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[benjipwns]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/stop-whining-about-false-balance-w440228

News media outlets are increasingly coming under fire for the sin of "false balance" or "false equivalency." The New York Times, one of the outlets most often accused of this offense, recently defined the term:

"The practice of journalists who, in their zeal to be fair, present each side of a debate as equally credible, even when the factual evidence is stacked heavily on one side."

The crime of The Times, according to some of its readers, has been its coverage of the Clinton email and Clinton Foundation stories. As one Times reader put it, "There's too much at stake in this election for the media to stoke the belief that Hillary's mistakes (which she has definitely made) are even close to par with Trump's."

When Times public editor Liz Spayd essentially told readers that her paper was just doing its job and that readers should just suck it up and deal, she was hit with a torrent of criticism.

A pack of pundits – one might call them the false-equivalency priesthood – lashed out through pieces like "Why the Media Is Botching the Election," "Media Should Stop Treating Trump and Clinton as Equals," "Does the New York Times Have a False Balance Problem?" and countless others.

An important news story or 10 will likely die on the vine while the country obsesses over Trump's latest foot-in-mouth episode. That's the paradox with this candidate. Even the people who wish he didn't exist can't take their eyes off him. No amount of "contextualizing" or pointing out his flaws and deceptions can walk back his gravitational pull on audiences.

This is true of a lot of dumb things that take up space in the news pages, from Joe Arpaio to the Kardashians. One could argue that the users of the public's airwaves have a higher responsibility to properly inform the public that outweighs the need to chase ratings and give airtime to clown acts, but that ship sailed a long time ago.

Ask any reporter who's tried to make the news less stupid at any time over the past 40 years. Most of those people end up begging ProPublica for lunch money, while the horse-racers and celebrity-humpers get panel shows.

Ask reporters like Juan Carlos Frey, who struggled to get anyone to pay attention when he reported on mass graves of undocumented immigrants discovered along the border of Texas.

Such stories about the mass deaths of foreigners or minorities usually get less ink than a cat stuck in a tree or a model who falls off a runway.

But lack of "balance" doesn't seem to bother too many people in that instance. It only seems to come up when the victim is a major political party with basically unlimited ability to buy its own publicity.

The essence of that debate is whether or not it's appropriate to write negative things about Hillary Clinton when there's a possibility that Donald Trump might become president. Or, rather, we may say negative things about Clinton, but only if we always drape reporting in plenty of context about the worse-ness of Trump, or something.

There's not much to say about this debate apart from the fact that it's phony and absurd and that the people shrieking for "balance" are almost always at heart censors who are really concerned with keeping a view of the world with which they disagree out of the news.

There are two basic ideas of how the press is supposed to operate. One is that the system works best when reporters are free, independent and annoying, giving the public as much information as possible, so that people may sort things out for themselves.

The other is that information is inherently dangerous, and the public is too stupid to be trusted with too much of it. Throughout history there has always been a plurality of people who will believe this.

Whether it's keeping "Fuck the Police" off the airwaves or news of the collectivist famine out of Pravda, the idea is the same: People can't handle stuff.

The giveaway in this latest "false balance" debate is the language. There are people wailing about a "weaponized" media that just this once needs to be leashed a bit, given the circumstances. This is classic "information is dangerous" rhetoric.

There are even people in our business using this high-pressure situation to argue for less access and transparency, in the name of keeping future generations of politicians safe from the prying eyes of the public! Most reporters view their jobs as being basically the opposite of that.

Anyone who tries to argue that there's insufficiently vast documentation of Trump's insanity is either being willfully obtuse or not paying real attention to the news. Just follow this latest birther faceplant. The outrage is all out there, in huge quantities. It's just not having the predicted effect.

So media consumers are reduced to blaming the closeness of the race on a species they've practically made extinct with their choices over the years: investigative reporters.

The irony is, the Clinton Foundation thing is a rare example of an important story that is getting anything like the requisite attention. The nexus of elite connections that sits behind tales like Bill Clinton taking $1.5 million in speaking fees from a Swiss bank (and foundation donor) while that same bank is seeking relief from Hillary Clinton's State Department is exactly the kind of thing that requires the scrutiny of reporters.

This is particularly true since the charity is a new kind of structure, with seemingly new opportunities for conflicts, and an innovation that is likely to be replicated in the future by other politicians – perhaps even a future President Trump himself.

