WTF. The NY Times seems to have deleted an accurate story on the forum & replaced it with one that’s not https://t.co/OxIYxM3Bah HT @jbarro
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) September 8, 2016
Murphy the Trickster God bless Newsdiffs! I don’t have the tech skills for a screen shot, so you’ll have to click over to see the color-coded, line-by-line “revision” the NYTimes tried to pull off. To a non-professional observer — and also some of the professionals — it looks like Alexander Burns’ honest description of the event (highlighted in pink) was replaced by Patrick Healy’s (predictable) attack-HRC-kiss-up-to-Trump hit piece (highlighted in green). Except the NYTimes would like to pretend the original article never existed, for some reason.
I'd note, unpublishing an entire news article would violate Business Insider's editorial standards, and those of most publications.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 8, 2016
And this … "shifting stands." Are you f****ing kidding me? Trump's stand on Iraq hasn't shifted. HE IS LYING pic.twitter.com/EPyfprvWaY
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) September 8, 2016
+++++++++++
Matt Lauer’s taking some well-deserved abuse, as well…
Lauer: “Did you learn new things?” Thats the question. That’s the fucking question.
— Lauren Katzenberg (@Lkatzenberg) September 8, 2016
Trump got multiple deferments, mocked POW, attacked Gold Star family. Yet Lauer doesn't bring up at veterans event: https://t.co/1r41csEmi6
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) September 8, 2016
Hadas Gold, in Politico, “Media turn on Lauer for not fact-checking Trump“:
… “The main thing is: I have great judgment,” Trump said in response to a question as what he has done in his life that prepared him to send America’s men and women into harm’s way. “I heard Hillary Clinton say I was not against the war in Iraq. I was totally against the war in Iraq. You can look at Esquire magazine from 2004. You can look at before that. And I was against the war in Iraq, I said it’s going to totally destabilize the Middle East, which it has. It’s been a disastrous war. And perhaps almost as bad was the way Barack Obama got out. That was a disaster.”
According to fact checks by several news organizations — particularly BuzzFeed and others like PolitiFact —Trump did, in fact, support the Iraq war in 2002. But Lauer, co-host of NBC’s “Today” show, immediately moved on, asking Trump about his temperament.“So Lauer didn’t correct Trump on his record about Iraq?” The Washington Post’s Phil Rucker tweeted.
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof wrote that the forum was “an embarrassment to journalism,” while his colleague Paul Krugman wrote that “everyone knew this would happen,” but Lauer didn’t “have a follow-up planned” for Trump’s answer.
“I hate media-on-media violence, but Trump’s support for the invasion of Iraq has been. .. rather well documented. No Lauer follow-up?” wrote Yahoo News’ Olivier Knox.
NBC News’ own political unit fact-checked Trump’s claim later, calling it “false”…
One thing we can all agree on is that Matt Lauer is terrible. Bad format, I know, but still terrible
— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) September 8, 2016
Lauer says the night was a "success"
Fact check: Pants on fire
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 8, 2016
After that forum & Chris Wallace saying he won't call out lies as moderator, what's the incentive not to make up stuff wholesale at debates?
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) September 8, 2016
redshirt
What check on the media do the people have if billionaires and corporations want to fund them?
Rabble Arouser
I would say that the disappearing stories are doublesplusungood.
Major Major Major Major
OK, starting to believe the conspiracy theories about the Times now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Haven’t you read “The Hunting of the President”?
Mary G
I read the NYT story and thought, well, it starts with the obligatory “both sides do it” disclaimer, but after that it’s pretty decent. Then I saw some commenter complaint about it, went back and it’s gone. WTF? If the public editor doesn’t explain it, I’m cancelling my subscription I just got.
James E Powell
And another thing.
I’m reading several members of the media defending/excusing Lauer with “It’s legitimate to ask questions about emails” but the fact is, neither Lauer nor the audience member “asked her about emails.” Instead, they used conclusory statements about the emails to set up as “Doesn’t that disqualify you from being president?” slam. Read the transcript.
Lauer : Why wasn’t it more than a mistake? Why wasn’t it disqualifying, if you want to be commander-in- chief?
Audience member: Secretary Clinton, how can you expect those such as myself who were and are entrusted with America’s most sensitive information to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security?
[NB – There is no evidence that Clinton “clearly corrupted our national security” but I guess since he wears a uniform it doesn’t have to be true or even plausible.]
