There was an article I saw recently quoting from a right-wing political operative about smears. The takeaway was that a smear has little value if it stays conta

There was an article I saw recently quoting from a right-wing political operative about smears. The takeaway was that a smear has little value if it stays contained within right-wing echo chambers. The goal is to get the mainstream press to talk about it non-stop. That is the mark of a successful smear campaign (this is tangential to the information's accuracy). The fact that the mainstream press hasn't talked about the controversy much outside of the context of twitter et al blocking its dissemination, or it being a suspected disinformation campaign is a win for Biden. Denying the content of the controversy suddenly allows the story to be reported as a he-said, she-said, giving the story a life of its own. This does a disservice to Biden because now the reporting can be neutral between the parties. The battle here is over swing voters, and a he-said/she-said controversy is exactly the kind of nebulous "concerns" the GOP hope to raise about Biden. It was the specter of something going on that defeated Hillary and they're hoping to repeat this with Biden. Not addressing the specifics of the controversy allows the story to stay where it belongs, as a right-wing media hail mary. As a comparison, mainstream press didn't report on the Trump dossier until Buzzfeed's reporting of the dossier became the story. Once the story becomes reified, mainstream outlets can then report on the controversy. The winning move is to keep the story from becoming its own controversy. Not addressing it directly helps to accomplish this.