicians controlled Congress, Trump would have been booted out long ago. The only reason Trump is still in office is because plenty of Congressmen still support Trump, and many of them don't care what the evidence says. He's nominated the judges they want. He's given gigantic tax cuts to the wealthy. He's pushing hard against immigration and pissing off liberals. That's clearly more than enough to get the support of most conservatives. If he had to cheat or lie or get Russian help to get in to office, that doesn't matter to his supporters because all they care about is that their agenda gets pushed. His supporters also know if they admit he's committed impeachable offenses, they'll be politically stained along with him, and it'll be a gift to the anti-Trump camp. So they'll never admit it.
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- outwebbyyou 8y agoAgree; I am think Trump is a deeply flawed person. But he was prosecuted because by standing up to China, he was a threat to the profit margins of the mega-corporations like Disney (cheap labors to make their merchandises) - who owns ABC, ESPN, and now Fox. And a threat to the equity returns of wall street, who wants corporations to increase their short-term profits by outsourcing even more jobs to China, humanitarian rights and environmental rights be damned.
- dang 8y agoWe've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political and nationalistic battle. That's not allowed here, as https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html explain.
- ethbro 8y agoI would argue that the US invasion of Iraq (WMD), the Vietnam War (Gulf of Tonkin), or the Spanish-American War (remember the Maine) have exposed the fallibility and blindness of mainstream press to counter-naratives in pursuit of being first / having an article about the issue of the day. The broader point about clicks is that the economic model behind the US press changed from a subsidized press to a for-profit press... and yet everyone expected the work product to remain the same?
- jakeogh 8y agoAnd there's the nearly 20 year old elephant in the room...
- deogeo 8y ago...September 11th, 2001? How is that involved? Or did you mean something else?
- arcticbull 8y agoAmerica does propaganda better than probably any other country on earth, because it’s so interwoven into the fabric of society. Freedom of the press, of speech, of creators is espoused at every opportunity. And at the same time, the Pentagon is required to sign off on every movie script that shows any military buildings, or the White House. And they do make edits [1]. Military officials and commentators helped shape the narrative of the Iraq war, often with roles at the media outlets themselves. I’ll dig up the article I was thinking of when I get a chance. They helped shape the presentation after — any embeds had to run their footage by military editors before airing too. What US propaganda does better than Chinese state propaganda for instance is that they don’t just tell the truth they want directly to your face even though it’s obviously and visibly wrong. They shape narratives. It’s an elegant, soft-touch approach. They make you want to hear and buy into their version of the truth. The press here hasn’t really been independent in a long time. I respect the game, tbh. It’s a free press so propaganda is impossible! Nothing to see here haha. It’s also why I get my news from a couple of foreign sources and ideally it cancels out each providers biases. If you get a chance watch some Fox and CNN (I watch both) then compare to CBC and Al Jazeera English. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley-scott https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2008/n...
- hguant 8y agoTaibbi is an interesting writer who is hard to pigeon hole politically. As far as I can tell, he mostly gets torqued off at people lying and does his best to call them out on it, be it the Pentagon, Wall Street, or his peers.
- repolfx 8y agoIt's the same with Greenwald. I read him regularly. I'm pretty sure ideologically and politically he's a totally standard left leaning journalist, but he is willing to attack anyone if they're being inconsistent regardless of political affiliation, and he's been covering journalistic dishonesty for years now. There are good reasons the apparently rather libertarian and conservative Edward Snowden went to Greenwald with his story and not the many more mainstream alternatives.
- skookumchuck 8y ago> Stories have been coming out for some time now hinting Mueller’s final report might leave audiences “disappointed,” as if a President not being a foreign spy could somehow be bad news. That sums it up for me. People were desperate to believe their President was a criminal.
- tucats 8y agoI think people were desperate to rationalize Hillary's loss and shift the blame.
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- olefoo 8y agoJust the things that are public about Trump should be disqualifying for an American President. * failure to disclose tax returns * failure to divest of his business interests * blatant nepotism ( including issuing his son-in-law a security clearance against the advice of professional sta ff ) * Owning a private club (Mar-a-lago) to which he sells memberships and visits at taxpayer expense where his customers have exclusive access to the President and his cabinet. Add in his business interests in Russia and what looks an awful lot like a quid pro quo trade of favorable treatment for policy changes desired by the Russian leadership... And you're gonna declare it's all just fine because there is no smoking gun evidence of campaign pay to play? I really hope you all are more attentive to your own businesses; this is basically the political equivalent of your CFO suddenly developing a sports car and supermodel habit; maybe everything is fine, but you should probably get an outside audit.
