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talkpoliticsFirst, a disclaimer. We have not even seen the Mueller Report yet. And more and more people are saying that Robert Barr's summation of it simply cannot be trusted, because he is an obviously biased partisan.
Trump himself is highly contradictory on all of this, now saying that Mueller has conducted himself in an 'honorable' way, while spending the last two years claiming he has been on a witch-hunt, and still saying the whole thing has been 'treasonous'.
We are actually going to know very little until the full Mueller Report is released, so that Congress and the public can make up their own minds as to what the evidence shows.
Still, here's a good context piece from a few days ago. And a solid example of a journalist reviewing his own profession.
Journalism Dies in Self-Importance
"We are not talking about the Washington Post [or New York Times] of 50 years ago,” Koppel said. “We’re talking about organizations that . . . have decided, as organizations, that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.”
Both papers have in effect declared a state of emergency because of Trump and have granted themselves the editorial equivalent of dictatorial powers. Doing so may be as ill-advised with newspapers as with elected officials. When journalists don’t consider themselves bound to old norms of objectivity, there comes an absence of restraint that is inherently corrupting. The morning story conference takes on the atmosphere of a rally of zealots. The newspaper becomes the Pequod: President Trump is the white whale."
While Trump and his kleptocracy have not earned the right to have their words trusted, and we do indeed need to see the full report and hear from Mueller and Barr in Congress, it's also true that the media does badly need a Mueller style anal exam from its own peers:
Media stares down 'reckoning' after Mueller report underwhelms
"That Mueller concluded no one from Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia in attempting to influence the election has ramped up scrutiny of the news media’s handling of the two-year investigation. “The 3 biggest losers from the Mueller report in order — the media, the media, the media,” tweeted National Review editor Rich Lowry.
It’s not only prominent conservatives, the president’s TV boosters and family members calling out the media, but also some journalists on the left who have long been skeptical of the Trump-Russia story. “If there's no media reckoning for what they did, don't ever complain again when people attack the media as ‘Fake News’ or identify them as one of the country's most toxic and destructive forces,” wrote The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald."
This one might also give you a pause:
Apologies to President Trump
"Whatever his supposed flaws, the rampant accusations and speculation that shrouded Trump’s presidency, even before it began, ultimately have proven unfounded. Just as Trump said all along.
Yet, each time Trump said so, some of us in the media lampooned him. We treated any words he spoke in his own defense as if they were automatically to be disbelieved because he had uttered them. Some even declared his words to be “lies,” although they had no evidence to back up their claims.
We in the media allowed unproven charges and false accusations to dominate the news landscape for more than two years, in a way that was wildly unbalanced and disproportionate to the evidence.
We did a poor job of tracking down leaks of false information. We failed to reasonably weigh the motives of anonymous sources and those claiming to have secret, special evidence of Trump’s “treason.”
As such, we reported a tremendous amount of false information, always to Trump’s detriment.
And when we corrected our mistakes, we often doubled down more than we apologized. We may have been technically wrong on that tiny point, we would acknowledge. But, in the same breath, we would insist that Trump was so obviously guilty of being Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet that the technical details hardly mattered.
So, a round of apologies seem in order."
But context does matter, after all. Whether they did achieve their goal or not, the Trump campaign was actively trying to collude with Russia / Russian government officials. Don Jr. has publicly shared his emails proving that fact.
The lies of Trump told since his inauguration are within 7-8,000 now, and counting, and each and every one of them proven to be just that, a lie. So you may excuse me if I'm not prone to taking any of his further words at face value.
Just as I never believed that the investigation was about Trump personally, or that he would be indicted as an outcome of it, just the same way the "result" of the Mueller investigation - as claimed by Barr - does not change my view on Trump one iota.
No apologies are in order, for anything, no one did anything to Trump that would require an apology, no one "lied" intentionally, other than Trump himself, every day.
But bias in journalism does exist, and it needs to be addressed. Not for the sake of being fair and balanced, and principled - no. But because by losing its credibility, journalism as a whole would lose the ability to hold those in power accountable when it matters. Not to mention that this fiasco (if it indeed proves to be such) would suddenly put a lot of water into Trump's mill, come 2020.
