# ...Buzzfeed were right to publish Christopher Steele's Trump Dossier. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 14, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161 "2017-01-14T21:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/1 "2017-01-14T21:32:00Z")
…Christopher Steele is a former MI6 agent who, through his company Orbis Business Intelligence, was engaged (initially allegedly by FusionGPS) to investigate Donald Trump to find information to “stop his nomination bid.” Steele used his contacts in Russia to uncover potentially damaging information. He passed that information onto the FBI. That information was published recently by Buzzfeed. That decision to publish has received wide-spread criticism from other members of the press. > **[These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia)** > > A dossier, compiled by a person who has claimed to be a former British intelligence official, alleges Russia has compromising information on Trump. The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors. I think that the people who are criticizing Buzzfeed are wrong. I not only think they were correct to publish: they had a duty to publish. Here are my reasons why. -Steele is a credible source. Apart from his intelligence credentials, he has been vouched for (off the record) by multiple independent sources, has worked before with the FBI to provide evidence that bought indictments to FIFA officials. -This wasn’t secret. These documents have been circulating for months. Everybody knew about them. Everybody except the general public had seen these documents. There wasn’t a good reason for these documents not to be made public. -If instead of Steele, an investigative journalist had used the same sources to get the same information there is no question the media outlet would have published. Nearly every other media outlet have run stories with much less corroboration than this one. Almost every media organisation has run press-releases from companies/the government as is without independent verification. And if this document had been released by Steele himself on “his blog” then everyone would have run with the story. -We are never going to get independent verification of Steele’s dossier. His sources are either now in hiding or dead. The videos, if they exist, are most definitely secure. Steele was a spy who relied on human assets to get his information. The media were going to wait until they got “independent verification.” But that was never ever going to happen. -The media should not, IMHO, act as gatekeepers and defacto censors. -This story opens the door to another, just as important story. > [@](#): > > However, say security sources, Mr Steele became increasingly frustrated that the FBI was failing to take action on the intelligence from others as well as him. He came to believe there was a cover-up, that a cabal within the Bureau blocked a thorough inquiry into Mr Trump, focusing instead on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. > [@](#): > > Mr Steele compiled a set of his memos into one document and passed it to his contacts at the FBI. But there seemed to be little progress in a proper inquiry into Mr Trump. The Bureau, instead, seemed to be devoting their resources in the pursuit of Hillary Clinton’s email transgressions. > > The New York office, in particular, appeared to be on a crusade against Ms Clinton. Some of its agents had a long working relationship with Rudy Giuliani, by then a member of the Trump campaign, since his days as public prosecutor and then Mayor of the city. > > As the election approached, FBI director James Comey made public his bombshell letter saying that Ms Clinton would face another email investigation. Two days before that Mr Giuliani, then a part of the Trump team, talked about “a surprise or two you’re going to hear about in the next few days. We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn things around”. > [@](#): > > After the letter was published Mr Giuliani claimed he had heard from current and former agents that “there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI” over the original decision not to charge Ms Clinton and that Mr Comey had been forced by some of his agents to announce the reinvestigation. Democrats demanded an investigation into how Mr Giuliani acquired this knowledge without getting an answer. > **[Ex-MI6 agent so worried by his Donald Trump discoveries he started working...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-russia-dossier-file-investigation-hacking-christopher-steele-mi6-a7526901.html)** > > Exclusive: Mr Steele was so concerned by revelations he worked without payment after Trump's election victory in November The release of this dossier puts a whole lot of the things that happened pre-election in context: something that simply wasn’t possible if the dossier was not released. The Vice President of Poynter has an opposite view. Her opinion can be read here: > **[Was BuzzFeed wrong to publish the Trump dossier? This media ethicist says yes.](https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/1/12/14238688/trump-russia-buzzfeed-putin-poynter-media-ethics)** > > “They were serving themselves and their own clicks.” –Kelly McBride, vice president of Poynter [QUOTE=Kelly McBride] That argument is handy when Americans have the tools that they need in order to make up their own mind. But in this case, they don’t have such tools. Here we have information that is very difficult — perhaps impossible — to verify, and it’s unfair to ask the average citizen to just make up his mind. That’s impractical and counterproductive. What we’ll have in this case is people simply believing whatever they want, whatever their gut tells them. The average citizen has absolutely no capacity to make up his own mind on this. So what good does printing this do if it can’t be established as fact? [/QUOTE] I do not believe it is the media’s job to assess what tools Americans use to “make up their minds.” If the media were not to run any story until they could establish it as “fact” then [hyperbole]nothing that President Elect has said over the last year should have been published.