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Old 04-27-2019, 04:30 PM
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Default The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

A tale of competing narratives.

Mueller report: The winners and losers | TheHill
When discussing the media mostly says left and right cable pundits looked bad.

Here are the media outlets most embarrassed by the Mueller report – ThinkProgress
A little column space dedicated to Fox News and Sean Hannity, but mostly focused on stating that Matt Taibbi, The Nation magazine, and Glenn Greenwald have been shown to have been wrong in downplaying the Russiagate coverage.

Post-Mueller, 2020 campaign coverage could reach a new low — but it doesn't have to
Media Critic Jay Rosen is interviewed by the CBC and indicates that he thinks the media overall did decent on coverage, acknowledges cable news media 24-hour coverage was not great though puts that on structure, disagrees with Taibbi's conclusions and says his WMD analogy is poor.

Noam Chomsky discusses Russiagate and points out that Israel interferes more directly in our elections than Russia ever has, and that corporate interests in the form of massive amounts of lobbying power, money and dark money influence and interfere to a scale that dwarfs any operation run by the Russians.

Here's Matt Taibbi discussing the media's role as it relates to the 2016 election coverage failures and how that dovetailed into the Russiagate narrative, as well as how he's been viewed by others in the media:
Taibbi: On Russiagate and Our Refusal to Face Why Trump Won
Quote:
Suddenly, news articles appeared arguing people like myself and Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept were rushing to judgment, calling us bullies whose writings were intended to leave reporters “cowed” and likely to “back down from aggressive coverage of Trump.

This was baffling. One of the most common criticisms of people like Greenwald, Michael Tracey, Aaron Mate, Rania Khalek, Max Blumenthal, Jordan Chariton and many others is that Russiagate “skeptics” — I hate that term, because it implies skepticism isn’t normal and healthy in this job — were really secret Trump partisans, part of a “horseshoe” pact between far left and far right to focus attention on the minor foibles of the center instead of Trump’s more serious misdeeds. Even I received this label, and I once wrote a book about Trump called Insane Clown President.
Quote:
The 2016 campaign season brought to the surface awesome levels of political discontent. After the election, instead of wondering where that anger came from, most of the press quickly pivoted to a new tale about a Russian plot to attack our Democracy. This conveyed the impression that the election season we’d just lived through had been an aberration, thrown off the rails by an extraordinary espionage conspiracy between Trump and a cabal of evil foreigners.

This narrative contradicted everything I’d seen traveling across America in my two years of covering the campaign. The overwhelming theme of that race, long before anyone even thought about Russia, was voter rage at the entire political system.
Quote:
I belong on this infamous list [of media people who sneered at Trump's chances to win] myself. In one of the worst mistakes of my career, I ended up changing my mind about “free-falling” Trump’s chances, spending the stretch run predicting doom for Republicans. I read too many polls and ignored what I was seeing, i.e. that even the post-Access Hollywood Trump was still packing stadiums.

Trump would already be president-elect before he was taken seriously as an electoral phenomenon. Right up until the networks called Florida for him on election night, few major American media figures outside of Michael Moore – who incidentally was also right about WMDs and ridiculed for it – believed a Trump win possible.

The only reason most blue-state media audiences had been given for Trump’s poll numbers all along was racism, which was surely part of the story but not the whole picture. A lack of any other explanation meant Democratic audiences, after the shock of election night, were ready to reach for any other data point that might better explain what just happened.

Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, “I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump.”

Post-election, Russiagate made it all worse. People could turn on their TVs at any hour of the day and see anyone from Rachel Maddow to Chris Cuomo openly reveling in Trump’s troubles. This is what Fox looks like to liberal audiences.
I'm interested in how other people view the media's coverage of the Mueller Investigation and Report. I tend to mostly think that Taibbi's media criticisms have some merit.
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Old 04-27-2019, 04:34 PM
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Default Re: The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

Oh and I'll put this here too, seems appropriate
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Old 04-27-2019, 06:52 PM
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Default Re: The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

Quote:
Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
I'm interested in how other people view the media's coverage of the Mueller Investigation and Report. I tend to mostly think that Taibbi's media criticisms have some merit.
Quote:
Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.
I mostly agree with this, but I think he's both right and wrong about the Mueller report. I think he was too quick on the "the mueller report exonerates Trump" bandwagon, because it fits his own narrative.
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Old 04-27-2019, 07:22 PM
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Default Re: The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

I think Taibbi gets it right, especially here: “Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.”