Trump himself is highly contradictory on all of this, now saying that Mueller has conducted himself in an 'honorable' way, while spending the last two years claiming he has been on a witch-hunt, and still saying the whole thing has been 'treasonous'.
We are actually going to know very little until the full Mueller Report is released, so that Congress and the public can make up their own minds as to what the evidence shows.
Still, here's a good context piece from a few days ago. And a solid example of a journalist reviewing his own profession.
Journalism Dies in Self-Importance
"We are not talking about the Washington Post [or New York Times] of 50 years ago,” Koppel said. “We’re talking about organizations that . . . have decided, as organizations, that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.”
Both papers have in effect declared a state of emergency because of Trump and have granted themselves the editorial equivalent of dictatorial powers. Doing so may be as ill-advised with newspapers as with elected officials. When journalists don’t consider themselves bound to old norms of objectivity, there comes an absence of restraint that is inherently corrupting. The morning story conference takes on the atmosphere of a rally of zealots. The newspaper becomes the Pequod: President Trump is the white whale."
While Trump and his kleptocracy have not earned the right to have their words trusted, and we do indeed need to see the full report and hear from Mueller and Barr in Congress, it's also true that the media does badly need a Mueller style anal exam from its own peers:
Media stares down 'reckoning' after Mueller report underwhelms
"That Mueller concluded no one from Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia in attempting to influence the election has ramped up scrutiny of the news media’s handling of the two-year investigation. “The 3 biggest losers from the Mueller report in order — the media, the media, the media,” tweeted National Review editor Rich Lowry.
It’s not only prominent conservatives, the president’s TV boosters and family members calling out the media, but also some journalists on the left who have long been skeptical of the Trump-Russia story. “If there's no media reckoning for what they did, don't ever complain again when people attack the media as ‘Fake News’ or identify them as one of the country's most toxic and destructive forces,” wrote The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald."
This one might also give you a pause:
Apologies to President Trump
"Whatever his supposed flaws, the rampant accusations and speculation that shrouded Trump’s presidency, even before it began, ultimately have proven unfounded. Just as Trump said all along.
Yet, each time Trump said so, some of us in the media lampooned him. We treated any words he spoke in his own defense as if they were automatically to be disbelieved because he had uttered them. Some even declared his words to be “lies,” although they had no evidence to back up their claims.
We in the media allowed unproven charges and false accusations to dominate the news landscape for more than two years, in a way that was wildly unbalanced and disproportionate to the evidence.
We did a poor job of tracking down leaks of false information. We failed to reasonably weigh the motives of anonymous sources and those claiming to have secret, special evidence of Trump’s “treason.”
As such, we reported a tremendous amount of false information, always to Trump’s detriment.
And when we corrected our mistakes, we often doubled down more than we apologized. We may have been technically wrong on that tiny point, we would acknowledge. But, in the same breath, we would insist that Trump was so obviously guilty of being Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet that the technical details hardly mattered.
So, a round of apologies seem in order."
But context does matter, after all. Whether they did achieve their goal or not, the Trump campaign was actively trying to collude with Russia / Russian government officials. Don Jr. has publicly shared his emails proving that fact.
The lies of Trump told since his inauguration are within 7-8,000 now, and counting, and each and every one of them proven to be just that, a lie. So you may excuse me if I'm not prone to taking any of his further words at face value.
Just as I never believed that the investigation was about Trump personally, or that he would be indicted as an outcome of it, just the same way the "result" of the Mueller investigation - as claimed by Barr - does not change my view on Trump one iota.
No apologies are in order, for anything, no one did anything to Trump that would require an apology, no one "lied" intentionally, other than Trump himself, every day.
But bias in journalism does exist, and it needs to be addressed. Not for the sake of being fair and balanced, and principled - no. But because by losing its credibility, journalism as a whole would lose the ability to hold those in power accountable when it matters. Not to mention that this fiasco (if it indeed proves to be such) would suddenly put a lot of water into Trump's mill, come 2020.
(no subject)
Date: 28/3/19 11:25 (UTC)What about those who claimed to have evidence, like Schiff, Swalwell, Brennan?
Here's the question that has to be in the back of every Dems mind now -
Were your politicians and media duped along with you - or have they known the truth all along, and intentionally misled you?
(no subject)
Date: 28/3/19 11:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/3/19 11:33 (UTC)