[/hyperbole] And most disturbing for me, Sean Illing said this: [QUOTE= Sean Illing] The report is counterproductive because it feeds directly into Trump’s narrative about a corrupt and unreliable media. By printing this without any corroboration, BuzzFeed has presented Trump with a rare gift: an accurate talking point. [/QUOTE] The media should not be making decisions on what stories to run based on how the President of the United States will “construct a narrative”. But I fear that this is exactly what many in the media are doing. The “free press” have lost sight of their “responsibilities” and are more worried about “access” and how they are “perceived by the public” than they are with doing what many would regard “as their job.” With (IMHO) a clearly unstable person at the helm of the most powerful country in the world: there is no more important time in history for the press to get off their arses and to remember why they became journalists in the first place. A lot of people (none of them American) went to a great deal of personal risk and sacrifice to bring this dossier to the people responsible for keeping America safe. And when the people responsible for keeping America safe don’t do their jobs: the American people have a right to know. The press had a responsibility to publish. Buzzfeed were right to publish. The rest of the media should be standing behind Buzzfeed: not throwing them under a bus. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/2 "2017-01-14T21:53:09Z")
I’d never heard of BuzzFeed until now, although they’ve been around since 2006, so they’re probably going to make a lot of money out of this with increased name-recognition \* and an invitation to sit at the big boys’ table: they seem as reliable as Bezo’s Washington Post or Carlos Slim’s New York Times with all this crap. The solid non-stop trashing of Trump during the campaign, when every establishment news outlet shilled for Hillary, means they are burnt out with beating on the new president. After a while they will resume their attacks. - Which is not to say they didn’t already cover major news stories: _A post about a debate over the color of an item of clothing from BuzzFeed’s Tumblr editor Cates Holderness garnered more than 28 million views in one day, setting a record for most concurrent visitors to a BuzzFeed post._ And bravely controversial views: _In February 2016, Scaachi Koul, a Senior Writer for BuzzFeed Canada tweeted a request for pitches stating that BuzzFeed was “…looking for mostly non-white non-men” followed by “If you are a white man upset that we are looking mostly for non-white non-men I don’t care about you go write for Maclean’s.” When confronted, she followed with the tweet “White men are still permitted to pitch, I will read it, I will consider it. I’m just less interested because, ugh, men.”_ **[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed)** Britons are less likely to admire Security Agents, ex or not, than Americans, and Mr. Steele’s background in MI6 would only be more despised if he had worked for the Sun or the Mail. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/3 "2017-01-14T22:04:13Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I’d never heard of BuzzFeed until now, although they’ve been around since 2006, so they’re probably going to make a lot of money out of this with increased name-recognition \* and an invitation to sit at the big boys’ table: they seem as reliable as Bezo’s Washington Post or Carlos Slim’s New York Times with all this crap. > The solid non-stop trashing of Trump during the campaign, when every establishment news outlet shilled for Hillary, means they are burnt out with beating on the new president. After a while they will resume their attacks. > > - Which is not to say they didn’t already cover major news stories: > > _A post about a debate over the color of an item of clothing from BuzzFeed’s Tumblr editor Cates Holderness garnered more than 28 million views in one day, setting a record for most concurrent visitors to a BuzzFeed post._ > > And bravely controversial views: > > _In February 2016, Scaachi Koul, a Senior Writer for BuzzFeed Canada tweeted a request for pitches stating that BuzzFeed was “…looking for mostly non-white non-men” followed by “If you are a white man upset that we are looking mostly for non-white non-men I don’t care about you go write for Maclean’s.” When confronted, she followed with the tweet “White men are still permitted to pitch, I will read it, I will consider it. I’m just less interested because, ugh, men.”_ > **[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed)** > > Britons are less likely to admire Security Agents, ex or not, than Americans, and Mr. Steele’s background in MI6 would only be more despised if he had worked for the Sun or the Mail. …well I’m glad that in the 23 minutes it took you to respond, that you have gone from “never having heard of buzzfeed before” to knowing all about them. Good on you! Fortunately for you the OP doesn’t really revolve around Buzzfeed. It revolves around the “decision to publish.” You can replace “Buzzfeed” with “Breitbart” and my opinion wouldn’t change. I don’t have a problem with those that published. I do have a problem with those who did not. Is your opinion dependent on who published it? Do you have an opinion on what I actually wrote in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/4 "2017-01-14T22:20:13Z")
I think there ought to be independent verification of serious allegations before reputable media publishes something. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/5 "2017-01-14T22:28:44Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …well I’m glad that in the 23 minutes it took you to respond, that you have gone from “never having heard of buzzfeed before” to knowing all about them. Good on you! Wikipedia is easy to grasp for some of us. > [@](#): > > Fortunately for you the OP doesn’t really revolve around Buzzfeed. It revolves around the “decision to publish.” You can replace “Buzzfeed” with “Breitbart” and my opinion wouldn’t change. I don’t have a problem with those that published. I do have a problem with those who did not. Is your opinion dependent on who published it? Do you have an opinion on what I actually wrote in the OP? Actually I would mistrust anything from Breitbart. However extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I don’t feel anyone should publish unproven libel simply because the target is vile. My opinion of what you actually wrote is: _Well Minister, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another in terms of the average of departments, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn’t very much in it one way or the other. As far as one can see, at this stage._ **[Yes Minister](http://shikharnigam.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/lessons-from-yes-minister.html)** ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/6 "2017-01-14T22:40:07Z")