- peisistratos 8y agoI think you are making his point. Put all those things together, plus his loony policies, you have a better case against him - in 2020 (or perhaps sooner). This overblown Russian nonsense, which is a lot of smoke for so small a fire, distracts from the other things.
- newnewpdro 8y agoI've been saying for quite some time that the media has been making it quite certain this embarassment of a president will be reelected when Mueller comes up empty. The religious voters will come out in droves to vote for him based on guilt alone for society having dragged his now irrefutably innocent name through the muck all these years. The poor man!
- ykevinator 8y agoAnd the reputation of bloggers because it's not published yet.
- dayaz36 8y agoEveryone needs to follow Aaron Mate on twitter. He is one of very few reporters that's been debunking russiagate from the outset
- Invictus0 8y agoThis article seems rather premature. The Mueller report has not been released yet, and we know that the Justice Department prohibits indictment of a sitting president. We also know from court filings that President Trump personally directed his lawyer to violate campaign finance laws. Trump cannot be indicted. We knew that from day 1. In addition, "collusion" is not even a real crime. The question is whether the Mueller report discovers sufficient evidence of crimes for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings, the real mechanism for removing Trump from office. However, I do agree with the author. The coverage of this issue has been relentless and actually did reach witch hunt proportions. The bias was there and everyone knew it.
- unclebucknasty 8y agoThis article is confused. Its assertion is that the press's reputation has been destroyed due to its reporting on Russiagate, yet it goes on to cite U.S. intelligence officials, politicos like HRC, and others who suggested that Russiagate is a thing. Now, which is it? If the press is essentially reporting what prominent people--presumed to have inside information--are saying, then is it the press whose reputation has been destroyed? I'll be the first to say that their breathless reporting and the 24-hour news cycle are exhausting, as is their click-baity ratings chase. But, with regard to reporting the substance, what else are they supposed to do when many believe POTUS is breaking laws in plain sight, and so-called experts are corroborating that crimes are being committed?
- joveian 8y agoThere is a different (and shorter) excerpt from his book on Rolling Stone that is also quite good: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq-war-media-fail-matt-taibbi-812230/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq... It notes the recent issue with Venezuela coverage at the end, although not noting that it took the New York Times more than two weeks to issue a correction while others outside the mainstream media pointed out the video evidence the day of the event.
- IdontRememberIt 8y agoInternet is doing to the journalists what Gutenberg's press has done to the "old" Catholic Church. It is a difficult transition period but I am hopeful a better industry will emerged (in pain).
- unclebucknasty 8y agoTake a look at this thread. Note all of the downvoted comments (many without replies), that critique the article, weigh-in negatively against Trump, or otherwise seem supportive of the idea that there is a Russia problem. Seems we have a bit of a troll/bot/propaganda problem right here on HN.
- thatoneuser 8y agoIt's because you're literally pulling a conclusion out of thin air to claim there's something of a trump related "Russia problem". It's not a bot conspiracy - that's lazy propaganda that's been spoon fed to people who dislike trump. There are just a lot of people on HN who see through it, and it's telling that rather than discuss the possibility that trump is clean, you just call them trolls and bots.
- unclebucknasty 8y ago>There are just a lot of people on HN who see through it I have seen zero reputable people on HN expressing anything that supports this assertion. >it's telling that rather than discuss the possibility that trump is clean, you just call them trolls and bots. Discuss with whom? The "people" who just downvote anything perceived to be anti-Trump or anti-Russia? That's the point. This isn't the first time that pattern has emerged on HN. Obviously, an online community with HN's makeup is a prized target. Or are you one of those who doesn't believe there have been any bots or trolls or other propaganda aimed at Americans? U.S. intelligence just made it up? Facebook and Twitter just made it up? It's all the Deep State is it? That, and liberal bias in social media? Trump colluded out in the open and continues to do so. A foreign adversary plotted to help him and a byzantine maze of people around him and his campaign have been indicted, pled guilty, lied about contacts with Russia, etc. But, it's all a coincidence and has nothing to do with Trump, the ignorant beneficiary? Meanwhile, Trump also oddly and consistently checks off the Russian dictator's bucket list, denigrating his own country (intel community, McCain, etc.) whenever it speaks ill of that dictator. In order to have people overlook all of this, he invents a conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Republicans and Democrats within the government is plotting against him. And, that neatly explains everything that is not pro-Trump. Talk about lazy propaganda. It'a absurd. But, in order to defend him as "clean", absurdity and inane conspiracy theories are required, right down to the complete denial of reality.