Such investigative reports on the mechanics of political influence are also exactly the sort of thing that media audiences routinely ignore, unless by some lucky accident they happen to be caught up in the horse-race drama of a Campaign Reality Show.

So if your complaint about these reports is, "Why now, at this crucial moment?" there's a very good answer. If these stories came out at any other time, you'd be blowing them off!

Graves article: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/7/16/mass_graves_of_immigrants_found_in

And he's referring to this Yglesias article: http://www.vox.com/2016/9/6/12732252/against-transparency
Which he criticized here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...sias-should-unwrite-his-latest-column-w438718

the Yglesias piece basically argues that emails shouldn't be covered by laws like the Freedom of Information Act because it's the 2010s, and it's just too darn hard to use the phone if you want to keep something secret while you're on the public payroll.

Government agencies already routinely blow off FOIA requests, sometimes to the point of being cheeky about it. (I have one friend in the business who was sent a single empty fax cover sheet by a particularly obnoxious federal FOIA officer.) Presidents expand the definition of "classified" seemingly every year, and at the state level whole ranges of documents are quietly excluded from FOIA all the time. Ask the families of police brutality victims in New York about section 50-A of the civil rights code, which excludes most police records from public scrutiny. It's an enormous pain in the ass just to get officials to follow the law. And now we have a fellow journalist arguing that we don't need access to emails? Thanks a lot.

It's kind of not our job in the media to worry about how officials might conduct politically embarrassing conversations without the press finding out. If that's what Matt stays up at night worrying about, he might need a more news-appropriate hobby, like alcoholism.

 

[Fishious]

That was an interesting read. I'm not really sure how to respond to any of this, but since no one else has replied and I think there's some genuinely interesting information and debate to I'll give it a try.

Part of what makes this difficult to respond to is I don't know what the subject of this thead really is. Is it the central piece from RollingStone about 'False Balance' and the related articles he mentions? Is it the mass immigrant graves in Texas? Or is it the Vox government transparency piece and response. I'd like to say it's a shame that nobody else has responded to this thread as it demonstrates one of the points in the Rolling Stone piece, that the media coverage we have is what we deserve since we eat it up, but by entangling so many different subjects together it would probably take at least an hour of reading before someone could formulate a worthwhile response to this thread.

Anyways, regarding the RollingStone "Stop Whining About 'False Balance'" piece, it raises some valid points, but I find myself disagreeing with a lot of it. I'd say that we as media consumers are somewhat to blame for the way the news cycle exists. Publications turn out what we consume. For as much as GAF tends to be pro Hillary, on any given day you'll find more threads on Trump because the man can't stop putting his foot in his mouth. So yeah, I guess we kind of deserve this. But I see no problem with holding journalists to a higher standard than the throng of entertainment seeking media consumers. As the ones researching and discovering information to report to the public it should only be expected that this is the case.

And while I agree with the assertion that publications shouldn't artificially refrain from reporting on Hillary negatively because Trump's a dumpster fire, it does seem like there's an issue with how discourse regarding each takes place. Hillary honestly seems to have fewer issues, but each of them gets a high level of scrutiny (whether deserved or not) while each thing Trump says is less scrutinized and quickly forgotten because a week later he's said seven new dumb things.

Moving along, the Vox "Against Transparency" is interesting. The RollingStone Matt Taibbi response is pretty bad though. The essence of the Vox argument is government officials regularly use phone or face to face meetings to skirt around transparency laws. They opt not to use email to keep things off the record. They already have a way to avoid having anything that could potentially be dangerous be "off the record", so even when email is an easier option it is avoided. He also argues that email requests can be made through FOIA largely because of antiquated laws and modern email use is very different than at the time the relevant disclosue laws were made. I don't entirely agree with everything here, but it's an interesting argument. I'd honestly be more in favor of phone calls being on the record as well than emails being off, but there is honestly the possibility of phones requests becoming more useless due to government employees becoming even more careful what they say over the phone for fear of it coming back to haunt them.

The RollingStone response piece on the other hand isn't that great. It's brief, accuses Vox writer Yglesias of partisanship, and lacking in substance. He briefly raises an interesting point about point about the current difficulty of getting information through FOIA and government obstruction. He probably should have written a thoughtful and in depth article about that instead. It would have made for a much better response.

