Posted on 08/05/2025 6:31:15 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The ostensible high priests of journalism should be able to detect the difference between passable coverage and epic, historic failure.
Letter to Bill Grueskin, former Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, on his recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review.
Mr. Grueskin,
Regarding your August 1 article, “Knowing: Still Only Half the Battle,” which lauds Charlie Savage of the New York Times for having “dissected and eviscerated” Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claims about corruption of intelligence in the Trump-Russia investigation:
You praised Savage’s article, “New Reports on Russian Interference Don’t Show What Trump Says They Do,” as an example of the work of an “experienced beat reporter” who can distill complex stories into a “coherent, compelling whole.” Your sub-headline stressed the importance of “showing receipts” in journalism, where “most people don’t follow stories very closely,” but “they can learn a lot when an experienced beat reporter helps them sort out what’s important and what’s chaff.”
Chaff.
Except — and you should know this because the Columbia Journalism Review published over 20,000 words on the subject in January 2023 — Savage and his colleagues at the Times have badly miscovered this story for nearly a decade, and continue to do so. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize the paper won on the topic along with the Washington Post will go down as the same kind of “disgrace” as its 1932 Pulitzer for Walter Duranty’s breathless coverage of Stalin’s Russia. In this case, the Times drifted so far from its traditional mission that it became an animating motive for Gabbard and other investigators in Donald Trump’s administration.
Witness FBI Director Kash Patel throwing down a gauntlet this weekend, right after your piece ran. He challenged media figures who called him a “liar” in 2018, when as an investigator in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chaired by California’s Devin Nunes, he outed the Steele Dossier as “fictitious intelligence” used to deceive a federal judge and unlawfully spy on Trump’s campaign. Patel added, “Now I’m the FBI Director,” then hinted that he might release “more docs” so “we can see who is lying,” before ending with a reference to “bogus Pulitzers.”
Is this normal FBI Director behavior? Would Louis Freeh or William Webster call out a newspaper in such a personal way? Probably not. Would most Times readers even know what Patel is talking about? Also probably not, because the paper has consistently responded to criticism by doing what you did in “Knowing: Still Only Half the Battle”: casually dismiss allegations as “false conspiracies” and “chaff,” things educated people may safely ignore, in favor of the wheat in papers like the Times.
That attitude only works if the facts are on your side. On this story, they aren’t, and it’s not close. About those “receipts” you praised:......SNIP
I bet the NYT readers will never hear of this letter of condemnation.
Patel “hinted he might release more docs…”
YES!!!!
Free beer tomorrow!
All my liberal friends to this day completely believe the full Russiagate story including all of its salacious aspects as 100% true. They don’t know it has been contradicted and has collapsed as a narrative. It’s like they live in an alternate universe, sort of the way in which they accuse us of living.
The power to ignore is quite powerful indeed, which is why this will never get the coverage it deserves.
I'm sure you're right. The NYT readers will never see this piece.
Unfortunately so much of the foreign news outlets rely on NYT (and WaPo, CNN, ABC etc) for their US-related news. Therefore the only ones getting this info will be people who take the trouble to look for non-MSM news sources.
Until the Columbia Journalism Review gets its act together (if ever), the Pulitzer Prize should be referred to as the Pulitzer/Duranty Prize.
Indictments, prosecutions, and convictions.
Charlie Savage needs a Duranty Pulitzer. He’s a lying POS.
Putz Prize For Excellence In Propaganda
I think it was John Brennan who said the story "rings true". And that's good enough for the liberals to keep believing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.