I remember the first time it occurred to me that the mainstream media’s political coverage is hot garbage. I can’t even remember what occasioned the thought, but it was during the single term of the first George Bush. I’m sure it was egregiously bad before that, but that’s when I noticed.
So, as a reader/viewer who’s long believed that a Beltway reckoning for the terrible, awful, no-good political coverage is desperately needed, my eyes were drawn to a linked title from Axios, one of the worst current offenders: Epic Media Fail. Introspection? Please and thank you! Oh wait…
A reckoning is hitting news organizations for years-old coverage of the 2017 Steele dossier, after the document’s primary source was charged with lying to the FBI.
Why it matters: It’s one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history, and the media’s response to its own mistakes has so far been tepid.
You know what’s been motherfucking tepid — or actually nonexistent in most cases? Any introspection about mainstream media outlets’ collaboration with known right-wing extremists to kneecap Hillary Clinton and elevate a walking collection of untreated personality disorders to the Oval Office. The New York Times was an especially irresponsible party in that shameful enterprise.
For example, it was distinctly unhelpful for that outlet to allow nitwit political reporters to project their personal psychodramas onto candidates and build brands by squirreling away tidbits for books to be published in the catastrophic aftermath. It was and remains nauseating. But back to the current “reckoning.”
Outsized coverage of the unvetted document drove a media frenzy at the start of Donald Trump’s presidency that helped drive a narrative of collusion between former President Trump and Russia.
Oh for fuck’s sweet sake, for real? The “narrative of collusion” got a big assist early in the campaign when then-candidate Trump went on national television and asked the Russians to hack Clinton’s email, which they promptly did. It was further established when Trump’s idiot namesake fail-son gushed, “If it’s what you say, I love it!” in response to an offer of oppo dirt from Russia. And it was etched in stone and then plated with gold when Trump busted out the shine box and polished Putin’s wingtips before a worldwide audience in Helsinki. Also:
It also helped drive an even bigger wedge between former President Trump and the press at the very beginning of his presidency.
I’m just a humble reader/viewer, but I think the “wedge between former President Trump and the press” might have first formed when the demagogue directed a Two Minutes Hate at the press pen at every pre-presidential rally. It may have hardened on Trump’s first day in office when his press secretary angrily and aggressively lied to assembled reporters about the poorly attended inauguration.
It’s so perversely in character — when the shittiest Villagers finally embrace introspection, they conclude they were too skeptical of and critical toward Donald Fucking Trump. Open thread.
zhena gogolia
That is depressing as hell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I caught the tail end of an NPR story on this, how the Steele dossier was full of speculation about trump’s sex life— I recall one story about trump’s sex life– and they concluded with no evidence of collusion was ever found. Nobody in the pre-interview or whatever ever said, “Well you know, “collusion” is not a legal term, there was lots of collusion, just none that Meuller concluded was convict-able evidence of the legal definition of conspiracy, which is a different thing”
Major Major Major Major
It’s so bizarre to me that people are still able to successfully push the “no collusion” narrative considering that Ron fucking Johnson of all people found… frequent collaboration between a high level campaign operative and Russian intelligence. So many people have never even heard of the senate report! The media lives on another planet.
SpaceUnit
The press has yet to explain why you couldn’t turn over a rock anywhere near an actual American president without finding a bunch of Russian mobsters scurrying around.
I guess it was just a weird coincidence.
Soprano2
I’ve been told by right wingers that lying to the FBI isn’t a serious crime. ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
along these lines
there was a story from Omarosa Whosits about trump eating a piece of paper after a meeting, which I only find hard to believe because of the source, not the content
SFAW
Fixed
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He was told there was paste on it.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Beltway press do two things:
1) Shit
2) Cover up said shit
They’re great at the former and much worse than cats at the latter.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Right? It turns out you don’t have to withhold findings or release them in the dead of night during a holiday weekend to bury them. Bill Barr showed the way: lie about the contents of the report. No one will bother reading it — not even people whose job it is to do so.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@SFAW: Yuck! You could have left it broken, you know.
dopey-o
When the Republican-led SSCI released their Trump / Russia report prior to the 2020 election, i wrote to Sen. Blunt and asked about co-ordination. He replied that there was evidence of co-ordination, and evidence against co-ordination.