Neither of these two questions is “about emails” – They’re just giving her shit.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No, I haven’t read every book. I just am a pretty firm believer in Hanlon’s Razor.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: The Times, they are about to change.
akryan
If these guys don’t start getting a little tough on Trump they may just end up with him. With his views on freedom of speech and libel laws, that should terrify everyone in the press.
piratedan
what is absolutely mindfuckingly incredible is that before this town hall, we had many members of the Media admitting that they will be judging this forum on a curve. Yes, a curve. Because Mr. Trump has never held elective office and due to his past history of using his adeptness of rambling incoherence to his benefit during the months long primary process, they will be judging his responses on a curve.
Two fucking months before a national election. Trump will be graded on a curve for his performance…
it boggles the fucking mind…
If, we somehow elect Ms. Clinton to the highest office in the land, I would propose that she do the same with the media, they will be allowed to ask questions on subjects, once they have actually mastered what those subjects are.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: That’s one you SHOULD read.
Major Major Major Major
What’s funny is I read that first article and thought it was alright, and I was like, OK, the Times did an OK job with this one. And then it got replaced.
Frankensteinbeck
Hmmm. I would not call the replacement (green) article a hit piece on Clinton or a kiss-up to Trump… if it existed without context. It is a very ‘both sides were challenged in this way’ mildly negative equivalence article. Of course, after Trump’s performance tonight, an attempt to present him as equally respectable with Clinton is blatant hackery. The original article wasn’t friendly to Clinton, but it was much more critical of Trump, and much clearer that Trump lied. Neither article highlighted any of the most insane things Trump said. The exception there is that the green version did mention Trump’s claim that his intelligence briefers criticized Obama and Clinton. The article called it ‘a classic Trump moment – a dark insinuation without evidence.’
amk
Is Tom around?
Yet another proof fourth estate is fifth columnist.
sukabi
@James E Powell: wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the audience members asking Hillary email questions weren’t fed those questions to ask her.
Didn’t watch, just been perusing these threads… what were the major differences between the audience members questions to Clinton and trump… ie, did the audience seem neutral, pro trump or pro Hillary?
Mary G
The Times is gonna have some explaining to do – Alexander Burns is actually trending on Twitter because so many people are asking him what happened to his story.
Betty Cracker
I believe working the refs can have an effect on media coverage; the wingnuts have had great success with that. Maybe the near-universal condemnation of Lauer’s crappy moderating tonight will result in better fact-checking, etc., from his colleague Lester Holt in the upcoming debate.
jl
I tried to miss the train wreck tonight, but I heard the sputtering pixieled old fool and mentally disturbed nitwit Chris Matthews on the radio news machine say that if Lauer had prepared, and for example, challenged Trump with one his quotes in support the the Iraq war from 2003, that would be unfair and biased. That’s what I get for tuning to a ‘news’ station for a traffic report. Good thing I was stopped at the time, so no danger to others as I pounded the steering wheel.
When my blood pressure is stable tomorrow, I need to wiki Matt Lauer. I think people are being unfair to him. His main gig is a morning show host who gets testy when the happy chit chat doesn’t go perfectly according to plan. His done that for so long, why would anyone pick that goofus? (edit, that was snark, I think he was clearly unqualified and wonder why he was chosen. But I won’t watch any of this until tomorrow. Lauer really irritates me.)
Thanks to AL for posting the NYT story. It’s political reporting is clearly corrupt and I will tell dupes who have fallen for HRC scandal smears exactly that. She is being smeared by a corrupt and incompetent corporate media.
Aleta
Sounds like the Society Column from the 50s
Mike J
The phrase Lauering the bar is being used.
piratedan
@Mike J: the definition should include digging a trench and burying the bar in it.
Sheldon vogt
It’s past time for the Times’ editor to be called to account. their public editor needs to address this article substitution fully and promptly.
The Times’ behavior here is journalistic malpractise.
Note for future reference: Patrick Healy = Judith Miller
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Betty Cracker: I have a feeling that tonight’s fiasco might be the best thing that’s happened for the debates themselves. Things have gotten so egregious that even parts of the political press have started to notice and criticize. There’s pushback. And disappearing Burns’ article for wandering off the reservation not only indicates that there’s one reporter who wants to actually report, but is also something that other journalists will notice; the Times just whacked one of their own. We might, just possibly, be witnessing the start of the tide turning.
jl
@Aleta:
‘ Sounds like the Society Column from the 50s ‘
Every time I have seen the big shots at the NYT in interviews or on news talky panels, they strike me as the kind of self-important dimwit old out-of-it white farts who are second, third, or fourth bananas and drop in from time to time for a few yuks on sitcoms. Usually dingbat uncle or neighbor from down the block.
But, hey, if that is what our world famous meritocracy coughs up to run the most influential newspaper in the country, who am I to judge?