Finally "Mass Graves of Immigrants Found in Texas, But State Says No Laws Were Broken" is shocking and sad. Honestly I mostly replied to this thread because I think this is something that needs more eyes on it. It's a grim look at how illegal immigrants are treated both when their lives are at stake and after their deaths. In additional to the ignominy of being dumped in a mass grave without any sort of identification, the article reports they're buried in hazmat bags, trash bags, and even a milk crate. This issue suggests illegal conduct all the way up to governor Rick Perry, but the Texas government pulled the "we investigated ourselves and found no signs of wrongdoing".

 

[benjipwns]

Phone calls would have to be recorded, or at least transcribed I suppose. E-mails already exist like other government documents.

I linked to the piece so it was known what he was referring to regarding a member of the press arguing for less reporting on politicians. And the immigrant graves article just so there was a link to it.

The "weaponized" quote is from: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dr...-government-transparency-can-be-taken-too-far

 

[Austriacus]

Yea we ask for the kardashians with our views, its sad that real journalists are a dying breed and the only way they can get some real work done is through the Hillary things and similar stuff.

 

[Cerium]

Rolling Stone is the last publication that should be pontificating about journalism.

 

[benjipwns]

Rolling Stone is the last publication that should be pontificating about journalism.

 

[Lord Frieza]

This is a pretty long piece, and I don't have time to read it all now, but what I have read seems like basically a very elaborately written side-stepping of the question of why Trump is treated differently by the media than Clinton.

 

[Cerium]

 

[entremet]

This is a pretty long piece, and I don't have time to read it all now, but what I have read seems like basically a very elaborately written side-stepping of the question of why Trump is treated differently by the media than Clinton.

Well if we're looking at the NYT, they've been very harsh on Trump with their investigative reporting--Trump University, unpaid contractors, housing segregation under his father.

It does seem some liberals feel that any negative reporting on Hillary is handing the election to Trump. What ever happened to unbiased reporting? I thought that was the goal, even when your team is under the hot seat.

 

[benjipwns]

This is a pretty long piece, and I don't have time to read it all now, but what I have read seems like basically a very elaborately written side-stepping of the question of why Trump is treated differently by the media than Clinton.

I put the answer in the thread title.

It helps some if you consider it the third piece in a series.

Part Two: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi-on-the-summer-of-the-media-shill-w434484

The Summer of the Shill
Campaign 2016 won't just have lasting implications for American politics. It's obliterated what was left of our news media

Part One: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224

How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable
He's no ordinary con man. He's way above average — and the American political system is his easiest mark ever

GAF Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1190207

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Well if we're looking at the NYT, they've been very harsh on Trump with their investigative reporting--Trump University, unpaid contractors, housing segregation under his father.

It does seem some liberals feel that any negative reporting on Hillary is handing the election to Trump. What ever happened to unbiased reporting? I thought that was the goal, even when your team is under the hot seat.

Agreed. The only thing I'd like to see more of is fact checkers calling out lies on the spot. But even Fox did that, live on the air.

 

[Erevador]

Taibbi remains a terrific writer. The only thing worth reading in the rightly disgraced Rolling Stone.

 

[Stinkles]

Great story with important reporting but this is that dank frost ether.

[govt blew off FOIA requests to the] point of being cheeky about it. (I have one friend in the business who was sent a single empty fax cover sheet by a particularly obnoxious federal FOIA officer.)

 

[Fishious]

Phone calls would have to be recorded, or at least transcribed I suppose. E-mails already exist like other government documents.

I linked to the piece so it was known what he was referring to regarding a member of the press arguing for less reporting on politicians. And the immigrant graves article just so there was a link to it.

The "weaponized" quote is from: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dr...-government-transparency-can-be-taken-too-far

I acknowledge that there are additional issues with phone calls in that they would need to be stored or transcribed. This would mean the need for an additional system to archive this information while organizing it in such a way that it could actually be referenced. And if automatically transcribed by software it would need to be highly accurate since a single wrong word in transcription could trigger a scandal. I merely meant if possible, I'd err more on the side of more transparency than less. I mostly wanted to point out that the Vox article made some worthwhile points, even if I don't entirely agree with it while the RollingStone response was pretty vapid.

The Mother Jones response you linked is much better. Still I think they need to be a little clearer on what "less transparency, but faster, more effective transparency" actually means. I know the writer says it's not a detailed policy, but it's so lacking in detail as to be almost meaningless. It's like saying we need to do better. Which we do. And honestly I'm not really doing a better job of explaining my position than Kevin Drum, but I'm also just a guy on a video game forum. Also as a millennial I don't really care for the gen x/millennial dig about not liking to use the phone. While I don't do government or journalistic work, I prefer having correspondence in email because it's easier to archive, search, and reference than phone conversations. So I can understand why the Vox writer would want the government to use email more for correspondence, but I'm not sure if sacrificing transparency is worth it in exchange.

