Ex-BuzzFeed News Editor Says He Would Still Publish the Trump Dossier, But There's a Catch

townhall.com ^ | April 22, 2023 | Matt Vespa

[lowbridge]

BuzzFeed News is no more, but its former editor, Ben Smith, spearheading the new Semafor media venture, decided to reflect on the moment he gave the green light to post the infamous Steele Dossier. The document was unverifiable and has now been dismissed as anything but legitimate. This tranche of papers is what set off the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Donald Trump, the investigation that formed the core of the Russian collusion hoax that later evolved into the Mueller investigation. The media circus destroyed the last vestiges of credibility with many reporters in the legacy media. No bombshell development ever panned out due to a lack of evidence. After the mayhem this had caused, Smith penned what he would do differently, and shockingly, it’s not much. The former BuzzFeed editor said he would still have published the Trump dossier, but not in PDF format—just screenshots with added text for context and analysis (via The Atlantic): 

-snip

… If I had to do it again, I would publish the dossier—we couldn’t suppress it, not once CNN had discussed it and its implications on air. But I would hold more tightly to the document, so that no one could read it without reading what we knew about it—that we weren’t sure it was true, and in fact we had noticed errors in it. Releasing a document that could be shared without context—and this is as true of the WikiLeaks material as it is of the dossier—created partisan symbols, not crowdsourced analysis.

In technical terms, that means I wouldn’t simply publish it as a PDF, destined to float free from our earnest caveats. At best, we could have published the document as screenshots attached to the context we had and the context we would learn. Perhaps in some small way,

[Paladin2]

Who leaked it at who’s request and why aren’t the leak team in jail?

[NWFree]

And here I was so sure that corrupt libtards in the fake news had suddenly reformed

[TChad]

If I had to do it again, I would publish the dossier...

...because lying to advance the left's agendas is all we do, and all we are. We're nothing more than lying pieces of sh*t. And our readers are people who love smelling our sh*t.

[17th Miss Regt]

The leaker and the requestor are both Democrats, hence no penalty applies.

[Huskrrrr]

The left never admits they were wrong.

[Billthedrill]

But I would hold more tightly to the document, so that no one could read it without reading what we knew about it—that we weren’t sure it was true, and in fact we had noticed errors in it.

A lie, I think. They had plenty of time to investigate and disavow and they did nothing of the sort until it became too obvious to deny that the thing was phony. That it was being used by Democrat operatives long after that was known was equally obvious. If there's any real regret here it's that they were caught.

[CatOwner]

The left never admits they were wrong.

You never have to when you're never punished and you happen to be winning (pretty much won already).

[mass55th]

"Who leaked it at whose request and why aren’t the leak team in jail?"

John McCain made sure a whole bunch of people got copies of it. I want to know if he paid out of his own pocket to have his top aide fly over to England to pick up a copy of the dossier, bring it back here, and copy it to disburse to as many people as he could, or did he use his Senate budget to do it. I'm guessing the latter, but he'll never be held accountable.

[ComputerGuy]

He wouldn’t publish it in its entirety is what he means. Everyone knows now how weak his case is.

[Libloather]

Cankles is getting her money’s worth.

[BiteYourSelf]

Exactly.🤨