Edit: I will watch it tomorrow when I can skip over the Lauer guy. But, most of those people irritate me. I don’t know if I am in shape to watch any of the news divas hack their way through the debates or interviews anymore. Too irritating.
Betty Cracker
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That’s my hope as well.
Aleta
Good outcome would be if Trump fears nothing now and then falls through the deck at the debate.
piratedan
@Aleta: if the media will let him… granted he got softballs tonight and still fucked it up, but that’s only apparent to anyone who’s paid attention over the last 12 years, how many of our fellow citizens clear that bar?
JGabriel
akryan:
The corporate owners of most major media in this country are conservative, and are more interested in consolidating properties and creating localized media monopolies. And Trump will deregulate the media and communications industries and end net neutrality, while Clinton would propose even more restrictions to protect consumers, so of course they’re going easy on Trump.
As for potential censorship under a Trump administration, most of the owners don’t care. First, they’re conservatives and/or libertarians – and even if they’re not, they still prioritize profit and power over anything else – so they don’t think they’re likely to have much disagreement with Trump that will provoke censorship. Second, the largest of these companies (Google, Disney, et. al.) deal with restrictions in China on a regular basis, and still make plenty of money there – so, from their POV, it’s no big deal.
Aleta
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: good point. I was even wondering if the first reporter put something up before editorial could homogenize it, so they pulled the whole thing. I’d love to believe in an actual resistance group opposing the “collaborationists.” What a story that would be.
Betty Cracker
Trump’s answer about the secret plan to defeat ISIS was just mind-bogglingly bad — it’s a ready-made attack ad for a Clinton superPAC. Virtually all the media outlets seem to be acknowledging at long last that Trump’s claim that he opposed the Iraq War is a bald-faced lie.
Comrade Scrutinizer
The insanity continues. The NYT changed the story again, without explanation.
Aleta
@piratedan: Another advantage to campaigning on heightened fear and anxiety. Thinking clearly and analyzing become luxuries if you’re worried about survival.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t trust Lester Holt. I have seen him only in snippets of Dateline NBC after one of my regular programs ended, but his screen presence sends up little red flags. In the show opening he often poses standing with legs wide, arms crossed, suit coat off, in dress shirt, (power) tie and suspenders, trying to project alpha-male “don’t fuck with me” toughness as he portentously announces the show’s hot stories. And in some of those they have him “in the field” in the obligatory Roland Hedley safari jacket, pretending to talk to some flood- or plague-stricken Third World villager or whomever. It all comes across as phony bullshit, and Holt himself comes across like some dismal DC Comics reboot of the old ’90s Tom Brokaw/Brian Williams superhero character: “Anchor-Man is back! But now he’s black!”
I looked him up on Wikipedia, and his entire career has been in TV news, or should I say “TV ‘news.’” He just doesn’t look like he has any chops except for being a demographically desirable face to slap on the network news operation. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the debate.
Representative promo snippet here.
JGabriel
Comrade Scrutinizer:
Fixed the link for you, Comrade.
piratedan
@Comrade Scrutinizer: its totes cool, I’m sure that each undocumented alteration is just more fair and balanced than the previous iteration.////////////////
Although I have to say, this is the kind of stuff that Tom L. should be using to emphasize why people “perceive” there to be a problem with the bias exhibited by the NYT.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta:
We call that “pulling a Cole” around these parts.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: I remember somebody else had a “Secret Plan” to end a war*. Maybe HRC can use that, dig ol’ Tricky Dick up so to speak.
*The plan was so secret that Nixon didn’t even know what it was.
low-tech cyclist
Dear NYT: thanks for the memory hole. How 1984!
Aleta
fuckwit
The way the village idiots treat Troll is like affirmative action for morons.
BTW, they treated Shrub, and St. Ronnie, the same way.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Mike J: That pun is going to leave Lauer on the matt….
Kathleen
Lauer: Mr. Trump, can I get you more coffee?
HRC: Cough
Lauer: Shut up.
TriassicSands
This is totally unfair. It is a well known fact that if one repeats a lie often enough it automatically becomes true. — Journalism 101 (cross cataloged as Journotainment 800, an advanced course for posers like Lauer).
Addendum: this may only be true for right wing liars.
Frankensteinbeck
@TriassicSands:
No, it works quite well on the Left as well, we just use it less. I’ve watched enough narratives gallop through here, mostly GG’s little lies but with some fun zingers like ‘Obama caves,’ to know it’s a universal tactic.
JPL
@Comrade Scrutinizer: It’s mind boggling. Trump appeared to be mentally unbalance, but still received kid glove treatment from the NYTimes.
Applejinx
Definitely creepy to see the NYT become Pravda-Of-Globalism. Unsurprising, but creepy.