 

[Lord Frieza]

Well if we're looking at the NYT, they've been very harsh on Trump with their investigative reporting--Trump University, unpaid contractors, housing segregation under his father.

It does seem some liberals feel that any negative reporting on Hillary is handing the election to Trump. What ever happened to unbiased reporting? I thought that was the goal, even when your team is under the hot seat.

Sure, if we're just talking about the New York Times. Like I said, I didn't read it all, just going through the quotes, but it seems like the article begins with the Times then expands to a more general subject of media. I may be wrong.

But overall, I would say the Times has slumped somewhat on their coverage of Trump it seems like in the last month or so.

I put the answer in the thread title.

It helps some if you consider it the third piece in a series.

Part Two: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi-on-the-summer-of-the-media-shill-w434484


Part One: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224

GAF Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1190207

Ah, okay, I see. I am just going to have to sit down and read all of this, possibly tomorrow. Just too much to process for me right now.

 

[benjipwns]

Agreed. The only thing I'd like to see more of is fact checkers calling out lies on the spot. But even Fox did that, live on the air.

That's very difficult to do. You have to be prepared for it. Fox wasn't, it was when they went to a commercial break.

During a standard pre-taped interview there's very little room to do it. It's rare for the media to run an interview and then come back from it to savage the person afterwards on the show. That'd be more entertaining to me at least certainly.

Sure, if we're just talking about the New York Times. Like I said, I didn't read it all, just going through the quotes, but it seems like the article begins with the Times then expands to a more general subject of media. I may be wrong.

But overall, I would say the Times has slumped somewhat on their coverage of Trump it seems like in the last month or so.

He started with the Times because it has been getting slammed endlessly by progressives, including its own staff, for daring to ever publish anything that might not be positive about the Clintons. Krugman, I think just recently wrote something on their own page.

EDIT: https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/772794921979785216

True fact: I was reluctant to write today's col because I knew journos would hate it. But it felt like a moral duty

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/opinion/hillary-clinton-gets-gored.html?smid=tw-share

You see, one candidate, George W. Bush, was dishonest in a way that was unprecedented in U.S. politics. Most notably, he proposed big tax cuts for the rich while insisting, in raw denial of arithmetic, that they were targeted for the middle class. These campaign lies presaged what would happen during his administration — an administration that, let us not forget, took America to war on false pretenses.

Yet throughout the campaign most media coverage gave the impression that Mr. Bush was a bluff, straightforward guy, while portraying Al Gore — whose policy proposals added up, and whose critiques of the Bush plan were completely accurate — as slippery and dishonest. Mr. Gore’s mendacity was supposedly demonstrated by trivial anecdotes, none significant, some of them simply false. No, he never claimed to have invented the internet. But the image stuck.

And right now I and many others have the sick, sinking feeling that it’s happening again.

 

[Cesare Borgia]

Complaining about the media is a loser's game. Trump was savaged by the media for quite some time, perhaps moreso than most modern candidates. The "free pass" he has recently received is the case of the media stabalizing the race and the fact that Trump hasn't gone off the reservation too far lately. Dismissing Clinton's problems because they aren't equal to Trump's doesn't strike me as a winning argument. There are stories to be reported, and ultimately we wouldn't be having this conversation if Clinton made different decisions on how to handle her emails. Instead we've dealt with a calculated drip drip drip situation that will only get worse in October.

The network media exists to peddle narratives that are hand fed to them by the White House, the opposition party, and corporations. I wouldn't look for any decency from them. Print media isn't much better.

 

[Cyan]

Rolling Stone is the last publication that should be pontificating about journalism.

Why not?

 

[TheSeks]

Why not?

...Er, you don't remember the college rape article they did and then retracted very quickly when it came out their source was unreliable and possibly lying?

 

[Cyan]

...Er, you don't remember the college rape article they did and then retracted very quickly when it came out their source was unreliable and possibly lying?

Of course I remember it, I posted in that thread a number of times. Why does that mean Matt Taibbi can't say anything about the state of journalism?

 

[benjipwns]

Of course I remember it, I posted in that thread a number of times. Why does that mean Matt Taibbi can't say anything about the state of journalism?

