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Opinion: A French Lesson for the American Media
New York Times ^ | May 9, 2017 | by David Leonhardt

Posted on 05/09/2017 9:52:27 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

The hacked emails from Emmanuel Macron’s French campaign appear to be spectacularly mundane, according to people who have read them. No doubt they also include some embarrassing thoughts, but so far they are notably lacking in scandal.

Does this description remind you of anything?

Ah, yes. Last year, Russian agents stole thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and published them via WikiLeaks. The dominant feature of the emails was their ordinariness.

They contained no evidence of lawbreaking, major hypocrisy or tawdry scandal. Even the worst revelation - a Democratic official and CNN contributor fed a town hall question to the campaign - qualified as small beer.

Despite the mundane quality of the Clinton emails, the media covered them as a profound revelation. The tone often suggested a big investigative scoop. But this was no scoop. It was material stolen by a hostile foreign government, posted for all to see, and it was only occasionally revealing. It deserved some coverage, but far less.

I say this as someone who likes journalism so much I’ve never had another full-time job.

The overhyped coverage of the hacked emails was the media’s worst mistake in 2016 — one sure to be repeated if not properly understood. Television was the biggest offender, but print media was hardly blameless. The sensationalism exacerbated a second problem with the coverage: the obsession with Clinton’s private email server.

This issue isn’t going away. Our digital world ensures that the private information of public figures, and not-so-public ones, will be released again in the future.

The media cannot always ignore that information, tempting as it may seem. But it also should not pretend that the only two options are neglect and sensationalism. There is a middle ground, one where journalistic judgment should prioritize news over the whiff of news.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crookedhillary; fakenews; fakestreammedia; newfaketimes
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"Journalism" is a mental disorder.
1 posted on 05/09/2017 9:52:27 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

NYT says “The best way to cover the news you don’t like is to not report it.”


2 posted on 05/09/2017 9:55:47 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

What a rewriting of history.

The Democrat party chair conspiring to rig the primaries for Hillary, no big deal.

Journalists conspiring with one candidate to rig a debate; nothing there...

This is really insulting to Bernie supporters...


3 posted on 05/09/2017 9:56:02 AM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If Trump had cheated in debates, would that have been “small beer”?


4 posted on 05/09/2017 9:57:14 AM PDT by The people have spoken (Proud member of Hillary's basket of deplorables)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Ah, yes. Last year, Russian agents stole thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and published them via WikiLeaks

The Times goes all in on political fiction

5 posted on 05/09/2017 9:57:35 AM PDT by IncPen (Progressivism is in perpetual need of an enemy against which to refresh its outrage.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Ah, yes. Last year, Russian agents stole thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and published them via WikiLeaks

The Times goes all in on political fiction

6 posted on 05/09/2017 9:57:48 AM PDT by IncPen (Progressivism is in perpetual need of an enemy against which to refresh its outrage.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Ah, yes. Last year, Russian agents stole thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and published them via WikiLeaks

The Times goes all in on political fiction

7 posted on 05/09/2017 9:58:28 AM PDT by IncPen (Progressivism is in perpetual need of an enemy against which to refresh its outrage.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Revisionist history which Slimes are so good at.


8 posted on 05/09/2017 10:02:09 AM PDT by Lent
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
The dominant feature of the emails was their ordinariness.

No, the dominant feature of the emails was the unmistakable theme that HRC was an old woman who couldn't drive, use technology, or figure out a TV schedule, whose minions regularly needed to wait for her to "wake up" or "sober up", and that their Foundation was little more than the family slush fund.

9 posted on 05/09/2017 10:04:02 AM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If they were ordinary why were so many classified?


10 posted on 05/09/2017 10:14:57 AM PDT by piasa
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
No doubt they also include some embarrassing thoughts, but so far they are notably lacking in scandal. Does this description remind you of anything?

How many Bernie Sanders supporters read the Times? I guess the Times is picking sides with old-school Democrat / liberal Wall Street Clintonism over new-school Bernie-style hardcore Socialism.

11 posted on 05/09/2017 10:15:44 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: piasa

I don’t believe anything from the DNC hacks were classified, that was the state department stuff.


12 posted on 05/09/2017 10:17:28 AM PDT by maxtheripper
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

This particular columnist, David Leonhardt, is a longstanding leftist who writes as if he’s rational and the smartest guy in the room. There are about 1 million of these types in NYC.


13 posted on 05/09/2017 10:29:09 AM PDT by BlueStateRightist (Government is best which governs least.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"Journalism" is a mental disorder.
Exactly. Said differently, journalism - which knows itself to be negative (“if it bleeds, it leads”) - claims (or at least powerfully insinuates itself) to be objective. I put it to you that a claim that “negativity is objective” is the very definition of cynicism.

Journalism is cynicism towards society. Concomitantly, journalism is naiveté towards government:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

It was long a puzzlement to me why “the media” was “liberal.” The answer is that major journalism
  1. in outlook is inherently cynical toward society, and inclined to promote government (which journalism presumes to dominate) control over society,

  2. is given the same inputs by the Associated Press and other wire services, and

  3. is a single outlook coming from only notionally independent sources.
Wire service journalism has to be inclined toward socialism.

14 posted on 05/09/2017 10:44:13 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which ‘liberalism’ coheres is that NOTHING ACTUALLY MATTERS except PR.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I don’t regard exposing classified information to every half decent hacker as ‘ordinary.’

I don’t regard a candidate hijacking, rigging, colluding and claiming as a birthright the nomination of one of our two political parties as ‘ordinary.’

I don’t regard a candidate/campaign/party using the media as their personal propaganda organ as ‘ordinary.’

I don’t regard the media clearing stories with a candidate and/or party as ‘ordinary.’


15 posted on 05/09/2017 10:51:30 AM PDT by relictele
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I saw quite authentic looking offshore bank statements from an account Macron says he didn’t have with his name on them.

But I’m not French and I don’t vote there. The French media conspired to suppress them from voters who were entitled to such nformation.


16 posted on 05/09/2017 10:55:12 AM PDT by relictele
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Russian agents”

Name them.


17 posted on 05/09/2017 11:09:17 AM PDT by cgbg (Hidden behind the social justice warrior mask is corruption and sexual deviance.)
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To: relictele

But I’m not French and I don’t vote there.


Ya left out a word:

But THANKFULLY I’m not French and I don’t vote there.


18 posted on 05/09/2017 12:23:17 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Bill and Hillary Clinton are the penicillin-resistant syphilis of our political system.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Even the worst revelation - a Democratic official and CNN contributor fed a town hall question to the campaign - qualified as small beer.

Wow! Nothing about sending goons to Trump rallies. Nothing about the "neutral" DNC smearing Bernie Sanders.

-PJ

19 posted on 05/09/2017 12:25:50 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (The 1st Amendment gives the People the right to a free press, not CNN the right to the 1st question.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

NY TIMES...ESAD


20 posted on 05/09/2017 1:07:20 PM PDT by rrrod (just an old guy with a gun in his pocket.l)
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