Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Taibbi grinding through the facts and indicting the media: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russia...imes-a-million

Long, but worth it. Possibly the most comprehensive collection of facts demonstrating the media's sins in this debacle.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Slow news weekend.

etsa: Sebby, I don't understand why you think the Mueller investigation was a debacle or why you think the press performed any worse in covering it than it did in covering anything else.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Slow news weekend.

etsa: Sebby, I don't understand why you think the Mueller investigation was a debacle or why you think the press performed any worse in covering it than it did in covering anything else.

I don't think the Mueller investigation was a debacle. I think the media coverage of it was a debacle. It was as bad as the non-stop overheated coverage of the Lewinsky/Starr witch hunt against the Clintons, but not quite as bad as the media's carrying of Bush's water in the run up to the Iraq War.

But, really, who cares what I think? Read the pages of assiduously compiled facts that Taibbi, a guy who wrote a hysterical book making fun of Trump (highly recommended), lays out in his article.

The media ran with this scandal for all it was worth. It desperately wanted a Watergate II ratings bonanza. In the end, it got Al Capone's vault.

All the media did here was stoke greater division and embolden Trump. The only silver lining I see is even fewer people will believe their bullshit in the future. It's an embarrassment. Fox went into the gutter of slanted news and everybody else followed. Now we've a British tabloid media. Different sources pick different sides and feed the audience slanted garbage.

And it's not okay for the media to bullshit and over-hype, as some argue, because Trump is some sort of existential threat. He's not. He's a symptom of deeper rot, like the media that covers him. They perfectly deserve each other.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't think the Mueller investigation was a debacle. I think the media coverage of it was a debacle. It was as bad as the non-stop overheated coverage of the Lewinsky/Starr witch hunt against the Clintons, but not quite as bad as the media's carrying of Bush's water in the run up to the Iraq War.

But, really, who cares what I think? Read the pages of assiduously compiled facts that Taibbi, a guy who wrote a hysterical book making fun of Trump (highly recommended), lays out in his article.

The media ran with this scandal for all it was worth. It desperately wanted a Watergate II ratings bonanza. In the end, it got Al Capone's vault.

All the media did here was stoke greater division and embolden Trump. The only silver lining I see is even fewer people will believe their bullshit in the future. It's an embarrassment. Fox went into the gutter of slanted news and everybody else followed. Now we've a British tabloid media. Different sources pick different sides and feed the audience slanted garbage.

And it's not okay for the media to bullshit and over-hype, as some argue, because Trump is some sort of existential threat. He's not. He's a symptom of deeper rot, like the media that covers him. They perfectly deserve each other.

Yes, it's so different from the judicious, skeptical way the media covered Benghazi and the Clinton email issues, to take two examples.

If you want media that do not respond to free-market incentives to sell ads, you need to think of something else.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Yes, it's so different from the judicious, skeptical way the media covered Benghazi and the Clinton email issues, to take two examples.

If you want media that do not respond to free-market incentives to sell ads, you need to think of something else.

Agreed. The media handled those issues horribly. And Fox was the main culprit in that. But the rest of the media joined in when they realized it created some ratings benefit.

But you know what? We've still got actual journalists out there like Taibbi who put all the facts together and write stories explaining the way the media bullshits the public and inflates expectations. That's all his story is about. He's saying, "Here's how the media inflamed this thing to such wild expectations that people are now in shock that there turned out to be no collusion."

He's just tracing all the bullshit. As journalists do. The clowns on Fox and MSNBC can do their shtick -- gloating on one hand, crafting wild conspiracies involving Barr and Rosenstein on the other. As he notes in the piece, they learned nothing after Iraq, and they'll learn nothing from this. And why should they? Bullshit and hype sell ads.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Agreed. The media handled those issues horribly. And Fox was the main culprit in that. But the rest of the media joined in when they realized it created some ratings benefit.

But you know what? We've still got actual journalists out there like Taibbi who put all the facts together and write stories explaining the way the media bullshits the public and inflates expectations. That's all his story is about. He's saying, "Here's how the media inflamed this thing to such wild expectations that people are now in shock that there turned out to be no collusion."

He's just tracing all the bullshit. As journalists do. The clowns on Fox and MSNBC can do their shtick -- gloating on one hand, crafting wild conspiracies involving Barr and Rosenstein on the other. As he notes in the piece, they learned nothing after Iraq, and they'll learn nothing from this. And why should they? Bullshit and hype sell ads.

Suggesting that there's something special about the media and this subject seems like a strong example of the Chinese robber fallacy.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Suggesting that there's something special about the media and this subject seems like a strong example of the Chinese robber fallacy.

I'll read it, but one question... Is that the Last Psychiatrist resurrected?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll read it, but one question... Is that the Last Psychiatrist resurrected?

I don't know the Last Psychiatrist, but after a little Googling I don't think so.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Suggesting that there's something special about the media and this subject seems like a strong example of the Chinese robber fallacy.

