Posted on 01/20/2019 5:15:21 AM PST by Kaslin
Journalism is dead. It wasn’t murder, or old age, it was suicide. Journalism died after drinking a cocktail of contempt, arrogance, ignorance, and enough narrative to kill a whale. Its corpse rolls on, meeting deadlines, publishing stories, and forming cable news panels continuing to extol the virtues of the poisons that killed it. They deserve your skepticism and your contempt.
The latest nail in the media’s credibility coffin landed Friday night. It was a bombshell story that declared, “President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.”
Subornation of perjury is a serious allegation for a “news” organization to make. At least it has become one in the years since Bill Clinton actually did it with Monica Lewinsky and Democrats didn’t care (it’s amazing what a difference party membership makes). If true, talking heads exclaimed, this would be grounds for impeachment of the President.
A second after Buzzfeed, the glorified blog known mostly for clickbait listicles and cat videos, published the allegations all presses were stopped. Newspapers and networks sent their reporters on a quest to verify the story, based on anonymous sources, for themselves. They couldn’t.
Normally, if journalism were still a profession with standards, this “bombshell” wouldn’t warrant more than a mention unless and until it was able to be corroborated by someone, even an anonymous someone, by the other organizations. You can’t report on someone else’s anonymous reporting if you can’t get anyone to back it up. But these aren’t normal times.
Every outlet ran the story, adding a casual mention of not having (yet) been able to “independently verify” it for themselves. A mere formality; it had to be true, after all, it was a story about Donald Trump, painting him as a criminal – the top item on Christmas lists in newsrooms from coast to coast.
All of Friday was consumed by this story and its implications.
Meanwhile, no one was able to verify any of it.
The two reporters who “broke” the story were immediately booked on cable news to be celebrated as conquering heroes. And they immediately contradicted each other on the crucial question of whether or not they’d actually seen documents proving their story with their own eyes.
When CNN asked if he’d seen the proof himself, one reporter named Anthony Cormier said, “No, I have not seen it personally. But the folks we have talked to -- two officials we have spoken to, are fully 100% read it, to that aspect of the special counsel’s investigation.”
The other reporters, named Jason Leopold, was asked on MSNBC about his partner’s admission and responded, “Over the course of a year we've reported pretty extensively on the Trump Moscow project, and we have been -- I'll just say that we've seen documents, we’ve been briefed on documents. We're very confident in our reporting.”
One said they hadn’t seen any proof themselves, the other said they did. It can’t be both.
No one took a knee when those flags were raised, they all saluted and continued an endless series of hypothetical discussions predicated on a story no one at any news organization could back up. I’d be shocked if several of the participants didn’t win Pulitzer Prizes.
Journalism went to Hell courtesy of what its practitioners view as its shining moment – Watergate – and it hasn’t looked back since.
As I wrote in my book, “Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein made an untold fortune, were played in a movie by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, were showered with awards, and sent many journalists running down the path of fame rather than truth. And fame is the only thing heroin gets addicted to. The thing was, Woodward and Bernstein were real journalists. They reported a real story of corruption, worked sources, uncovered information, checked their facts, and got the story right. In other words, they earned their accolades. Today, too many journalists aren’t interested in doing the work, they just want the rewards.”
And there is a lifetime of rewards awaiting whoever claims the scalp under the golden coiffed locks resting atop Donald Trump’s head. Its pursuit has perverted the profession more than anything before it, and this time they thought they had it.
Late in the evening on Friday, in an extremely rare move, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office broke their long-standing silence to issue a statement on the story, a strong statement of denial. “BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate,” the statement read.
Mueller could have remained silent, could have let the story peter out the way so many others have, but he didn’t. He drove a stake through its heart, rendering the entire day’s news cycle yet another fake news fever dream.
How this whole Mueller investigation ultimately plays out is anyone’s guess, anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. But how it’s played out for the media is laid bare for the whole world to see. CNN’s Chris Cuomo put it perfectly when he said, “Mueller didn’t do the media any favors tonight, and he did do the president one, because…this allows them to say, ‘You can’t believe it. You can’t believe what you read, you can’t believe what you hear.”
Not if you’re a follower of Marshall Applewhite.
Then this just fuels your desire to put on a purple gown, O.D. on barbiturates and catch the next alien spacecraft to Clarkston.
It’s ironic that the same crowd who published the Fake Dossier also published the fake subornation of perjury story. This is how the Left rolls. It is all about the ends justifies the means. It is how totalitarian regimes consolidate their power. If it continues, America is in for some turbulent times.
Good one! LOL!
But modern urinalism was starting to gain a foothold. While I was a commuter student who lived some distance off campus and would actually interview people in the community for stories, there were more than a few who would interview other urinalists and refer to them as reliable but unnamed sources.
Their best talent was self-promotion and their short term goal was getting drunk, getting laid or both the following weekend. I saw it up close and personal.
“How this whole Mueller investigation ultimately plays out is anyone’s guess, anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. “
I was thinking of Mueller. Great move on his part to gain Trump’s mention. I think this move makes Mueller look fair in his assessment of Trump. Was Mueller setting a trap? Was this latest fake news debacle intended to push Trump into Mueller’s path, maybe answering some questions?
Or was this an elaborate plan by the rats to take attention away from 800,000 furloughed federal workers.
In the late 1950s grade school we were taught about the Communist-controlled press, like Pravda, in the Soviet Union.
A few years later there were signs that the fifth-column leftist media, uncluding “Uncle Walter,” had started to rise in the U.S. with their coverup of the corrupt Kennedy crime clan.
The lie was picked up and broadcast throughout the world. There were no retractions. This is what they do. They know danmed well that the deliberate lie will be believed, talked about, chiseled in concrete, and enshrined in history as absolute truth.
They accomplished what they set out to do.
the media is the deep state
No, one said, "... we've seen documents.."; period.
NOTHING was 'said' about the CONTENT of those 'documents'.
Nay....Mueller was covering his ass.
Buzzfeed sources most likely are in mueller team and that would be a real problem when, not if, that went public....
Only they would have the information Buzzfeed was pimping...
Even if true it would STILL be
He said...She said.
Or did Trump’s folks plant the story...knowing the media would predictably go nutsoid and soil themselves yet again? One wonders?
Even if it’s true that Cohen said he was told to lie, it would still be ...He said...She said.
I was also a journalism major at a state university back in the mid 70s (everyone wanted to be Woodward & Bernstein). And I remember being taught to verify and cross-check stories. No stories run without two, independent, known sources corroborating each other.
But, one of my professors told a story about how he had been a reporter for a DC paper. He and a colleague got a great story from one source. The couldn't verify, so they wrote it anyway and took it to their editor - who turned it down cold. After trying some more to find another source, one of the reporters turned to the other and asked him about the story. They then listed this as a "source close to the White House" (the newsroom was about 3 blocks from the WH) and the editor bought it.
The moral is that there has never been an actual, enforceable code of ethics for Journalism. That is why it remains a job and not a profession. Almost all of today's journalists are editorial hacks or worse. I am now finishing a 36 year career as a CPA. We have a code of ethics and are a profession (doesn't mean all CPAs are good or honest, but we have a way to enforce the code if we catch 'em).
“Or did Trump’s folks plant the story...knowing the media would predictably go nutsoid and soil themselves yet again? One wonders?”
It’s possible. This was too convenient a story right when we are talking about the most important issue our country faces.
The one and only.
“the media is the deep state”
The media is the enemy. There, fixed it.
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