Look, someone in the USA wanted to smear a presidential candidate and paid $200,000 to get a well-connected credible foreigner to do the hatchet job. That’s all it is - it’s not news, it has zero value, it is nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/7 "2017-01-14T22:54:39Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Wikipedia is easy to grasp for some of us. …as I said: GOOD ON YOU! > [@](#): > > Actually I would mistrust anything from Breitbart. The dossier wasn’t created by Breitbart. It wasn’t created by Buzzfeed. > [@](#): > > However extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I don’t feel anyone should publish unproven libel simply because the target is vile. In your opinion: who has published libel in this case? Was it buzzfeed? Why does the target matter? If this document were an information dossier about Hillary Clinton I would support publishing it as well. Why would you not? > [@](#): > > My opinion of what you actually wrote is: > > _Well Minister, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another in terms of the average of departments, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn’t very much in it one way or the other. As far as one can see, at this stage._ > > **[Yes Minister](http://shikharnigam.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/lessons-from-yes-minister.html)** Yes Minister is one of my favourite problems. According to the site you took this quote from: this is an example of Yes Minister talking about “Equivocation.” Or in other words: you are deliberately choosing to “use ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself.” Thats all well and good: but not very conducive to “great debates.” If you don’t want to commit yourself to an opinion, then just don’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/8 "2017-01-14T23:01:27Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I think there ought to be independent verification of serious allegations before reputable media publishes something. …and as I laid out in my OP: that independent verification isn’t going to happen. Is it the media’s job to just sit on this document forever? It wasn’t secret. They had the information. There was no legal reason to compel them to cover it up. The media ran with the Trump Carrier story based on a tweet. The independent verification (that proved that Trumps claims weren’t entirely factually accurate) didn’t come until after they had reported Trumps claims. If they can run that story, why can’t they run this? The allegations are only part of the story. How the FBI chose to handle those allegations in contrast to how they approached the Clinton emails is a huge part of the story: and that part of the story would not have come out if not for the release of this document. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/9 "2017-01-14T23:24:35Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …and as I laid out in my OP: that independent verification isn’t going to happen. Is it the media’s job to just sit on this document forever? It wasn’t secret. They had the information. There was no legal reason to compel them to cover it up. The media ran with the Trump Carrier story based on a tweet. The independent verification (that proved that Trumps claims weren’t entirely factually accurate) didn’t come until after they had reported Trumps claims. If they can run that story, why can’t they run this? > > The allegations are only part of the story. How the FBI chose to handle those allegations in contrast to how they approached the Clinton emails is a huge part of the story: and that part of the story would not have come out if not for the release of this document. There’s probably no way to verify whether pizzagate is true or not. It isn’t like the owners of the restaurant can disprove that there are secret tunnels where child sex spaces are held for the benefit of Hillary Clinton. I guess NBC news should run with that story, in addition to the stories about people talking about the unverified story itself. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/10 "2017-01-14T23:32:23Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > There’s probably no way to verify whether pizzagate is true or not. It isn’t like the owners of the restaurant can disprove that there are secret tunnels where child sex spaces are held for the benefit of Hillary Clinton. I guess NBC news should run with that story, in addition to the stories about people talking about the unverified story itself. …you didn’t really answer the question I asked. But nice false equivocation. Do you want to give a shot at answering my question? Is it the medias job to sit on this information forever? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/11 "2017-01-14T23:34:59Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Is it the medias job to sit on this information forever? It’s the reputable media’s job to sit on information until they can confirm it’s true. If that takes forever, then that’s a good indication the information isn’t true. I don’t expect the NYT to have the same standards as the National Enquirer. Buzzfeed needs to decide which sort of media outlet it wants to be. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/12 "2017-01-14T23:40:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s the reputable media’s job to sit on information until they can confirm it’s true. If that takes forever, then that’s a good indication the information isn’t true. > > I don’t expect the NYT to have the same standards as the National Enquirer. Buzzfeed needs to decide which sort of media outlet it wants to be. Or they don’t have access to the sources that the intelligence agencies have. The same intelligence agencies who felt it valid enough to brief Obama and Trump about it. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/13 "2017-01-14T23:50:59Z")
