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Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

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Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#171

Post by [deleted] »

dTal wrote: post #101
Theodores wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a pity you have to put the big disclosure at the top of your comment. But our media have made things very binary black and white. Not buying into the 'red scare' means that in the eyes of some you must be a Trump supporter. This is a failure of critical thinking and far too many people fall into this trap, thereby perpetuating things like 'RussiaGate' when it no longer makes sense to do so. The suspicions won't…

Okay, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... That's 496 citations and a warning "This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably". In other words, there's overwhelming evidence that Russia interfered. Like, not even a question. Suggesting it's a made-up media frenzy is just... alternate universe.

[deleted]

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#172

Post by dragonwriter »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #142
IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collusion, like "Crooked Hillary" are terms Trump used courtesy of Cambridge Analytica to control the narrative. The investigation was to look for coordination and links between Russia and the Trump campaign, along with obstruction of justice as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."

Collusion is a euphemism, my point was noone was indicted for coordinating with the campaign, and noone was indicted in the campaign other than for tax fraud and processing crimes. If you can point out who exactly you think coordinated with Trump that'd be great.

> noone was indicted in the campaign other than for tax fraud and processing crimes.

Pappadopolous was convicted for lying about his attempts, approved by higher ups in the campaign, to coordinate with Russia.

Stone was indicted for lying about his role in coordinating between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks about the DNC document release in which, from other indictments, WikiLeaks was acting as either an agent or dupe of Russian intelligence.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#173

Post by dragonwriter »

jtbayly wrote: post #95
jayd16 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The Trump administration has done everything from secretly meet in Trump tower with Russian officials and lie about it to firing the head of the FBI because of the Russian investigation. In my mind, these two acts alone have warranted the last two years of coverage and investigation. Simply imagine a world where these things were ignored. How untrustworthy would the press seem then?

Ignoring it is one thing. Practically promising collusion is another thing entirely.

> Practically promising collusion is another thing entirely.

The second (which is also a conviction by way of a guilty plea) and the final indictments made public were for collusion. Or, rather, for lying about collusion, but the collusion itself is part of the factual background of the indictments and a central and necessary one in each case.

If there is a media failure, it's in continuously reporting the Presidents claim that no collusion was indicated and either letting it stand or endorsing it when that is factually incorrect.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#174

Post by dragonwriter »

lamarpye wrote: post #21
abrahamepton wrote: post #15

This is...utterly delusional, and totally disconnected from the evidence on record. The President's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, personal lawyer and National Security Advisor have either pled guilty or been convicted of felonies. Despite denying any contacts with Russia, we now know he'd been offered a deal to build the biggest tower in Europe, a payout worth $300 million, during the campaign. During th…

None of the people were convicted on charges related to Russian collusion. Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. I won't accuse of you of trying to mislead people, but the judge apologized for making the treason claim against Flynn: https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apo...

> Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI.

Yes, but that was lying in denying collusion in both the case of Pappadopolous (as a Trump campaign official and with support of higher ups, with Russia) and Stone (as a go-between for the Trump campaign, with WikiLeaks—described by the Trump campaign as a “hostile non-state intelligence service”—where WikiLeaks was, based on information in other indictments, either cooperating with or duped by a Russian intelligence operation.)

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#175

Post by thatoneuser »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #164
thatoneuser wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of mueller was to determine if Trump worked with Russia to steal a us presidential election. I may just not know the evidence so I'm asking in total honesty - what indictments demonstrate that happened?

> The point of mueller was to determine if Trump worked with Russia to steal a us presidential election. This is false, the charter was more broad than that. It investigated interference in the Russian election including this possibility. This is why they also prosecuted cases against Russian intelligence officers that performed the hacking operations and individuals that lied to the FBI over their ties to Russian cu…

Unless you cite something that verifies your claim, you're just making things up.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#176

Post by wavepruner »

gpsx wrote: post #119
montalbano wrote: post #10

Although I agree with many of the points here, unfortunately the piece itself has made the same mistake as the media it criticises: it's jumping to conclusions a little prematurely. Why read so much into the lack of indictments when Mueller's team have agreed to the standard that they cannot indict a sitting president? [1] Let's just wait and see -- I'm fed of speculation at this point. [1] https://www.washingtonpost…

I think the real problem in the US media is political bias. I think essentially the article is accusing the left leaning media of letting that bias color their views. Of course the article is equally guilty of that same thing. And I assume it does not see its own bias. And sadly, the fact that the media is like this is largely a reflection of the population in general. And, as others point out, the media is probably…

Confirmation bias explains a lot of what is going on with media. It's human nature to be biased. This doesn't have to be a big problem if we accept that we are all biased.

