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Matt Taibbi's essay, "It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD"
GrundleStiltzkin
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in Tug Tavern
It's been mentioned here a tim or two, and it's all over media, uh, social media. I know next to nothing about Matt Taibbi but seems doubtful he's #TeamMAGA. In fact, on a subject intrinsically about Trump, his essay says little about Trump the man or president. This is an absolute scouring of press practices. I found little I disagreed with, which is somewhat troubling.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million
Read the whole thing. Here's some choice cuts.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million
Read the whole thing. Here's some choice cuts.
Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt.”
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.
Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is making it worse.
In January of 2017, Steele’s pile of allegations became public, read by millions. “It is not just unconfirmed,” Buzzfeed admitted. “It includes some clear errors.”
Buzzfeed’s decision exploded traditional journalistic standards against knowingly publishing material whose veracity you doubt. Although a few media ethicists wondered at it, this seemed not to bother the rank-and-file in the business. Buzzfeed chief Ben Smith is still proud of his decision today. I think this was because many reporters believed the report was true.
Buzzfeed’s decision exploded traditional journalistic standards against knowingly publishing material whose veracity you doubt. Although a few media ethicists wondered at it, this seemed not to bother the rank-and-file in the business. Buzzfeed chief Ben Smith is still proud of his decision today. I think this was because many reporters believed the report was true.
The Steele report was the Magna Carta of #Russiagate. It provided the implied context for thousands of news stories to come, yet no journalist was ever able to confirm its most salacious allegations: the five year cultivation plan, the blackmail, the bribe from Sechin, the Prague trip, the pee romp, etc. In metaphorical terms, we were unable to independently produce Steele’s results in the lab. Failure to reckon with this corrupted the narrative from the start.
For years, every hint the dossier might be true became a banner headline, while every time doubt was cast on Steele’s revelations, the press was quiet. Washington Post reporter Greg Miller had a team looking for evidence Cohen had been in Prague. Reporters, Miller said, “literally spent weeks and months trying to run down” the Cohen story.
“We sent reporters through every hotel in Prague, through all over the place, just to try to figure out if he was ever there,” he said, “and came away empty.”
This was heads-I-win, tails-you-lose reporting. One assumes if Miller’s crew found Cohen’s name in a hotel ledger, it would have been on page 1 of the Post. The converse didn’t get a mention in Miller’s own paper. He only told the story during a discussion aired by C-SPAN about a new book he’d published. Only The Daily Caller and a few conservative blogs picked it up.*
For years, every hint the dossier might be true became a banner headline, while every time doubt was cast on Steele’s revelations, the press was quiet. Washington Post reporter Greg Miller had a team looking for evidence Cohen had been in Prague. Reporters, Miller said, “literally spent weeks and months trying to run down” the Cohen story.
“We sent reporters through every hotel in Prague, through all over the place, just to try to figure out if he was ever there,” he said, “and came away empty.”
This was heads-I-win, tails-you-lose reporting. One assumes if Miller’s crew found Cohen’s name in a hotel ledger, it would have been on page 1 of the Post. The converse didn’t get a mention in Miller’s own paper. He only told the story during a discussion aired by C-SPAN about a new book he’d published. Only The Daily Caller and a few conservative blogs picked it up.*
In its FISA application, the FBI included both the unconfirmed Steele report and Isikoff’s September 23, 2016 Yahoo! story, “U.S. Intel Officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin.” The Isikoff story, which claimed Page had met with “high ranking sanctioned officials” in Russia, had relied upon Steele as an unnamed source.
This was similar to a laundering technique used in the WMD episode called “stove-piping,” i.e. officials using the press to “confirm” information the officials themselves fed the reporter.
But there was virtually no non-conservative press about this problem apart from a Washington Post story pooh-poohing the issue. (Every news story that casts any doubt on the collusion issue seems to meet with an instantaneous “fact check” in the Post.) The Post insisted the FISA issue wasn’t serious among other things because Steele was not the “foundation” of Isikoff’s piece.
This was similar to a laundering technique used in the WMD episode called “stove-piping,” i.e. officials using the press to “confirm” information the officials themselves fed the reporter.
But there was virtually no non-conservative press about this problem apart from a Washington Post story pooh-poohing the issue. (Every news story that casts any doubt on the collusion issue seems to meet with an instantaneous “fact check” in the Post.) The Post insisted the FISA issue wasn’t serious among other things because Steele was not the “foundation” of Isikoff’s piece.
This has been a consistent pattern throughout #Russiagate. Step one: salacious headline. Step two, days or weeks later: news emerges the story is shakier than first believed. Step three (in the best case) involves the story being walked back or retracted by the same publication.
That’s been rare. More often, when explosive #Russiagate headlines go sideways, the original outlets simply ignore the new development, leaving the “retraction” process to conservative outlets that don’t reach the original audiences.
That’s been rare. More often, when explosive #Russiagate headlines go sideways, the original outlets simply ignore the new development, leaving the “retraction” process to conservative outlets that don’t reach the original audiences.
Years ago, in the midst of the WMD affair, Times public editor Daniel Okrent noted the paper’s standard had moved from “Don’t get it first, get it right” to “Get it first and get it right.” From there, Okrent wrote, “the next devolution was an obvious one.”
We’re at that next devolution: first and wrong. The Russiagate era has so degraded journalism that even once “reputable” outlets are now only about as right as politicians, which is to say barely ever, and then only by accident.
Early on, I was so amazed by the sheer quantity of Russia “bombshells” being walked back, I started to keep a list. It’s well above 50 stories now. As has been noted by Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept and others, if the mistakes were random, you’d expect them in both directions, but Russiagate errors uniformly go the same way.