- r721 8y agohttps://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1109617564186001408 https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1109617564186001408
- mark_l_watson 8y agoMy wife and I are liberal, but I have been complaining to her for a half a year that it seemed like the news media was making a lot of opinionated or unsubstantiated statements as if they were 100% true (infinitely true!). I think you know what I mean, when a news hour host makes statements in a tone of voice that implies there is no doubt about something. For me, the main theme of this article was “None of this has been walked back.” - very few news outlets have admitted really sloppy reporting. And, this all unfortunately plays into Trumps hands and increases his odds of winning in 2020.
- thatoneuser 8y agoI've been saying there's basically no difference now between many of the major left news outlets and straight up tabloids. Just more polishing. It's really sad. Rather than having rational discourse that could set up a strong 2020 dem pres bid, all anyone can talk about is how bad trump is. All exposure is good exposure.
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- wildermuthn 8y agoEveryone wants to have an opinion, and to publish said opinion, before they have any justification for an opinion. We’ve seen this over and over again, from both the left and the right, and yet it remains a blind-spot. Recall the MAGA kids who brutalized the peaceful Native American. Recall Trump directly ordering Cohen to lie to congress. Recall any story where in the rush to gain clicks, everyone jumped to ill-informed conclusions. The problem is not an idealogical press. That is capitalism at work. American history reveals muckracking as the norm rather than the exception. The problem is the speed at which this now occurs. The true driver of ‘clicks’ is the astonishing efficiency of forming and disseminating opinions that stoke ideological mobs, mobs which are no longer limited by geography or synchronicity. I’ve long believed that the only solution to a truth-based press is to replace opinion with primary sources. Now that there are networked cameras on every corner and in every pocket, this shouldn’t be far off. However, the advent of deep-fakes certainly throws a twist into this story. Ultimately, those of us who value reason and logic should form our beliefs slowly, relying on primary sources as available. Although ideology and unreasonable conclusions dominate American politics, there is no reason for us to do the same. There is no urgency to form a conclusion here, unless your livelihood depends on publishing stories that will drive traffic. Spending any mental energy on this, at the present moment, is a waste of time. The report will be out soon enough, and that will be the time to even entertain making judgments. More likely than not, however, the report will lead to more questions than answers. At least for those who value knowing the truth over making a buck.
- cm2187 8y agoExcept that all the "mistakes" you mention, and I can think of a few others, are all against the same side of the political spectrum. If it was merely an apolitical click-baity reaction, it would be statistically impossible to end up with this level of political bias. I think it is good old fashion political propaganda, Pravda style.
- olefoo 8y agoIt should be noted that Matt Taibbi has considerable history in Russia and may not be particularly objective about the American media establishment. To wit https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-two-expat-bros-who-terrorized-women-correspondents-in-moscow/2017/12/15/91ff338c-ca3c-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-two-expat-bros-wh...
- lumberingjack 8y agoThe media is just entertainment now if you're in taking that crud you're literally being entertained that's not news. James traficant was right the American Media is under the control of foreign entities they should be the ones being investigated who owns these media outlets why do they seem to all have an agenda why are they so biased? Keep up the work because you just handed Trump another 4 years.
- unclebucknasty 8y agoThis headline could have been taken directly from Sputnik News or RT. It suggests that not only is America's democratically critical Fifth Estate now entirely disreputable, but it has essentially fallen at the hands of Russia. The content of the article is pure propaganda that deliberately conflates news and opinion and conflates sources and information with reporting on sources and information. Again, pure propaganda. Shame on Taibbi.
- Overtonwindow 8y agoJust my opinion: I worked on Capitol Hill during the mid-2000's. As I got to know a lot of the older policy wonks, lobbyists, and former members, I found in ways both small and loud, they decried today's political atmosphere. Many trace it back to the Clinton's and Newt Gingrich. The opinion, which I agree with, starts with the Clinton's response to the Republicans, and vice versa. It became personal, particularly after things got heated with Clinton's legal troubles. Then comes Rep. Tom Delay, a.k.a. "The Hammer" who took it one step higher. When the Republicans took over, he worked to ram legislation through. Now everyone is looking at their cross-the-ailse counterparts and saying "I hate you. I want you to lose." The business of governing broke down, and only exacerbated with Bush, Obama, Pelosi, etc. They are no longer working together, they are at war.
- davvolun 8y agoPersonally flagged this article. This is incredibly hyperbolic and ignores some very important facts. What surprised me was that the title here "Russiagate is a death-blow" may have been slightly less hyperbolic than the article's title. If the purpose of journalism is to sort fact from fiction, and we clearly have a President that thrives on providing "fiction," seems to me journalism is doing alright here. Maybe a C+.
- jessaustin 8y ago"We could lose 90% of our journalists, those whose efforts are primarily focused toward sticking to their assigned scripts, and we would be both better-off and better-informed." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17241730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17241730