IIRC, Mueller didn’t further investigate 123 instances, because evidence was destroyed by uncooperative witnesses. And Wm. Barr was AG.
”You could look it up.” James Thurber, predicting the Internets.
Bill Arnold
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
These are people who did not read the Steele work, a 35-page easy read that I read carefully over a long coffee break.
Gah.
They are so willfully lazy. If Trump seriously attempts to re-ascend to the throne, there is a significant possibility that information solidly supporting parts of it will emerge. At which point the beltway press will do an emergency evasive pivot, with the gaslights on full.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Another aspect that has been memory holed: Trump’s own AG recused himself from the FBI investigation into Russian interference (because he was a person of interest), and his Republican acting deputy started the Mueller investigation. This was quite possibly that walking Confederate monument’s sole act of civic duty in a very long career, and everyone blames it on Pelosi or Schiff!
Eolirin
Also, is anyone going to tell us what this guy lied to the FBI about? And whether it was in any way pertinent to the information in the dossier? How the fuck are we jumping from this guy lied to the feds to this discredits the dossier?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Jesus fucking Christ, this is what Jon Stewart was ranting about the press thinks they are part of the administration.
Urban Suburbanite
So the courtiers at Axios are praising themselves for believing in exactly what Durham was employed to do – sow doubt about Sniffles being a Russian handpuppet. It doesn’t matter that Durham’s case is weak as hell, and that this is the only thing his investigation has found – these professional sycophants have their precious access secured. That’s going to be real helpful when they want to bask in the presence of some lipless up and coming fascist.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, what I got of Mueller was Trump was way to easy to manipulate and the Russians never felt the need to bother with any secret conspiracy with Trump.
James E Powell
The “wedge between former President Trump and the press” was always more apparent than real. They loved him from the very first. They still do.
Bill Arnold
@Eolirin:
Also , the Trump administration, especially including Trump himself, lied without respite. Daily. The WaPo meticulously recorded over 20000 Trump lies over the course of his presidency. Their denials about collusion with/tight links with the Russians have near-zero information value. Well, maybe slightly negative since they always lied.
Eolirin
@Bill Arnold: The absolute lack of self awareness is staggering. They’re committing the exact same error about jumping on a narrative without sufficient investigation and context that they’re lamenting having done with the dossier.
Without knowing what the specifics of the lie he’s being charged with are there’s no way to evaluate the appropriateness of the previous coverage.
Omnes Omnibus
@James E Powell: He was fun and easy to report about. No need for policy chops. No need to parse nuance. Just report what the funny man did. Could characterize it as gauche or tacky if needed or be aspirational man of the people about it for variety (or to suit your publication).
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mueller’s team might have closed the circle if they could have broken Roger Stone. He left the trump campaign team in the summer of 2020. There was no explaination given at the time, but in hindsight it looks like Stone dropped back because he was a conduit between Russia and Trump.
Stone also appears to have been a connection between Trump and radical militia groups that led the 1/6 Insurrection. Stone was filmed talking to some Oathkeepers in front of the Willard Hotel that morning (I think he flew out of DC that afternoon). And there are reports that Stone was initiated as a Proud Boy.
Librarian
@dopey-o: Wasn’t that Yogi Berra?
David Fud
When do these assholes ever even bother to go back 4 YEARS to talk about anything? They are helping to rehab TFG and we haven’t even finished year one of Biden’s administration. What a bunch of cheerleaders permanently stuck on the same narratives – they never report facts, ever. It is no wonder that Millennials side-eye every single thing from the press, the government, religious leaders, and any authorities whatsoever: these assholes can’t ever stop with their propaganda.
Brachiator
This is horse shit.
Yep. Trump not only sought to demonize and neuter the press, but he also played to the national paper of record, the New York Times, which was so flattered and so desperate for exclusive coverage, that they eagerly abandoned any pretense to practice journalism.
sukabi
@Major Major Major Major: they don’t “live on another planet”, that’s giving them too much credit for being incompetent no nothings. At some point, hopefully soon, folks will realize that they’re willing participants in a huge propaganda operation funded and organized by the very wealthy….