Biases are rooted in the computational limitations of the human mind. We have limited memory and communication bandwidth. Our brains use compression algorithms to record, store, and retrieve data.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#177

Post by repolfx »

hguant wrote: post #54

Taibbi is an interesting writer who is hard to pigeon hole politically. As far as I can tell, he mostly gets torqued off at people lying and does his best to call them out on it, be it the Pentagon, Wall Street, or his peers.

It's the same with Greenwald. I read him regularly. I'm pretty sure ideologically and politically he's a totally standard left leaning journalist, but he is willing to attack anyone if they're being inconsistent regardless of political affiliation, and he's been covering journalistic dishonesty for years now. There are good reasons the apparently rather libertarian and conservative Edward Snowden went to Greenwald with his story and not the many more mainstream alternatives.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#178

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

dragonwriter wrote: post #172
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collusion is a euphemism, my point was noone was indicted for coordinating with the campaign, and noone was indicted in the campaign other than for tax fraud and processing crimes. If you can point out who exactly you think coordinated with Trump that'd be great.

> noone was indicted in the campaign other than for tax fraud and processing crimes. Pappadopolous was convicted for lying about his attempts, approved by higher ups in the campaign, to coordinate with Russia. Stone was indicted for lying about his role in coordinating between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks about the DNC document release in which, from other indictments, WikiLeaks was acting as either an agent or d…

Those are processing crimes. And Stone denies the accusation.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#179

Post by unclebucknasty »

thatoneuser wrote: post #155
unclebucknasty wrote: post #128

[flagged]

It's because you're literally pulling a conclusion out of thin air to claim there's something of a trump related "Russia problem". It's not a bot conspiracy - that's lazy propaganda that's been spoon fed to people who dislike trump. There are just a lot of people on HN who see through it, and it's telling that rather than discuss the possibility that trump is clean, you just call them trolls and bots.

>There are just a lot of people on HN who see through it

I have seen zero reputable people on HN expressing anything that supports this assertion.

>it's telling that rather than discuss the possibility that trump is clean, you just call them trolls and bots.

Discuss with whom? The "people" who just downvote anything perceived to be anti-Trump or anti-Russia? That's the point. This isn't the first time that pattern has emerged on HN. Obviously, an online community with HN's makeup is a prized target.

Or are you one of those who doesn't believe there have been any bots or trolls or other propaganda aimed at Americans? U.S. intelligence just made it up? Facebook and Twitter just made it up? It's all the Deep State is it? That, and liberal bias in social media?

Trump colluded out in the open and continues to do so. A foreign adversary plotted to help him and a byzantine maze of people around him and his campaign have been indicted, pled guilty, lied about contacts with Russia, etc. But, it's all a coincidence and has nothing to do with Trump, the ignorant beneficiary?

Meanwhile, Trump also oddly and consistently checks off the Russian dictator's bucket list, denigrating his own country (intel community, McCain, etc.) whenever it speaks ill of that dictator. In order to have people overlook all of this, he invents a conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Republicans and Democrats within the government is plotting against him. And, that neatly explains everything that is not pro-Trump.

Talk about lazy propaganda.

It'a absurd. But, in order to defend him as "clean", absurdity and inane conspiracy theories are required, right down to the complete denial of reality.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#180

Post by lumberingjack »

The media is just entertainment now if you're in taking that crud you're literally being entertained that's not news. James traficant was right the American Media is under the control of foreign entities they should be the ones being investigated who owns these media outlets why do they seem to all have an agenda why are they so biased? Keep up the work because you just handed Trump another 4 years.
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