Oh, it seems they have the same sources, because the media print what the intelligence agencies tell them. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/14 "2017-01-14T23:51:42Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Or they don’t have access to the sources that the intelligence agencies have. > The same intelligence agencies who felt it valid enough to brief Obama and Trump about it. The IAs did not inform Obama and Trump because they thought it was “valid enough”, they informed them because the felt they should know this info was out there circulating. It’s their responsibility to inform the president of stuff like this even when they are certain it’s untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/15 "2017-01-14T23:52:27Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Look, someone in the USA wanted to smear a presidential candidate and paid $200,000 to get a well-connected credible foreigner to do the hatchet job. > > That’s all it is - it’s not news, it has zero value, it is nothing. And that argument would have legs if Mr. Steele had just taken his paycheck, and let the people who hired him publish this stuff during the election, when it might have had some actual effect on the election. But that’s not what he did. He thought this info was credible enough that he took it to what he thought were the proper authorities, and said, “Hey, maybe you guys should look into this!” And he did that on his own dime, with no expectation that anyone would pay him anything extra for this. So there’s that to consider. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/16 "2017-01-15T00:02:03Z")
Or alternatively he was well-paid by his shadowy right-wing employers — Republicans not Hillary — and when they decided it was crap, he decided to double-dip and hawk it about again. A headline in one of our trashy news-rags today indicated he is now in fear for his life. In case Mr. Trump’s goons decide on a wet job, or Mr. Putin sends out a team to make it look like a suicide. Or Mr. Steele tries to exaggerate his importance to sell his story. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/17 "2017-01-15T00:25:13Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …you didn’t really answer the question I asked. But nice false equivocation. Why is it a false equivocation? > [@](#): > > Do you want to give a shot at answering my question? > > Is it the medias job to sit on this information forever? If I remember “All the Presidents Men” correctly, that damn editor forced Robert “Woodward” Redford to confirm his story before he would run it. Too bad Ben Bradlee didn’t work for a website more known for listicles than for news! ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/18 "2017-01-15T00:40:00Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > If I remember “All the Presidents Men” correctly, that damn editor forced Robert “Woodward” Redford to confirm his story before he would run it. Too bad Ben Bradlee didn’t work for a website more known for listicles than for news! When was the identity of Deep Throat finally discovered? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/19 "2017-01-15T00:49:56Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > The media should not be making decisions on what stories to run based on how the President of the United States will “construct a narrative”. But I fear that this is exactly what many in the media are doing. The “free press” have lost sight of their “responsibilities” and are more worried about “access” and how they are “perceived by the public” than they are with doing what many would regard “as their job.” With (IMHO) a clearly unstable person at the helm of the most powerful country in the world: there is no more important time in history for the press to get off their arses and to remember why they became journalists in the first place. > > A lot of people (none of them American) went to a great deal of personal risk and sacrifice to bring this dossier to the people responsible for keeping America safe. And when the people responsible for keeping America safe don’t do their jobs: the American people have a right to know. > > The press had a responsibility to publish. Buzzfeed were right to publish. The rest of the media should be standing behind Buzzfeed: not throwing them under a bus. Like it or not, the media is currently struggling with a serious problem when it comes to credibility. Personally, I find this _entirely_ unfounded, and more than a little disgusting, given how it’s being [pushed by sources that couldn’t do real, investigative journalism if the police department of the city they just slandered slapped them in the face with their dicks](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/07/german-police-quash-breitbart-story-of-mob-setting-fire-to-dortmund-church), in a cynical attempt to prop up a political actor who is factually and rationally untenable if one has access to the facts. But it is what it is. An increasing number of Americans don’t trust the mainstream media, and it’s a serious problem. Publishing unverified and unverifiable reports like this doesn’t help. It’s not their fault, but it is their problem. > [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > they seem as reliable as Bezo’s Washington Post or Carlos Slim’s New York Times with all this crap. Coincidentally, it was more Trump voters who engaged in this sort of media solipsism, and as a result, missed things the rest of us got. Things like this: > [@](#): > > The solid non-stop trashing of Trump during the campaign, when every establishment news outlet shilled for Hillary, means they are burnt out with beating on the new president. After a while they will resume their attacks. Yes, virtually every news outlet was against Trump. Even the conservative newspapers endorsed “Not Trump” and often Clinton. _There is a reason for this._ It’s the same reason virtually every country in the world except Russia favored Clinton over Trump: Trump’s an unqualified buffoon with no idea what he’s doing - you might as well offer the job to a _toddler_. But of course, these nuances apparently were lost on most people. And of course, let’s not forget that the media spent more time on Clinton’s emails than they did on literally all policy issues combined, and gleefully reported on her wall street speeches and the nothingburger that was conflicts of interest surrounding her foundation (while largely ignoring Trump’s). But go ahead, keep pretending that the media was unreservedly pro-Clinton. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161/20 "2017-01-15T01:14:25Z")
Right to publish unsubstantiated rumors? If some organization did it to you would you still consider it right? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buzzfeed-were-right-to-publish-christopher-steeles-trump-dossier/777161.md?page=2)