Read on Twitter
It's honestly amazing that people on the right (and some on the left) were able to make "there was no Russia collusion" just... accepted as a statement of fact.
"Oh, you believe in the Russia collusion hoax!?!?" they'll say, derisively.
"Oh, you believe in the Russia collusion hoax!?!?" they'll say, derisively.
And while some people are way, way, way over the top about what, exactly, they think Russia did during the 2016 election (no, Putin is not around every corner, no, Trump is not doing his bidding or whatever), it wasn't a "hoax" that the Trump campaign accepted help in 2016.
A big part of the blame here goes to the way it was covered in mainstream media. The day the narrative that it was a "hoax" was the day Barr put out a letter saying that Mueller found "no evidence" (which is not what Mueller found).
I wrote about it at the time, how newspapers just took what Barr said at face value and ran with it. https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/flawed-media-coverage-muellers-findings-underscores-importance-good-headlines
None of these were accurate headlines
it got to the point where Mueller had to basically be like, "hey, that's not what the report says" https://www.mediamatters.org/new-york-times/muellers-statement-was-indictment-press
It was a mess https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/no-news-outlets-do-not-owe-right-wing-media-apology-their-coverage-muellers-russia
The report itself was pretty shocking https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-contacts-russians-wikileaks.html
There were a lot of red flags. The Mueller report's listed rationale for not charging Don Jr. with a crime was essentially that he was too stupid to know he was committing one.
But then last month, the GOP-led Senate report was published. It ended up being more damning than even what Mueller put out there. Republicans in the Senate don't exactly have a big incentive to make Trump look *worse* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intelligence-russian-interference-report.html
But it's a 1,000 pages of reading, which very few people will do, understandably.
Still, the idea that this was a "hoax" is just not true. It was a thing that happened in 2016, and it's happening again in 2020. But now Trump's got DHS to cover for him https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/us/politics/homeland-security-russia-trump.html
Still, the idea that this was a "hoax" is just not true. It was a thing that happened in 2016, and it's happening again in 2020. But now Trump's got DHS to cover for him https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/us/politics/homeland-security-russia-trump.html
All of these things are factual.
What's frustrating is that there are people who can't just accept what *did* and *is* happening, and instead take it to ridiculous levels, yelling about Trump being a spy or doing Putin's bidding or some nonsense.
What's frustrating is that there are people who can't just accept what *did* and *is* happening, and instead take it to ridiculous levels, yelling about Trump being a spy or doing Putin's bidding or some nonsense.
Their motivation for trying to help elect him was simple: they thought they'd benefit more from his election than from Clinton's election
His motivation for accepting help was also simple: He wanted to win and/or build a dumb building.
His motivation for accepting help was also simple: He wanted to win and/or build a dumb building.
No need to go all Galaxy Brain on that. It sucks that this sort of conversation seems to have been boiled down to groups of people who massively understate and massively overstate what happened instead of just accepting the facts as we know them.
Anyway, this thread brought to you by my frustration with this random dude on Twitter this morning.
Anyway, sorry, I got rambling. Coming back to this point: https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1305891596064432128
The way Barr's letter was covered was treated as though he was acting in an impartial capacity and not as Trump's political ally.
A *lot* of things Barr says and does are *still* reported on this way.
A *lot* of things Barr says and does are *still* reported on this way.
And anyone even half-paying attention to Barr knows by now that he's mostly just an extension of Trump's campaign (who happens to control the Department of Justice...)
I sincerely worry that Trump is going to use the government to manufacture news that is positive for him and/or negative for Biden between now and election day. And I worry that it'll still be covered the same way all of this has: as though the government is some neutral entity.
See: the Durham investigation, which Trump/Barr are very clearly trying to make news about before the election: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/nora-dannehy-john-durham/index.html
See: the GOP Senate investigation into Hunter Biden, which yesterday Ron Johnson straight-up admitted was a political stunt meant to hurt Joe Biden https://nypost.com/2020/09/14/ron-johnson-says-ukraine-report-will-show-bidens-unfitness-for-office/
How these stories are covered will determine whether these disingenuous stunts pay off. If every newspaper runs front page stories with giant headlines just repeating whatever message Trump wants out there, it doesn't matter if the underlying message is false; he will have won.
He does this bait-and-switch stuff a lot when it comes to his executive orders. He'll make some gigantic announcement that sounds super impressive... but then when the actual text of what he put out there is released, it's not even close to what he said. But it doesn't matter.
Because he will have gotten all he cared about out of it: good headlines. @MattGertz wrote about the most recent example of this: https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/news-outlets-give-trump-headlines-he-wants-vaporware-drug-executive-order
I wrote about other examples a few weeks back https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/trump-uses-his-1980s-tabloid-playbook-get-favorable-headlines-today
The press matters. A lot. TV, newspapers, tweets, Facebook posts... these things all shape our understanding of what's happening in the world (and, by extension, our own opinions). I recently looked back on the past four years, hoping against hope there'd be improvement.
There really hasn't been. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/press-making-same-mistakes-2016-and-time-running-out-fix-problem
tl;dr the press needs to stop parroting what politicians say and provide context in the initial reporting, even if it means they're slower to report on something. Because once a narrative has been established, you'll have a tough time changing it. You'll have created a "hoax."