We see it here with two posters in particular, far gone in delusion, who continually hammer on the bogus themes that Hillary lost the election because of James Comey (lol) and the “Vichy New York Times” (lol double).

We see in those same two posters people who repeatedly lie about posts that I made about the election, to the point where I will no longer bother even reading their crap.

They have succumbed to the very thing they claim to hate: systematic lying, as pioneered by Trump. That is why I say Trump is actually their role model.

Oh, also, third-party candidates (according to these posters) are ALSO to blame for Hillary losing. Never mind that third, fourth, and even fifth party candidates have been a staple throughout American presidential politics, and a Libertarian candidate arguably took more votes from Trump in 2016 than Jill Stein did from Hillary in 2016 or Ralph Nader did from Al Gore in 2000.

Never mind that dirty tricks, slurs, lies, misrepresentations and other things that we now call “memes” have ALWAYS existed in American politics, the only difference being that now, they are more widely disseminated because of the internet and social media.

Never mind that unless people who think like this come to terms with the fact that Hillary lost primarily because she was a shitty candidate, then we’re likely to end up with another shitty candidate in 2020 and Trump will win again. I myself was getting a bit enamored of the Buttigieg BS, until I read All About Pete

As for now, for me, it’s Bernie or Warren.
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Old 04-28-2019, 03:08 AM
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Default Re: The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

davidm is constantly lying about what he said in the past, and about what I say. But, Trumpian in projection, he claims that I'm the one who's lying.

Look, I understand you don't like it being pointed out that you said you "[didn't] think Trump would appoint Scalias" or attack LGBT rights, and instead he appointed people exactly in that vein and did attack LGBT rights, but it's not a lie for me to say so, and it is a lie for you to claim you were merely claiming it was plausible when your wording is very clearly not that.

Meanwhile, you must constantly straw man as if saying that Jill Stein, James Comey, Russia and the media that perpetuated the narratives around Comey and Russia's actions all bear blame for actions in 2016 (which they do) means that nobody else is to blame, or they all share blame equally (they don't) and that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton didn't make any mistakes (they did). A crucial difference, of course, is that Hillary Clinton was actually trying to defeat Trump, and Jill Stein wasn't.

You are obsessed with saying only Hillary is to blame because you can't accept that 1. America does not agree with you and/or the reasons why your (for example) foreign policy views have little influence in government are much more systematic and intractable than simply getting rid of the Clintons or Obama or Biden and/or electing Sanders 2. you're a media hack yourself and (Trumpian again) you must evade blame for any contribution to the problem and 3. this isn't your fault, but it seems like you're statistically innumerate based on your statements in the past about Nader in Florida, Bernie Sanders's delegate math, etc. which perhaps contributes to you just picking the explanations you prefer to be true (alternatively, you could just be dishonest, which I certainly don't rule out)

If/when Russia and/or other foreign powers try to ratfuck Democratic Party nominee Bernie Sanders and the media goes along with it, because after all, his policies also aren't great for Russia, Saudi Arabia or other authoritarian petro-states, or for the massive corporations that own most media or the rich people who control them, you'll likely be screaming about how this is somehow the DNC and Hillary Clinton's fault.


Also I enjoy the stupidity of an argument like "3rd-parties can't be to blame, because 3rd-party supporters have been doing stupid shit for years!" That's an obvious non sequitur, dumbass. But it fits with your general "only Democrats have agency" view. Just because dumbasses supported Nader doesn't mean it's now a law of nature that people do so every election, and they are not responsible for voting the way they do - they have agency. In fact, note how low the third-party vote was in 2004 compared to 2000 or 2016 - almost like some dumbasses were at least smart enough to learn from how awful Bush was! They can choose to do different, and there's nothing illogical about blaming them for their behavior (particularly in the case of wealthy and/or educated supporters who do not have the excuse of not knowing better).

