3 ms·

While I upfront admit that there are fact checks involved, things that need to be checked, evidence to gather, however, where was this reporting during the elec

While I upfront admit that there are fact checks involved, things that need to be checked, evidence to gather, however, where was this reporting during the election season? Wouldn't it have benefited the public to have run this story before election was over? I get you can't time a story always, but I feel like so many stories like this break after the person achieves some sort of position of note. Then again, maybe they only started investigating congress persons because they won elections, and this is the post win rake in action?

baking 4y ago
Where was the opposition research? The opponent can feed stuff they find to the friendly press.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  There's a lot of talk to suggest the opposition didn't have it together in New York, not doing even basic due diligence on opponents. Not sure if this is the actual case or perhaps they felt, as a party, this race wasn't worth putting energy into. Not every race gets the same scrutiny by the opposition due to things like limited funding, probability of losing etc. You're right though, you'd think they'd have enough funding to handle this nation wide in every race, but alas, maybe not.
  - kemayo 4y ago
    There seemed to be a fair amount of surprise at how well Republicans did in NY this year. I'd certainly believe that the Democratic establishment was overconfident and didn't think they needed to dig too hard on people in one of their stronghold areas...
- rpenm 4y ago
  The opposition pointed out his shady personal finances and ponzi stuff publicly, months before the election. Press apparently weren't interested at the time.
sbuttgereit 4y ago
The cynic in me says it sells more papers/gets more views reporting this sort of thing after the fact rather than before it... much more scandalous. The modern press at work.
rsynnott 4y ago
There's probably an element of selection bias here. Let's say, hypothetically, the media, writ large, decides "okay, these 20 politicians look dodgy, let's investigate them" in 2021. It's plausible that something like this happens: - For 10 of them, the dodginess doesn't ultimately check out. - Five of them become aware that the media is onto them; either they give up, or their party cuts them loose. They don't run. - Of those who run, one or two have their dodginess revealed _before_ the election. They lose (er, probably, maybe not, who knows, see Donald Trump!) - Of the remainder, the media's been slow in digging up the dodginess, but one or two lose the election anyway. - One actually wins, before the paper is ready to publish. (This guy) Like, arguably, if the media was doing a perfect job here, you'd probably never hear about it at all; the dodgy politicians would never run, and "someone who _might_ have run for office but didn't is a fraud" is just not an interesting story; even if they bother to publish it won't get much circulation. (There is another factor; when someone wins election that may prompt people to come forward with tales of their dodginess, too)
- rsynnott 4y ago
  (Now, you could argue that media would _deliberately_ go slow precisely because this is a better story than "weird fraud-y guy didn't run for election", but, well, "[respected national newspaper] threw election to a fraud because it made for better headlines" is an even better story than _that_, and it would go to one of their rivals when it came out... Deliberate suppression just to get a better story seems really unlikely)

baking 4y ago

Where was the opposition research? The opponent can feed stuff they find to the friendly press.

no_wizard 4y ago
There's a lot of talk to suggest the opposition didn't have it together in New York, not doing even basic due diligence on opponents. Not sure if this is the actual case or perhaps they felt, as a party, this race wasn't worth putting energy into. Not every race gets the same scrutiny by the opposition due to things like limited funding, probability of losing etc. You're right though, you'd think they'd have enough funding to handle this nation wide in every race, but alas, maybe not.
- kemayo 4y ago
  There seemed to be a fair amount of surprise at how well Republicans did in NY this year. I'd certainly believe that the Democratic establishment was overconfident and didn't think they needed to dig too hard on people in one of their stronghold areas...
rpenm 4y ago
The opposition pointed out his shady personal finances and ponzi stuff publicly, months before the election. Press apparently weren't interested at the time.

sbuttgereit 4y ago

The cynic in me says it sells more papers/gets more views reporting this sort of thing after the fact rather than before it... much more scandalous. The modern press at work.

rsynnott 4y ago

There's probably an element of selection bias here. Let's say, hypothetically, the media, writ large, decides "okay, these 20 politicians look dodgy, let's investigate them" in 2021. It's plausible that something like this happens: - For 10 of them, the dodginess doesn't ultimately check out. - Five of them become aware that the media is onto them; either they give up, or their party cuts them loose. They don't run. - Of those who run, one or two have their dodginess revealed _before_ the election. They lose (er, probably, maybe not, who knows, see Donald Trump!) - Of the remainder, the media's been slow in digging up the dodginess, but one or two lose the election anyway. - One actually wins, before the paper is ready to publish. (This guy) Like, arguably, if the media was doing a perfect job here, you'd probably never hear about it at all; the dodgy politicians would never run, and "someone who _might_ have run for office but didn't is a fraud" is just not an interesting story; even if they bother to publish it won't get much circulation. (There is another factor; when someone wins election that may prompt people to come forward with tales of their dodginess, too)

rsynnott 4y ago
(Now, you could argue that media would _deliberately_ go slow precisely because this is a better story than "weird fraud-y guy didn't run for election", but, well, "[respected national newspaper] threw election to a fraud because it made for better headlines" is an even better story than _that_, and it would go to one of their rivals when it came out... Deliberate suppression just to get a better story seems really unlikely)