We’re at that next devolution: first and wrong. The Russiagate era has so degraded journalism that even once “reputable” outlets are now only about as right as politicians, which is to say barely ever, and then only by accident.
Early on, I was so amazed by the sheer quantity of Russia “bombshells” being walked back, I started to keep a list. It’s well above 50 stories now. As has been noted by Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept and others, if the mistakes were random, you’d expect them in both directions, but Russiagate errors uniformly go the same way.
Russiagate institutionalized one of the worst ethical loopholes in journalism, which used to be limited mainly to local crime reporting. It’s always been a problem that we publish mugshots and names of people merely arrested but not yet found guilty. Those stories live forever online and even the acquitted end up permanently unable to get jobs, smeared as thieves, wife-beaters, drunk drivers, etc.
With Russiagate the national press abandoned any pretense that there’s a difference between indictment and conviction. The most disturbing story involved Maria Butina. Here authorities and the press shared responsibility. Thanks to an indictment that initially said the Russian traded sex for favors, the Times and other outlets flooded the news cycle with breathless stories about a redheaded slut-temptress come to undermine democracy, a “real-life Red Sparrow,” as ABC put it.
But a judge threw out the sex charge after “five minutes” when it turned out to be based on a single joke text to a friend who had taken Butina’s car for inspection.
With Russiagate the national press abandoned any pretense that there’s a difference between indictment and conviction. The most disturbing story involved Maria Butina. Here authorities and the press shared responsibility. Thanks to an indictment that initially said the Russian traded sex for favors, the Times and other outlets flooded the news cycle with breathless stories about a redheaded slut-temptress come to undermine democracy, a “real-life Red Sparrow,” as ABC put it.
But a judge threw out the sex charge after “five minutes” when it turned out to be based on a single joke text to a friend who had taken Butina’s car for inspection.
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Comments
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Forgot a couple other gems.It’s a mania. Putin is literally in our underpants. Maybe, if we’re lucky, New York might someday admit its report claiming Russians set up an anti-masturbation hotline to trap and blackmail random Americans is suspicious, not just because it seems absurd on its face, but because its source is the same “New Knowledge” group that admitted to faking Russian influence operations in Alabama.The WMD mess had massive real-world negative impact, leading to over a hundred thousand deaths and trillions in lost taxpayer dollars. Unless Russiagate leads to a nuclear conflict, we’re unlikely to ever see that level of consequence.
Still, Russiagate has led to unprecedented cooperation between the government and Internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, all of which are censoring pages on the left, right, and in between in the name of preventing the “sowing of discord.” The story also had a profound impact on the situation in places like Syria, where Russian and American troops have sat across the Euphrates River from one another, two amped-up nuclear powers at a crossroads.
As a purely journalistic failure, however, WMD was a pimple compared to Russiagate. The sheer scale of the errors and exaggerations this time around dwarfs the last mess. Worse, it’s led to most journalists accepting a radical change in mission. We’ve become sides-choosers, obliterating the concept of the press as an independent institution whose primary role is sorting fact and fiction. -
I thought about posting it here yesterday but I knew none of you plebs would actually read it because it's longer than a tweet
Plus I'm not sure how you wouldn't know who he is if you follow politics. Unless you just live in an echo chamber. -
I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face. -
I think it's more a symptom of profit-driven media than of any political agenda, although obviously there is some of that. He's talked about it in other places. The New Yorker infamously wouldn't even allow sales people on their editorial floor. Now tv news networks brag about being the most watched.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face. -
This is a valid poont. Everyone thinks that internet content should be free (hi Hondo) so if you have a model based on clicks to drive ad revenue the incentives are all fucked up.MariotaTheGawd said:
I think it's more a symptom of profit-driven media than of any political agenda, although obviously there is some of that. He's talked about it in other places. The New Yorker infamously wouldn't even allow sales people on their editorial floor. Now tv news networks brag about being the most watched.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face. -
We've come full circle back to the paper baron days of yellow journalism. What's old is new again.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face. -
UW_Doog_Bot said:
We've come full circle back to the paper baron days of yellow journalism. What's old is new again.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face.
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The primary marketed value proposition of the mainline media organizations—in the social media era—is their commitment to real journalistic principles. They've whored that away.UW_Doog_Bot said:
We've come full circle back to the paper baron days of yellow journalism. What's old is new again.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face. -
You wouldMariotaTheGawd said:
I think it's more a symptom of profit-driven media than of any political agenda, although obviously there is some of that. He's talked about it in other places. The New Yorker infamously wouldn't even allow sales people on their editorial floor. Now tv news networks brag about being the most watched.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face.
If it was profit driven CNN and MSNBC would be like Fox who kicks their ass
They were anti Trump all the time because of their political views. They hired hacks like Brennan and the rest to echo that view day and night
They deserve all the shame and mockery they get. From wherever it comes -
And you don't care that Fox was anti Obama? Turns out there's a lot of conservative dicksuckers who want the message that liberals are coming for all that is right in America. And that's what Fox sells very well.RaceBannon said:
You wouldMariotaTheGawd said:
I think it's more a symptom of profit-driven media than of any political agenda, although obviously there is some of that. He's talked about it in other places. The New Yorker infamously wouldn't even allow sales people on their editorial floor. Now tv news networks brag about being the most watched.YellowSnow said:I read it yesterday. I've also listened to his pod with Sam Harris. He's definitely not team #MAGA.
While I will continue to disagree with many here on "attempted coups" , I would agree that many in the media got way out ahead of evidence being collected and have a shit ton of egg on the face.
If it was profit driven CNN and MSNBC would be like Fox who kicks their ass
They were anti Trump all the time because of their political views. They hired hacks like Brennan and the rest to echo that view day and night
They deserve all the shame and mockery they get. From wherever it comes