Mike in NC
I ordered Jon Karl’s “Betrayal” several weeks ago because I can’t seem to read enough about Brad Parscale’s insanely screwed up rally in Tulsa.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: I’m to the point that I’ll laugh when these fascist enablers are swinging from Trumpist gallows…”but we treated you guys fairly…” Clearly no one expects the Spanish Inquisition and yet
quakerinabasement
For me, it was when they unquestioningly repeated the “Iraqis dumped babies from their incubators” story. That story shouted “propaganda” right from the start.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As I recall, the Meuller report was ‘Here are a pile of connections between Trump and Russia. It is not my job to indict a sitting president. That is congress’s job.’ He did prove collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, although it was not as direct ‘Trump and Putin talk on the phone’ direct as a lot of people assumed it would be.’
Marmot
Haaa haaa haaa Tell it to Al Gore, “inventor of the Internet.”
Skepticat
@Eolirin: Thanks for asking a question I wondered about. Not that anyone will get any straight answers about anything, of course.
surfk9
People interested in the Durham indictments should follow Emptywheel on Twitter. Marcy has been all over the case and Durhams smoke and mirrors.
Betty Cracker
@Marmot: Also, the run-up to the Iraq War. Egregious errors that contributed to untold death and misery.
Betty Cracker
@surfk9: Seconded. She’s all over that story.
laura
Comes now Hugh Hewitt to the editorial pages of the Post to opine about the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn Roe and return our non-existent so-called “right to privacy” to the states. I hadn’t planned to spend the remainder of my days being forced to burn the patriarchy to the fucking ground, but I guess I’ll be spending the remainder of my days to burning the patriarchy to the fucking ground.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Urban Suburbanite:
When they get the Boston Globe newsroom treatment from Handmaid’s Tale authoritarians they’re empowering, I can’t say I’ll be sad.
Let them shriek “but we were FAAAAAAAIR to BOTH SIDES” from the wall as camo-clad neckbeard Oafcreepers open fire.
Tehanu
Yet another excellent add to my “Nicknames for Dump” list, Betty!
zhena gogolia
@Frankensteinbeck: Exactly. Mueller did his job. The report is formidable.
laura
@Betty Cracker: and for those who dont want to twitter, she’s conveniently got her blog emptywheel.net for easy reading and links.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
These fucking people…
opiejeanne
This is so far off-topic that it’s not even in the same building, but do any of you remember who the woman was who wrote a book about her harrowing experience in an African country during a time of extreme unrest, (Congo?) and it turned out she wasn’t anywhere near the turmoil because she was in a different country and completely safe for most of her stay, but wasn’t near the fighting at all.
I am wracking my brain to remember who that was, because I think she wound up in the Trump administration for at least a Scaramucci.
James E Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
True. Trump has been dishonest & corrupt his entire life. It’s not likely he is going to have direct contact with anyone. He’s going to use buffers. The family had a lot of buffers.
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
And ultimately, no need to be concerned about the consequences of his acts & omissions. None of it will impact them, their families, or their businesses.
Everyone who cuts taxes on rich people gets favorable coverage.
Hoodie
@Omnes Omnibus: And no end of source material for scandal expose books to make some quick bucks and appear on the talk shows. Trump brought out the worst in journalist careerism.
Mike E
And, of course, CNN have pushed all of their chips into the middle of the table to lock up the coveted Fox News Lite title, and the rest of the mainstream outlets will let them because a) it gives them cover to fcuk over Biden too, and b) collusion is perfectly okay, all the cool corporations are doing it!
germy
@opiejeanne:
Louise Linton
prostratedragon
@laura:
@Betty Cracker:
@surfk9:
I went there as soon as I saw Betty’s topic and immediatly found this from Friday.
I try to avoid poking around Axios if I can, but looked at the cited article and saw no reference even to the name of the person indicted, let alone for what, and no reference to a major article containing those things to which “Epic Fail” might be a commentary. Kinda smearish.
Ruckus
@David Fud:
Facts they can’t control and often are not on their side.
