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Page 10 says this: "December 23, for instance, President Trump reportedly called one of Georgia’s lead election investigators, urging him to “find the fraud”"

• joshuamorton 6y ago
  > Page 10 says this: Ah, my mistake, was looking at the 10th page of the document, not page 10 of the document (no blame on your part here, I just hate that this is an ambiguity). > The call was secretly recorded, then deleted, so the source knew or should have known this was false. This doesn't follow. We don't know how many people were on the call, nor do we know that they all knew the call was recorded. We don't know who WaPo's source was. There are all kinds of possibilities where the person either was a second hand source (e.g. they weren't on the call, but were in the room when someone on the call, aghast, described it), or was recalling from memory having been on the call, but unaware someone recorded it. > The wording changes the call from implying some vague kind of quid-pro-quo arrangement to overturn an election to making a complaint because he (wrongly) believed he was a victim of fraud. It does not. Nothing was directly offered in either case. If you believed it was a quid-pro-quo before, you should still believe it. If you didn't before, than the headline doesn't matter. Just to clarify, here are some things Trump said on the recording. - “When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.” - “whatever you can do, Frances, it would be — it’s a great thing. It’s an important thing for the country. So important. You’ve no idea. So important. And I very much appreciate it.” If you thought there was a quid pro quo originally, Trump's words, as spoken, still support it. If you're looking for a way to excuse his actions, yes, this gives you a scapegoat. You can blame the WaPo for bad reporting, instead of Trump for committing a crime. Notably however, WaPo didn't contend that Trump tried to negotiate a quid-pro-quo. They simply reported the facts, as best they could. > Their source had a recording This is, again, untrue. There's nothing to suggest that Frances Watson was WaPo's source. There's nothing to suggest that anyone who is not Frances Watson knew there was a recording. > and in a criminal referral And in the course of that criminal referral, the actual recording, which, to reiterate, isn't exculpatory, was found. What's your point.
  • Natsu 6y ago
    This is what I mean by "unringing a bell" though. Due to the initial (false) framing, people end up with trapped priors: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-basic-problem https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-ba... In the end, it doesn't matter whether this is accidental or not, people are sharing the most salacious headlines and those are often significantly undercut by the story beneath them even at the time of writing because they get selected for "engagement" and A-B tested or similar. So circling back to the story we're discussing, the problem goes deeper than just people trying to ensure that they share only the most accurate stories, there are significant problems with the supply even from the most trusted outlets.
    • joshuamorton 6y ago
      I think you're more guilty here than WaPo. You're choosing to frame this as a larger mistake than it was, calling it a "retraction" is both factually wrong (WaPo didn't call it that, they called it a correction), and misleading (the change doesn't affect the article's main point[0]). I'll reiterate: the framing didn't change. The precise quotes changed, but they don't affect the framing, and WaPo didn't alter the framing. This is consistent with a correction. The article headline, using only quotes that Trump actually said, could still have been "Trump told investigator that 'you'll be praised' for finding that I 'Won by hundreds of thousands of votes'." That's a headline supported by the both the intent, and the precise words of the actual call. You're trying to reframe a correction of precise quotes as a retraction, or a completely misleading story on the part of Wapo. But that's you doing that. Like I said, the correction is a great excuse if you already wanted the story to be wrong, but that's entirely on you. Similarly, you're framing of this as a "fake quote", which implies that it was a fabrication, as opposed to, what the evidence points to, an first or possibly second hand account, from memory, further charges a reader of your editorialization. But that's entirely your framing (and your assumptions), not a fact. I can't tell if you're intending to point out your own cognitive bias, but yes, you are showing that you're guilty of holding trapped priors. You're not demonstrating that anyone else is. [0]: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/correcting-or-retracting-your-work-after-publication#:~:text=While%20the%20terms%20correction%20and,main%20point%20of%20the%20statements https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/correcting-or-retracting-yo....