Also, you're off the Michael Bennet train? What happened? You realized that supporting Bennet because he was "electable" and "could beat Trump" wouldn't provide you with that warm fuzzy leftier-than-thou feeling?
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Old 04-28-2019, 10:48 AM
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Default Re: The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
I think Taibbi gets it right, especially here: “Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.”

We see it here with two posters in particular ...
Wait, davidm! ... are you accusing someone here at :ff: of being the political establishment and complicit in Trump's election to the Presidency?

I knew you back when you still tried to not to talk complete shit ...

Bumping this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by mickthinks View Post
davidm: Bear in mind that I predicted, in this forum, in January 2016, that Drumpf would be elected president ...
erimir: On the other hand, davidm also predicted that Trump would not appoint Scalias. ... And that his administration would not attack LGBT rights.
davidm: Actually, you little lying liar, I did not predict any of those things.


This then is the form of language lil' david uses when he's predicting stuff:
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
I now think that he is likely to be elected president.
... whereas this is the form of language he uses when he isn't:
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
I will add that I think Trump, if elected, will do nothing to impede gay or transgender rights and will not appoint Scalias to the Supreme Court.
... and you are a liar if you can't see the difference between them. A LIAR!

:fuuu:
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  #7  
Old 05-03-2019, 02:15 PM
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Default Re: The Mueller Report and the Media Report Card

{warning: soft paywall on NewYorker link below}
The Media and The Mueller Report's March Surprise
Quote:
The coverage of the investigation did include embarrassments—specious chyrons, tendentious talking heads, and retracted scoops, among them. Yet it does not follow that American journalism failed because the best-resourced newsrooms in the nation chose to report assiduously on the Mueller investigation and its subjects, only to learn that Mueller did not prove that Trump had conspired with Russia. Mueller was appointed in the first place because the Justice Department and the F.B.I. had uncovered troubling information about the campaign. According to Barr, Mueller found that there had been “multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” and he did not exonerate the President of obstruction of justice.

Apart from that, the evidence, independently uncovered by journalists, suggesting that members of the Trump campaign might have colluded, if not conspired, in order to win the election, was newsworthy, and begged for additional reporting. So did the evidence of Russian hacking attempts to manipulate the vote to Trump’s benefit; of campaign-finance violations committed by the President’s personal lawyer; and of corruption and false statements made by Trump’s former campaign aides. Mueller’s investigation resulted in the indictment of thirty-four people, seven of whom have pleaded guilty so far. The country’s major papers, magazines, and digital newsrooms published reams of accurate reporting about all of this. But the indictments and the reporting also built up outsized expectations for Mueller’s report. As the investigation extended into this year, the portentous question of what new information Mueller’s team, exercising subpoena power, might disclose remained unanswered. The mystery provoked fevered speculation, but Mueller’s office, unusually for Washington, did not leak, and so arrived the March Surprise.

The media’s role was complicated by the fact that revelations uncovered by professional reporters, once published, became engulfed in a toxic fog of hot takes, opinion masquerading as reporting, and hyper-partisan competition. The news organizations that employed the best workaday reporters on the Mueller beat are not entirely blameless in this regard. At the top of the Times desktop homepage, these days, as many opinion pieces appear as news stories, and the Washington Post has been expanding its opinion sections (though such pieces are careful about facts). Cable television, meanwhile, mixes field reporting and news-making interviews with personal asides from prime-time personalities and roundtables of bombast-mongers. Journalists have long harbored a belief that readers and viewers understand the difference between editorializing and reporting. It would be unrealistic to expect them to make such a distinction now.
The piece appears written March 31. Steve Coll is no slouch, either; I own his book Ghost Wars; though i'm less on board with New America.
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