Bullshit is easier to control and as it has no basis in fact that makes it harder to refute, as long as no one has access to the actual truth or it’s got so much bullshit piled on top of the truth that when it’s unearthed it still smells like bullshit.
Edmund Dantes
@Eolirin: beltway media is built for GOP daddies.
Starfish
Presenting the connections between Trump and Russia as “a narrative” paints a very broad brush over a lot of stuff.
We would all remember the meeting with Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Kislyak if we did not have the minds of goldfish.
I think the Trump Alfa-Bank stuff has been disproved.
The home of Oleg Deripaska would not be searched if there was nothing there.
Mike in Pasadena
Continuing the media fail, Business Insider reports that in Jon Karl’s interview with trump (herinafter “TFG”) that TFG said he would have won if Rethuglican leadership had fought harder for him. “Now they have nothing.”
Just a thought: Allegedly, TFG’s claims of fraud in the Georgia Presidential elections caused disillusion amongst R voters who stayed home from the Georgia Senate elections in January. Result: 2 more Democratic senators. There has been speculation that D voters were disillusioned by Bernie Sanders’ claims that D party elites favoring Hillary caused her win in the primaries. That disillusionment caused some D voters to not vote for Hillary in the 2016 general. Result: TFG wins. Here’s the thought: Could people create Facebook pages supporting lots of R party primary candidates, preferably both or more R primary candidates for each office. Lard those supporting pages with lots of logos for TFG. No matter which R candidate loses the primary, Facebook pages claim for the loser “fraud caused the loss.” The more outrageous the claims the better since Facebook’s algorithms favor controversy. Would such an effort help discourage R turnout in the 2022 general election and if the the fraud claims were kept alive through ’22 and ’23, might that discourage R turnout in ’24? Just a thought, I would never propose such a thing.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
practice journalism
I think they would believe they screwed up absolutely if the FTFNYT ever even tried to practice journalism. At best they sell a lifestyle of opulence, decadence and money. They abhor any concept that doesn’t meet that lifestyle.
Viva BrisVegas
The concern of the media should be with Durham. After years of investigations all he has been able to do is snare Sussman and Danchenko on extremely weak counts of lying to the FBI. Both have or will plead not guilty. Charges for both depend on a very generous legal interpretation of “lying”.
Durham may or may not get his railroaded convictions, but he does get to change the narrative around the Steele dossier, mainly thanks to an incredulous and incurious media. Barr would be so proud.
zhena gogolia
@germy: Wife of Mnuchin, right?
jonas
Peter Strzok — who himself is not an entirely reliable narrator — observes in his book is that the problem with the Steele dossier is that it functioned, even if it hadn’t been intended as such, as a a classic ratfuck operation a la the TANG papers for GWB (my comparison, not his). It was a bunch of very sketchy and unverified intelligence that, when leaked, immediately sucked up all the oxygen in the room, successfully distracting the media and intelligence agencies from the fact that Trump’s campaign manager, Manafort, was in fact *actively colluding* with known Russian agents to share campaign and other political intelligence. We still don’t fully understand the scope of that because of the still much-redacted Mueller report and Manafort’s pardon.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Yes.
Also she wrote, directed, and starred in her latest film.
It didn’t get good reviews.
Villago Delenda Est
Axios, the new, improved Tiger Beat on the Potomac. And it finally hit me that the Village was hot garbage during the Reagan malasstration, when they overlooked his senility to bend the knee. It only got worse during the Clinton years where a scandal was created out of whole cloth by the fuckwits of the Vichy Times, in particular the incompetent “journalist” called Jeff Gerth, who also fell for wingnut sources to djinn up his WenHo Lee scandal story.
Geminid
@Mike in Pasadena: Looney lawyer Lin Wood actually told Georgia Republicans to stay home rather vote in the runoffs. He said they were rigged. I don’t know how many listened to Wood, but in the event Republican votes dropped by about 200,000, while the Democratic vote dropped by half that.
After the general election, a lot of people thought Perdue and Loeffler had their runoffs in the bag because historically, Republicans have had better turnout in Georgia runoff elections. But not this time.
