The mainstream media really has to be careful about reporting hot information. They make a lot of mistakes with breaking news like shootings, but they need to be extra careful when it comes to Trump because he and his supporters use it for propaganda purposes. Fox News just had to correct a couple of errors made about a Roy Moore accuser. ABC made their recent error because they didn’t wait to confirm, but it sounds like CNN’s error was their sources getting the date wrong. They probably should have asked to see the email before reporting. It’s an interesting piece of information, but the corrected date makes it not particularly important (though that could change).
They also recently reported a “big” thing on how Goldstone kept spamming Trump Jr. with ideas on what all the campaign could do (then mentions that no one in the campaign seems to have paid any attention to it nor done anything). But the title of the article was something like, “Previously undiscovered followup on Russian lawyer meeting!”
That made it sound like there had been a second meeting, or at least some sort of post-meeting back-and-forth.
I recognize that the headline writers are different people than the ones that write the articles and that the headline writer is just trying to get people to click links, but you’re not doing your organization any good if you are regularly selling nothingburgers as a big deal.
3 different “bombshell” stories have turned out to be erroneous in the last week or so alone. (Those being, 1) the ABC article about pre-election contacts, 2) the Bloomberg article about an alleged subpoena of Trump financial records, and now 3) the Wikileaks pre-release contact.)
On another note, an article in Slate magazine that could almost be directed at certain posters to this thread: Democrats: Please, Please Stop Sharing Seth Abramson’s Very Bad Tweets
Just for comparison’s sake, could you point out any of the lies that have gushed from Old Faithless on an hourly basis that he has corrected? Not those that he has reversed his opinion without explanation, but those where he has explicitly stated “I was wrong, here’s the facts.”?
Take your time, just give us the top ten. Five. Three. One?
This is even worse than most tu quoque arguments, in that it fails at the “tu”, before you even get to the “quoque”.
Making mistakes and correcting them is why the press is real news.
Compare this to how Breitbart corrected a story when it turned out they wrote an article aboutthe wrong Loretta Lynch. That’s why they are fake news.
I have been wondering whether the White House, after almost a year, has finally gotten around to spreading nonsense to track down who is the source of various leaks. (I think I read somewhere that this is called the “blue dye test”, but Google is refusing to confirm.)
I doubt it. Especially as most of this information is not controlled by the WH. There’s been speculation that the Trump Jr story was leaked by Democrats on the Intelligence Committee (where he testified about this issue about a week ago).
I would think that it’s mostly overenthusiastic reporters and sources.
On a related note, CNN today walked back some of their prior reporting on Sessions’ Russia contacts. Not strictly incorrect reporting, but it’s also consistent with something of a slant.
So, you could have directly and clearly pointed out any number of such instances, but it is beneath your dignity to do so?
No, it’s that I’ve not claimed or implied that there were any such instances, so there’s no reason for me to point to any.
IOW, there was zero point to your post, other than indulging yourself in some of your customary sarcasm.
Atlantic editor David Frum makes a point about the difference between a press that makes mistakes–and acknowledges and corrects them–and an Administration (and its handmaiden ‘news’ channel, Fox) that never admits mistakes:
http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/atlantic-editor-mistakes-are-why-people-should-trust-the-media/
Trump/Fox = astrology
A press that has the integrity to admit and correct errors = astronomy
It’s a fair analogy, in my view.
That’s a valid point, but the notion that the media is motivated by antipathy to Trump is one of two possible explanations. The other explanation is that the media is motivated by being first to break a big story.
There’s no incentive to make an error in downplaying the Russia story, because that makes the story less of a story and less of a scoop for you and your media outlet. There’s a big incentive to make an error in playing it up, because that makes it more of a story and more of a scoop for you and your outlet.
I would guess that both factors are in play here, but I suspect that the Big Scoop angle is the more important factor.
To be a real answer to a question the “antipathy to trump” must be out of sync with the actions of trump, or unreal in some way.
“Antipathy to trump” is not a reason for anything that’s ever happened, so far. There are words that apply to the media here: Commensurate, proportional etc.
Greenwald’s attempts at fairness and objectiveity missed something rather important: the administration is making absolutely no effort to be factual with the press or the public. The antipathy toward Trump is not just because of how he makes the press feel; it’s the fact that a presidential administration tells outrageous lies on an almost daily basis and repeatedly questions the norms of our democracy. It’s the president who’s gone one direction since before he was even elected president; the media is simply responding in kind. Greenwald’s point about mistakes going both ways is valid in other times, when the administration is not communicating with the media with phrases like “alternative facts” or saying “We will not be questioned.” The Trump administration has deliberately taken the narrative in a specific direction.
I think their antipathy makes them much more willing to report a story before they can truly confirm that the story is correct…if it’s damaging to the administration.
The bigger point is that multiple sources confirmed that the date of the email to Trump Jr. was before the Wikileaks release when, in fact, it was after the release. That means more than one person was deliberately misleading the press and should be called out.
Who’s to say that all the mistakes have been anti-Trump, least of all Greenwald? When the press makes a mistake that makes Trump look bad, Trump (or a supporter) calls them on it and raises a big hue and cry. And when they err on something that clears Trump, what happens, or what could we expect to happen? Does anyone think Trump, or someone in the know, would come forward to correct it?
We know about certain mistakes because someone has an interest in making sure we know about them. That doesn’t mean those are the only mistakes there are.
Well, if memory serves, the corrections came from the same people who reported. Were the reporters “caught lying”, or did they do the “catching” themselves? The Trumpniks don’t want to “correct the record”, they don’t want anybody talking about it at all!
Barium meal test, also known as the Canary Trap.