There are grounds to suggest that fallacy applies, but they fade away if you consider the way Russiagate and WMD (to use Taibbi's comparison) were hijacked and driven in a particular direction by the media.

In the run-up to Iraq, the quantum of evidence suggesting Hussein did not have WMD continued to grow. There was a race on the part of neocons in the Administration to get the war started before the emerging evidence reached a tipping point and toppled the effort to start the war. At each turn, the most powerful voices in the mainstream media engaged in willful ignorance. A cynic would argue, and many have, the media wanted a war.

In Russiagate, as Taibbi details, the biggest mainstream media outlets (save Fox, which is a Trump propaganda machine) pushed forth the narrative that there must have been collusion. Every time a story about Russiagate suggested to prove collusion was later found to be either embellished or false (Taibbi notes something like 50 instances of this), the media responded by either:

1. Burying that finding; or,
2. Putting out a new salacious story linking Trump to Russia to cover up the fact that a previous story was found to be false.

All efforts were directed toward one aim: Retaining at all costs the appearance that Mueller was sitting on bombshells, and Trump was not only guilty, but guilty as hell, of collusion.

Only in very limited instances did large media outlets admit and apologize for having published false "proof" of collusion.

If you happened across almost any news source other than Fox (which was busy running a counter narrative just as dishonest), you were also fed "evidence" of dubious quality like the Steele Dossier as though it were reputable. As Taibbi notes, when that evidence was correctly assessed as flawed, the media didn't pivot to an analysis of whether it was or was not flawed. Most mainstream outlets instead advocated for the position the Steele Dossier was credible. They put on lawyers' hats and made arguments rehabilitating it.

Taibbi lays this out much better than I am here. But he wasn't the only one doing this. Glenn Greenwald, a Trump hater, started questioning Russiagate very early in the process. This garnered him considerable criticism from his colleagues. Why? Because people doing what Taibbi and Greenwald did, something called journalism, violate the New Rules of our modern media. We are on the side of good, and so we are licensed to be wrong here and there. It's all for a laudable aim.*

The sneaky reaction to Taibbi's piece has been, "What else should the media have done? We needed to investigate Trump!" That sleight of hand ducks the criticism. The problem wasn't in investigating Trump. That was more than warranted. The problem was in convicting him before Mueller was finished with his investigation. That didn't work out so well, and the media should have suspected it wouldn't have worked out so well given a lot of evidence it presented along the way was of questionable veracity.**

The bigger media outlets offered grudging mea culpas many years after the Iraq War turned out to be a disaster. They admitted that they ran with a false narrative that there was solid evidence of WMD despite considerable evidence to the contrary. I don't think Trump deserves any mea culpa from anyone in the media or otherwise. He certainly acted guilty enough (if I thought him smart, I might think his doing so was the mother of all rope-a-dopes on a credulous media). But the media should (and will of course not) learn this lesson: It is not in the business of crafting the political reality it desires, but reporting on the facts in front of it. To engage in the not-too-far-from-Pravda narrative creation the majority of the media was guilty of in 2003, and now again in Russiagate, while excoriating Russia, provides some very dark comedy.

Does this apply to all of the media? No. Just most, and almost all large media outlets. Which gets me out of the Chinese Robbers box.

_____
* I hear this refrain from the right wing as well. Question a crazy old relative on why he sends out false emails filled with conspiracy nonsense about Democrats or believes crap he hears on Fox and many will admit, "I'm fine with disinformation that brings people to my side and hurts the other side. We need to save this country."
** The politicians who bought into the narrative and proclaimed collusion a foregone conclusion made a grievous tactical error. Pelosi, on the other hand, looks like a sage. AOC is also playing this very well, btw: https://www.gq.com/story/ocasio-cortez-mueller-report

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But the media should (and will of course not) learn this lesson: It is not in the business of crafting the political reality it desires, but reporting on the facts in front of it.

Okay, but the facts in front of it were that there were known contacts between Russia and people close to Trump and that Trump and those other people kept lying about them.

I mean, it could be the rope-a-dope you mentioned, but none of us think they're capable of being that smart.

Meanwhile, we don't actually know what Mueller found, or what he thought he could prove, or the extent to which the investigation was hampered by Trump's refusal to be interviewed, Manafort's willingness to lie, and the lack of access to witnesses aboard. It's pretty hard to prove a conspiracy if none of the people involved are willing to cooperate about it.

My guess is that those things led Mueller to suspect a lot of stuff he couldn't prove.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

In Russiagate, as Taibbi details, the biggest mainstream media outlets (save Fox, which is a Trump propaganda machine) pushed forth the narrative that there must have been collusion. Every time a story about Russiagate suggested to prove collusion was later found to be either embellished or false (Taibbi notes something like 50 instances of this), the media responded by either:

1. Burying that finding; or,
2. Putting out a new salacious story linking Trump to Russia to cover up the fact that a previous story was found to be false.

