[erimir]

Originally Posted by davidm

The main job of journalists is to report the news as accurately as possible. James Comey — not the New York Times — announced that he was reopening the Clinton email investigation. The Times reported this fact. That was its job.

Did it jolt the campaign, as the headline said? Of course it did.

The fact that it jolted the campaign was largely a function of the media coverage itself! That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Coverage of the "scandal" did not contextualize it and exaggerated its importance in multiple ways.

For one, it made it seem like more of a breach of the rules than it was (it was, in fact, a quite minor breach). And more importantly, it made it seem like it was important to governance, which it was not at all. The amount of ink dedicated to it would lead the casual observer to conclude it was the crime of the century, when it was a minor snafu regarding IT management.

So yes, I'm faulting the media for its priorities, for both-sides false balance and for allowing Republican ratfucking to dictate their agenda. And you're a damn fool if you don't think that the media wouldn't do it to another candidate, including one you deem sufficiently pure.

I wonder what Erimir would have had the NY Times do — not report that Comey had reopened the investigation?

I would have them not run their entire front page about a minor development in a nothingburger scandal.

It was predictable that nothing would be found because they told us what it was about: they found that Huma Abedin had checked her email on another computer, and thus there was potentially some data on it that was not elsewhere. But they had already checked Abedin's email account on other computers, and when you check your email on another computer you get the same fucking emails. So the only "new" data that they would find would be emails that were downloaded onto that computer, but not onto others, or deleted while on another computer and remained in storage on that one since she hadn't checked her email on it again (resulting in the email storage being updated).

That does not warrant an entire front page dedicated to it! Sure, it warrants some coverage. But they could have easily justified not running it on the front page and properly noted that the nature of the "evidence" discovered made it highly unlikely to change anything, and therefore objectively not important. Importance to the narrative is not a justification for coverage when you are part of the media who is creating the narrative.

I would have the New York Times devote more time to serious Trump scandals than they did to a Clinton micro-scandal. Instead, they devoted more time to Clinton's emails than all of Trump's scandals put together, most of which were more serious!

I would have the New York Times devote more time to Clinton's policy proposals and serious political issues like climate change and healthcare than to a micro-scandal. Instead, they devoted more time to Clinton's emails than all of her policy issues combined!

That would have been a total derliction of its professional responsibility.

Only if you view Clinton's emails as the most important part of their professional responsibility. Or more accurately, in your case, "shitting on Clinton" as their professional responsibility. A far greater dereliction of duty is the fact that they spent more time covering this bullshit scandal than Trump's scandals and covering policy issues. If they chose not to cover the Comey letter at all and had instead ran a full front page spread on climate change, that would've been an improvement, not "dereliction of duty." Why the fuck do you view hysterical coverage of an idiotic micro-scandal as their highest duty?

Moroever, does he suppose that no one else reported this news, anywhere? Really? So why single out the Times?

It's not just about the NYT, although they are the most important paper and they dedicated their entire front page to it. It was a convenient picture to use, to stand in for the whole media's hyping of an idiotic nothingburger scandal.

Blame Comey for what he did, if you must, but not The Times for reporting what he did — which is not merely its right to do, but its responsbility to do.

You're erasing their agency, as if they made no editorial decisions. As if it was impossible to justify prioritizing different issues, different scandals, not to exaggerate the importance of one. They made a decision not to contextualize and prioritize it according to what actually happened and how it actually relates to governance and how it will affect people, all of which would push towards spending far less time on it than they did. Instead it's importance was dictated by the fact that Trump and Republicans were talking about it, and the fact that others in the media were talking about it, and the fact that they needed a Clinton scandal to balance out the horrorshow that was Trump. They chose to cover this instead of healthcare, the GOP agenda on economic issues, climate change, etc. etc. And it's also probably not a coincidence that some of the men who covered Clinton's emails have been revealed to be misogynistic sexual predators.

As to the Russia stuff, back in October of last year the FBI was saying it saw no clear Russia link to the Trump campaign. The Times reported this. That was its job.

No, it was FBI leakers who obviously were being misleading in order to help Trump, given what we now know about the FBI's investigation. This was not an official FBI statement. Nobody went on record.

You see, Comey understood that the FBI must not comment on incomplete investigations that involve a candidate close to an election, because it might prejudice people unfairly. Unless it's a Democrat, especially one named Hillary Clinton.

Of course, when it comes to you, leakers from US government, especially intelligence/law enforcement agencies, ought to be treated far more skeptically by the media. Except when they are saying things that hurt Hillary Clinton. Then it must be dutifully and credulously reported. To do otherwise would be dereliction of duty.