I’d like to tell Hillary, THIS is what your dalliance with neoliberalism led to. Milton Friedman was an asshole, and wrong. When you let them all be governed by the market alone, this is what you get. Do you see? Do you see the NYT’s self-interest here? Do you see how they legit don’t understand they’re doing anything wrong, even as they try valiantly to bring on freakin’ WWIII and the catastrophic wreck of all their dreams?
This is blind pursuit of self-interest (measured by money alone) and the end game of what we’ve all been doing for many decades. It is Friedman’s finest hour. The most powerful nation in the world is trying as hard as it can to install a completely fake plutocrat as dictator because he’s happy to say everything sucks, let’s kill everyone and take their shit and we’ll win.
We built this (or at least watched it built).
If you have the capacity to be imaginative and view the rewrites ‘as a brainwashed trump voter’ it’s plain to see how it’s still spin, with every ‘trump fault’ readable as ‘dominant and strong’ if you’re willing to handwave away all facts and reality.
MomSense
Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that the Times doesn’t know what it’s doing. The Times knows exactly what it’s doing.
Amir Khalid
@Applejinx:
Bullshit. You’re claiming that any of what The New York Times is doing here is on Hillary. The Times has been after her and Bill for lo these 25 years, slanting its coverage against them and digging for scandal where there was none, and you say it’s because she was cosying up to them? Bullshit.
Jim Kakalios
Deadlines are a bitch.
The print copy of the New York Times on my doorstep
this morning (here in the Midwest) has the story by Alexander Burns, which specifically states that
Trump’s claim about opposing the Iraq invasion is “false.”
Bobby Thomson
I’m sure it was just subconscious bias and not malevolent intent that caused the NYT to unpublish an entire accurate article and replace it with one that was false and pro-Trump.
Christ.
ETA:
@MomSense: oh, that’s good.
Joel
That NYT pull is something. Is Dean Baquet going to feel heat for this? He should be.
Kenneth Kohl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: TTP @24: I think/hope that you may be on to something
Lee
Who knew that Lauer was a closet racist.
That is the only explanation I can come up with short of him having suffered a concussion right before interviewing Trump.
Applejinx
@Amir Khalid: On the contrary, I’m hoping this sort of behavior is enough to forever taint neoliberalism and capitalism in Hillary’s mind. I never said she was cosying up to them.
I AM prepared to say she’s cosyed up to the notion that deregulating and turning things over to private enterprise and ‘the market’ was good: back when she lived in the White House, that was the ONLY narrative anybody was willing to entertain. She didn’t create that either, but she made one hell of a lot of money along with Bill, through accepting that narrative and running with it. They’ve done nothing wrong in terms of neoliberal capitalism and in fact have stayed squeaky clean, but every time someone moans ‘don’t they get the optics of taking all that money for (goldman sachs, charter schools, etc etc etc)’ it highlights the problem.
Hillary politically grew up in a world where the market was the only morality.
I’m just saying, Hillary, open your EYES. This is the world you know, the one you’ve come to understand so well. Maybe now you’ll see that we all have to do so much better than that. Maybe she can get a clue upon seeing that they’re ALL playing that NYT game because that’s where the money is and the world, as decades of neoliberal and then neocon rule has left it, allows NOTHING else.
Time to flip the table and go full commie. It’s that or double down on letting the Times and the multimillionaires pick the leader of the ‘free world’.
Miss Bianca
@Applejinx: Oh, FFS. Yes, let’s blame the woman – yet again – for the treatment she received. Because let’s face it, amirite? HRC was asking for it, walking in that tight neoliberal dress, drinking that neoliberal cocktail, wearing those slutty neoliberal heels.
Gaah. Just. STOP.
Chris
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I’m not holding my breath, but it would be nice if this was the campaign that finally buried the popular belief that the mainstream media is liberally biased.
But like I said, I’m not holding my breath.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Or the beginnings of a purge of the few remaining competent journalists left at the big houses.
I know which side I’m laying money on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Applejinx: You are nuts.
Lexiltucky
@Jim Kakalios:
The NYT managed to pull the Alexander article in some of the print editions. The one delivered to my house has neither the Alexander article nor the Healy replacement.
Sounds like they were scrambling.
Jim Kakalios
@Lexiltucky: Very interesting.
sukabi
@Chris: small ebb til the scrutiny flows away, then the tsunami hits.
Pinacacci
@Jim Kakalios: This, too: The NYT picks for comments are usually way out of balance with reader picks. They bend over backwards to thumbs up the most reasonable pro-Trump arguments they can glean from the comments. Not this time. Seems like the person with the thumbs-up button is staging a small rebellion.