4 ms·

> A litmus test for recent journalism is the hunter Biden laptop story. It's really not. Stories about the families of politicians are better suited for tabloi

by lapcat 2y ago

> A litmus test for recent journalism is the hunter Biden laptop story. It's really not. Stories about the families of politicians are better suited for tabloids. They're a distraction at best. And let's be honest: only a total ignoramus would vote or change their vote based on Hunter Biden. There are a million better reasons.

underseacables 2y ago
Tabloids? Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. I think the laptop story is a classic example of why people distrust a journalists. You had many media outlets, backed by government officials, essentially covering up for Hunter Biden and lying to the public. The laptop exists. It's contents exist. But for years all we heard was that this was a false flag operation from Russia. That was a lie
- lapcat 2y ago
  > Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. No, that's not what they said. Here's what they said: "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9... > The laptop exists. It's contents exist. So what? Several Republican-led Congressional committees found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden in the matter. So yes, it's nothing but a tabloid story.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - paleotrope 2y ago
    The cynicism in the 51s statement is what's wrong. And the media taking the expected cynical take. The 51 can say we didn't say it was fake we simply strongly implied it. And the media reported the implied lie. The media is either ignorant or more likely complicit.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      > And the media reported the implied lie. The media reports a million lies verbatim, because politicians lie.
      - paleotrope 2y ago
        These 51 intelligence professionals were not supposed to be politicians, they are supposed to be "experts" in the field.
readthenotes1 2y ago
The laptop has emails communications showing that Hunter Biden was claiming that Joe Biden was involved in his business deals, contrary to what Joe Biden was saying. That was known to any journalists who chose not to report on it
- defrost 2y ago
  It was reported on at the time. At the time there were two clear and obvious issues; the provenance was sketchy (material may easily have been added or deleted), and the source (Hunter) was a drug addict. The "Yeah, my dad's totally on board with this" suffered from both, it may have been fake material added to discredit Biden (hindsight suggests not) OR (just as damning) it's the utterance of a crackhead bignoting an endeavour for credability. What followed was one partisan media wing endlessly blowing up nothing of substance into a fabricated conspiracy, the other arm either ignoring the nothing of substance or lamely addressing why it was nothing. You yourself acknowledge this in the framing you used: "showing that Hunter Biden was claiming that .." The two problematic italics were precisely why knowledgable and honest journalists chose to not endlessly report on it.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    Journalists would have worked in your italicized parts, not busy the story
    - defrost 2y ago
      Yeah, they did work the italicized parts at the time .. with a sketchy evidence chain chasing back to the emails of a drug addict that was pretty much it for the day for journalists .. the new day saw plenty more stories with actual meat on the bone. That's an example of a story not going anywhere, it's commonplace. What is less common is partisan hacks circling back like a dog to its own vomit and spending months of news cycles pumping up a cardboard outline as a real live bit of news.

by lapcat 2y ago

underseacables 2y ago

Tabloids? Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. I think the laptop story is a classic example of why people distrust a journalists. You had many media outlets, backed by government officials, essentially covering up for Hunter Biden and lying to the public. The laptop exists. It's contents exist. But for years all we heard was that this was a false flag operation from Russia. That was a lie

lapcat 2y ago
> Not when 51 intelligence professionals sign a letter, claiming the laptop to be false when in fact it was not. No, that's not what they said. Here's what they said: "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9... > The laptop exists. It's contents exist. So what? Several Republican-led Congressional committees found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden in the matter. So yes, it's nothing but a tabloid story.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- paleotrope 2y ago
  The cynicism in the 51s statement is what's wrong. And the media taking the expected cynical take. The 51 can say we didn't say it was fake we simply strongly implied it. And the media reported the implied lie. The media is either ignorant or more likely complicit.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > And the media reported the implied lie. The media reports a million lies verbatim, because politicians lie.
    - paleotrope 2y ago
      These 51 intelligence professionals were not supposed to be politicians, they are supposed to be "experts" in the field.

readthenotes1 2y ago

The laptop has emails communications showing that Hunter Biden was claiming that Joe Biden was involved in his business deals, contrary to what Joe Biden was saying. That was known to any journalists who chose not to report on it

defrost 2y ago
It was reported on at the time. At the time there were two clear and obvious issues; the provenance was sketchy (material may easily have been added or deleted), and the source (Hunter) was a drug addict. The "Yeah, my dad's totally on board with this" suffered from both, it may have been fake material added to discredit Biden (hindsight suggests not) OR (just as damning) it's the utterance of a crackhead bignoting an endeavour for credability. What followed was one partisan media wing endlessly blowing up nothing of substance into a fabricated conspiracy, the other arm either ignoring the nothing of substance or lamely addressing why it was nothing. You yourself acknowledge this in the framing you used: "showing that Hunter Biden was claiming that .." The two problematic italics were precisely why knowledgable and honest journalists chose to not endlessly report on it.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Journalists would have worked in your italicized parts, not busy the story
  - defrost 2y ago
    Yeah, they did work the italicized parts at the time .. with a sketchy evidence chain chasing back to the emails of a drug addict that was pretty much it for the day for journalists .. the new day saw plenty more stories with actual meat on the bone. That's an example of a story not going anywhere, it's commonplace. What is less common is partisan hacks circling back like a dog to its own vomit and spending months of news cycles pumping up a cardboard outline as a real live bit of news.