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: I remember a picture from a few months into the trump administration, that showed Louise Linton and her Treasury Secretary husband holding up a sheet of $100 bills. They were visiting the Government printing office. Linton had long leather gloves on, and the two looked like a pair of Disney villains.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: It was okay though. She paid more in taxes than her critics. Her views, not mine.*
*She did apologize for her insensitivity.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid:
vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/steve-mnuchin-bond-villain
I didn’t know about the Congo book.
Xantar
Speaking of media failures, I read an article about surging case rates across Europe. It wasn’t until the 9th paragraph that the article acknowledged that while case counts are rising, death counts and hospitalization aren’t.
Innumeracy will be the death of us all.
Regulon
@opiejeanne: In Congo’s Shadow Louise Linton
ETA: Sorry, did not see already answered.
sab
@germy: Oh my gosh, Mrs. Steve Mnuchin?
Frankensteinbeck
@James E Powell:
Also as I recall, the Russian attitude was that Trump was so fucking stupid and easily manipulated, they didn’t have to be direct.
jeffreyw
@sukabi:
QFT This needs to be said over and over.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: As Cab Calloway might sing:
“Folks, here’s a story ’bout Louis Mnuchin,
She made her money hoochi-coochin’,
She was the richest, bitchest frail,
And Louise had a heart that was as sharp as a nail.
Hidee-hi dee hi…Hidee-ho dee ho,
Yeah! Louise had a heart that was as sharp as nail.”
topclimber
@Marmot:
It’s why I blame AG for Facebook. I don’t think its works without an internet.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Hee-de-hee-de-hee-de-hee!
J R in WV
@quakerinabasement:
IIRC, the “witness” to that claim was a member of the Kuwaiti “royal” family, helping to save her family’s private nation. I don’t actually believe in “royalty” at all — didn’t we fight a revolution to get shut of that whole idea?
Part of why I’m not fond of the current fascination with the British “royalty” — they got to be royalty by killing all the alternative rulers, right? Best killers must be denoted by gawd, right? Nope!
J R in WV
@Starfish:I think the Trump Alfa-Bank stuff has been disproved.
Nope. It has been confirmed, but since it was encrypted data transmissions, we can’t say what exactly was going on, just that we know there was a secure data link between Trump-world and Moscow-based Alfa Bank.
Which is confirmation of one secure link between Russia and Trump Corp…
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: Yes, you are the very best anti-monarchist here. Congrats.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks !! (I suspect a tongue in cheek here?) You’re welcome (yes, my tongue is also in cheek!)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV:
LongHairedWeirdo
Lemme get this straight: Donald Trump abused the Presidency in *precisely* the way the founders were most afraid of, incidentally breaking laws, and abusing privilege to cover up for wrongdoing, and the newspapers reported it as “OH THE STRONG MAN MITCH MCCONNELL convinced Republicans to let him skate! What political acumen! For, indeed, it was solely the Democrats who swore an oath to see impartial justice done – SUCKERS! – the Republicans all had their fingers crossed.
Then the Republicans hijacked the state of the union, while Trump showed egregious dereliction of duty, causing the deaths of tens of thousands, and he and the Republicans continued to lie about a deadly pandemic, with no major publishers daring to come right out and say “they are pushing deadly misinformation”.
Then the media once again acted like “big strong McConnell held his caucus together again, in the face of an actual attempt to seize control of the Presidency! What a STRONG LEADER! After all, on the Democrats are held to account for giving a damn about this nation.”
And their reporting on some sizzling rumors, gathered in good faith, with about a tenth of the intensity of butter-e-mails, is on a par with these media failures?
I think the thing that bugs me most about journalists covering the American political scene is this: they don’t think words matter any more. If someone talks about a “draconian vaccine mandate,” the reporters neither question “draconian” nor mention that there is no “vaccine mandate” – merely vaccine, or regular testing. So “egregious” doesn’t actually mean especially bad/wrong, it just means someone checked the E section for a filler.
opiejeanne
@germy: Thank you! I kept thinking it was MacANinny.
Jazzman
I remember that photo. Some Internet wag came up with the caption “Louise Linton, captured posing with the love of her life. Also pictured: Her husband.”
Gretchen
@Jazzman: Hahahaha. I hadn’t heard that one!