This is the former Director of National Intelligence telling all of us that as of 12:01 a.m. on January 20th, when he left government, the intelligence agencies had no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and the government of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Virtually all of the explosive breaking news stories on the Trump-Russia front dating back months contain some version of this same disclaimer....There is a real danger to the press in proving the spirit of Trump's accusations against it: that it is an enemy, if not of 'the People,' certainly of him personally and his administration in general. Credibility is the currency, and the media's is in grave danger here. If it becomes obvious that they allowed themselves to become the willing puppets of administration opponents within the security state, the press has a lot to lose.
Setting all of that aside, look at the techniques involved within the more "legitimate" reports. Many are framed in terms of what they might mean, should other information surface. There are inevitably uses of phrases like "so far," "to date" and "as yet." These make visible the outline of a future story that isn't currently reportable, further heightening expectations....
These constructions are an end run around the [NYT']s own reporting standards. The Times by itself could never have run that "explosive" Steele dossier, or mentioned the "embarrassing videos" – because the dossier material can't be confirmed....
[W]hat if there is nothing else to find?
Reporters should always be nervous when intelligence sources sell them stories. Spooks don't normally need the press. Their usual audiences are other agency heads, and the executive. They can bring about action just by convincing other people within the government to take it.
In the extant case, whether the investigation involved a potential Logan Act violation, or election fraud, or whatever, the CIA, FBI, and NSA had the ability to act both before and after Donald Trump was elected. But they didn't, and we know why, because James Clapper just told us – they didn't have evidence to go on.
Thus we are now witnessing the extremely unusual development of intelligence sources that normally wouldn't tell a reporter the time of day litigating a matter of supreme importance in the media.
Rolling Stone: This Russia Story is Dangerous to the Press's Credibility
The magazine that gave us Hunter S. Thompson has begun to publish queasy second-thoughts about all this Russia stuff.
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3 comments:
"If it becomes obvious that they allowed themselves to become the willing puppets of administration opponents ...."
According to the John Podesta leaks, that already happened.
There is a long list of members of the press that attended at least on party at John Podesta's house, which apparently is a violation of journalistic ethics.
Further, the New York Times went so far as to co-ordinate with the Hillary Campaign about their coverage of the Campaign.
And now, John Podesta is a columnist for the Washington Post.
Valerie
According to the John Podesta leaks, that already happened.
And according to Ben Rhodes and Jonathan Gruber.
There is a real danger to the press in proving the spirit of Trump's accusations against it: that it is an enemy....
Except that Trump never accused the press of being an enemy of anyone or anything. He said the FAKE NEWS press (his caps) was the enemy of.... For all his bombast, the marketer was quite careful with his word choice and the role modifiers play in identifying subsets of a set.
Eric Hines
Bush II, if he had taken the advice of some random people in the US, could have done the same thing to the press for OIF, using disinformation and various other tricks of the propaganda bag.
Perhaps Skull and Bones isn't interested in such strategies, or Bush II was vested in something else.
Before, during, and after Abu Ghraib, the NYTimes and the AP still had a significant leverage in the minds of the weak American public. They would tell the people to pull their finger, and people would obey, thinking they had came up with the idea on their own.
An easy counter to this is to have an anonymous source feed even more tales of war crimes to the NYTimes and AP, and see who bites. Then collapse them while the public watches. Even if 10% of the stories are true, 90% being disinformation would collapse their ability to obtain credibility by relying on anonymous sources.
Trum isn't nearly as productive in this scheme of things, as there is no need. The media is already a lapdog of the Leftist alliance, even during Deepthroat. Just pull their chain and they will bark in predictable manners.
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