This just speaks to the larger issue of why the Democrats will probably again shoot themselves in the foot in 2020 and lose again. Clinton and her apologists cannot accept that she was a shitty candidate.

Hillary Clinton isn't running again, you twit. I fail to see how criticizing shitty coverage of her emails is going to lead to, say, Gillibrand, Harris, Booker, Warren, Biden or Sanders losing anything.

But the media will be both-sides-ing and having shitty coverage priorities again, I guarantee it. Which we should be relentlessly criticizing until they improve their coverage.

Always someone no one else is to blame for her losing. [...] It’s never anyone but Clinton’s fault, or the fault of her supporters black voters who refused to vote for the candidate who never built relationships with them before 2015 and basically ceded their support after he got blown out in South Carolina and the rigged DNC who foisted her on us scheduled a couple debates on Saturdays and talked shit about Bernie in emails.

The fact that you picked this out as the thing to criticize just reveals the depths of your hackishness when it comes to Clinton. You're defending obviously idiotic media priorities that help Republicans, and have done so for years, just because it lets you shit on Clinton.

The bullshit IRS scandal? The coverage of that had elements of the same thing. There must be something there, because Republicans said there was. Further investigation revealed there was nothing there. The fact that Paul Ryan was elevated as a policy wonk even though he's a total hack who lies and uses made up numbers to make his "detailed" and thought out policy proposals work? That's because both-sides demands a reasonable Republican, rather than acknowledging that national Republicans almost universally operate on bad faith. Benghazi? Well, that was a bullshit scandal, until they made it all about Clinton. Then I'm sure you felt it was worth every front page story ever dedicated to it. Both sides are entrenched about taxes and entitlements, so let's talk about Simpson-Bowles with reverence because they're bipartisan spending cutters. When the GOP talks about voter fraud, the media must talk about it like it might be a real problem, and not something they just made up, and when Democrats talk about voter suppression, well, views differ.

You would never make these kinds of excuses for coverage of Israel-Palestine, or coverage of Bernie Sanders, or the coverage leading up to the Iraq War.

In those cases, you would recognize that both-sides-ism is false balance that effectively helps one side or the other. False balance for Israel? BAD! Evidence of how shitty the US media is! False balance that hurts Hillary? "Well, what, you expect them not to report minor developments that obviously demand they DEDICATE ENTIRE FRONT PAGE to them?!" In those cases, you would recognize that editorial decisions to emphasize or de-emphasize things are not things that just automatically happen, but would complain that they don't cover things enough you think should be covered, and they spend too much time covering things that you don't think should be covered at all, or at least not nearly as much.

But when it comes to Hillary, their editorial decisions are merely rules of nature. Obviously they had to dedicate more time to Hillary's stupid email server than climate change, to do otherwise would be a total dereliction of duty. Obviously they had to dedicate more time to the potential that out of tens of thousands of emails, a handful were classified than they did to Clinton's proposals on healthcare, universal child care, debt-free college, infrastructure and green energy investment, etc. combined - to do otherwise would be a total dereliction of duty. Their editorial priorities are indefensible, yet you must do it, because to do otherwise would be to acknowledge that Clinton lost for reasons other than being history's greatest and shittiest monster, the worst candidate to ever candidate (yes, worse than the ones who actually lost the popular vote, even the ones who lost by landslides). Reasons, sure, including, but more importantly not limited to her own faults. And if that were true... well, I don't know what bad actually happens, but it would be deeply unpleasant, I'm sure.

And obviously, the fact that the Bernie Sanders's wife is under FBI investigation for what is, even in the worst case, incredibly minor compared to what Trump is accused of, his creepy weird essay about women and rape, praise for anti-American communist regimes, the fact that he was basically an unemployed bum who stole cable until he was 40, and prior support for nationalizing major industries... Well, the fact that he's simply not a "shitty candidate" means that the media that you so frequently complain is biased against politics like yours, would never pull the same shit on him. Even though Bernie supporters constantly complained about the media's bias during the primaries, the media would never be a problem for him, or any other Democrat in the future.

So we must not criticize them for bias against Democrats, because that will lead to losing again in 2020, because reasons. No, instead, the key to winning in 2020 is to ratify all of the media's shitty decisions, allow the Republicans to be the only ones working the refs, rather than trying to get the media to behave better for 2020. All so you can continue to shit on a candidate who will most likely never run for office again and certainly won't be our presidential candidate in 2020.

And in your usual projection, you instead claim that my motivation is to totally exonerate Clinton, while you're actively arguing against efforts to get Democrats fairer media coverage just to spite her! You are the one who's warping his views on media around Clinton, not me.

My god, you're full of shit.