All efforts were directed toward one aim: Retaining at all costs the appearance that Mueller was sitting on bombshells, and Trump was not only guilty, but guilty as hell, of collusion.

Two things, each worthy of its own thread:

1) What you describe is exactly the Chinese robber fallacy. The media ran sensational stories designed to excite people rather than to inform. Um, duh. Consider two possible explanations for this. One is that "the media" (excluding Fox) had "one aim" because of a huge conspiracy to get Trump. The other is that the media ran stories that they thought people wanted to see, because by and large they operate on business models that require advertisers and eyeballs. You go with your tinfoil-hat-everyone-is-out-to-get-Trump explanation, and I will go with the the-free-market-isn't-ideal-but-we-haven't-figured-out-a-better-way-to-do-it explanation. My explanation doesn't run into trouble with the fact that the same people who you think conspired to get Trump were fresh of wrecking Hillary's campaign with the email nonsense.

2) There absolutely was collusion between the Trump campaign and key Russians. No question. Your beef with the media here is like apologizing for the Titanic's captain by complaining that no one talks about all the icebergs in the North Atlantic that he successfully avoided.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Does this apply to all of the media? No. Just most, and almost all large media outlets. Which gets me out of the Chinese Robbers box.

You'd better rethink the Chinese robbers analogy. If most of the media sensationalized this story in the same way that they sensationalize everything else, you haven't identified anything special about this story. I'm not telling you that the media handled this story perfectly. I'm telling you that the media performed on this story about as well as they ever perform.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Two things, each worthy of its own thread:

1) What you describe is exactly the Chinese robber fallacy. The media ran sensational stories designed to excite people rather than to inform. Um, duh. Consider two possible explanations for this. One is that "the media" (excluding Fox) had "one aim" because of a huge conspiracy to get Trump. The other is that the media ran stories that they thought people wanted to see, because by and large they operate on business models that require advertisers and eyeballs. You go with your tinfoil-hat-everyone-is-out-to-get-Trump explanation, and I will go with the the-free-market-isn't-ideal-but-we-haven't-figured-out-a-better-way-to-do-it explanation. My explanation doesn't run into trouble with the fact that the same people who you think conspired to get Trump were fresh of wrecking Hillary's campaign with the email nonsense.

2) There absolutely was collusion between the Trump campaign and key Russians. No question. Your beef with the media here is like apologizing for the Titanic's captain by complaining that no one talks about all the icebergs in the North Atlantic that he successfully avoided.

1. Sensationalism is one thing. Convicting Trump in advance is another. The former is very common and accrues from the market forces you describe. The latter is rare, and something unique. Like the WMD mess, there the media is pushing a specific narrative. The Chinese Robbers fallacy applies to the sensationalism. It does not apply to the narrative-crafting.

And it's not tinfoil hat stuff at all. You know me so you know when I'm talking about media bias, I am not talking out my ass. I've been in numerous studios and hung out with a lot of fucking media people. They'll even admit there's media bias. (And you were never going to get away with burying the lede like that. You have to try a bit harder.)

2. Take that up with Robert Mueller. You two apparently do not agree.

Unless you're suggesting that there was collusion, just not enough proof of it to charge. In which case, I'd say, the media promised a finding of collusion in Mueller's report, not in Ty's opinion. It did not deliver the former, and the latter is irrelevant.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You'd better rethink the Chinese robbers analogy. If most of the media sensationalized this story in the same way that they sensationalize everything else, you haven't identified anything special about this story. I'm not telling you that the media handled this story perfectly. I'm telling you that the media performed on this story about as well as they ever perform.

The media created the story that Trump was certainly guilty of collusion, and guilty as hell. It convicted in advance.

Certainly you understand the difference between sensationalizing a story (say as the media did the OJ trial, covering every facet of the case in obscene detail) and deciding in advance and telling the public in advance what the result of an investigation was all but assuredly going to be.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Okay, but the facts in front of it were that there were known contacts between Russia and people close to Trump and that Trump and those other people kept lying about them.

I mean, it could be the rope-a-dope you mentioned, but none of us think they're capable of being that smart.

Meanwhile, we don't actually know what Mueller found, or what he thought he could prove, or the extent to which the investigation was hampered by Trump's refusal to be interviewed, Manafort's willingness to lie, and the lack of access to witnesses aboard. It's pretty hard to prove a conspiracy if none of the people involved are willing to cooperate about it.

My guess is that those things led Mueller to suspect a lot of stuff he couldn't prove.

I see your reasoning, but this is arguing that the clown car known as the Trump Admin and Its Extended Cronies defeated Mueller. I'm having a hard time imagining incompetents somehow defeated Mueller's team.

I think Trump's real reckoning comes from the SDNY.

BTW, Mueller proved my theory that ex-KGB would never attempt direct contact with fuck-ups in the Trump campaign totally wrong. Apparently, they did. But again, bolstering the argument there was no collusion, Mueller (paraphrased by Barr) found that these offers were ignored or rebuffed.