You forget Mr. Youngblood that all individuals who are part of a group share all qualities of that group. I'm surprised to see you, Stump, of all people forget that.

 

[Cyan]

You forget Mr. Youngblood that all individuals who are part of a group share all qualities of that group. I'm surprised to see you, Stump, of all people forget that.

This explains so much.

 

[atr0cious]

Meh, the media cultivates its audience, this is still on their bullshit false equivalency, lists of whataboitisms changes nothing. Only one reporter covered something that was a blip in time compared to Trump deciding on whether he was soft for immigrants or not! That surely means no one gave a shit about that issue, right?

 

[Neato_Jinkins]

taibbi's first two points of contention are directly contradictory. those people who monitor nothing but click bait garbage articles are, in fact, intellectual lightweights that need to be given a reality swirly.

 

[tearsintherain]

I disagree with a lot of Taibbi's politics but I've always respected him for his RS articles and appearances on Real Time. It is pretty fascinating seeing the vast disconnect between the hard core left and right wing folks on the internet. Right wing people are absolutely convinced that the main media outlets are in the tank for Hillary and ignore her faults and demonize Trump. Left wing folks are absolutely convinced all of Trump's dangerous and crazy rhetoric is downplayed by the media.

I think Taibbi has it absolutely right, people just don't seem to care that much what Trump says or does. They don't really care much about Hillary either. Its just the same groups slinging mud at each other, while most Americans just have gotten used to ignoring it all and will make up their minds probably on election day.

That scares the hell out of a lot of people.

 

[Lord Frieza]

I disagree with a lot of Taibbi's politics but I've always respected him for his RS articles and appearances on Real Time. It is pretty fascinating seeing the vast disconnect between the hard core left and right wing folks on the internet. Right wing people are absolutely convinced that the main media outlets are in the tank for Hillary and ignore her faults and demonize Trump. Left wing folks are absolutely convinced all of Trump's dangerous and crazy rhetoric is downplayed by the media.

I think Taibbi has it absolutely right, people just don't seem to care that much what Trump says or does. They don't really care much about Hillary either. Its just the same groups slinging mud at each other, while most Americans just have gotten used to ignoring it all and will make up their minds probably on election day.

That scares the hell out of a lot of people.

If that's his point in this article (which I'm not sure it is), then he is absolutely wrong. We are probably at the most polarized partisanship we've ever been in within modern history.

 

[benjipwns]

Most Americans decide well before election day, hell, most Americans decided before there are even chosen candidates.

The sports coverage style of reporting reflects this too.

Brietbart for example endlessly has comments about how the leftist Fox News is undermining Trump because it loves immigrants. Those people don't want narratives outside their bubble. They want to root for their team. Same thing for the NYT comments referenced. (You have the same thing on a lot of their articles but reversed.)

To take from the top reader uprated NYT comments on the public editors article:

Pam M MA September 10, 2016
Let me see if I can get this straight. You believe the major reason your political desk has been criticized (for such things as misleading headlines, getting facts wrong, making unsubstantiated inferences/conclusions, and failing to report major stories that every other major news outlet has covered, etc.) is because we Clinton voters/supporters are just so partisan we can't see straight. And this is dangerous because our questions and challenges could become so overwhelming that they could lead your always balanced journalists to become weak and exhibit some sort of bias or opinion about the candidates. Like, for example, they might write something about how Hillary Clinton is joyless unless she is partying in the Hamptons with celebrities, or how a staffer's marital separation casts a cloud over her campaign. And that would be really bad. You would absolutely not want Donald Trump to be treated in that way. It would be unethical.

In sum, I think actually what you are trying to say is that it'd be much easier if we all would just shut up and pretended the NYT is doing a bang-up job.

Jason Atlanta September 10, 2016
This piece is a complete piece of garbage. It argues:

"if Trump is unequivocally more flawed than his opponent, that should be plenty evident to the voting public come November. But it should be evident from the kinds of facts that bold and dogged reporting unearths, not from journalists being encouraged to impose their own values to tip the scale."

But the problem is that the Times isn't doing "dogged reporting" with respect to Trump so the electorate isn't being accurately informed. This paper grades Trump on a curve and chooses not to go after stories it should, likely because there are just too many stories it would have to do. When one candidate, namely Trump, says so many ridiculous things, associates himself with racists, sexual harrassers, and foreign dictators on a daily basis, and evidences corruption repeatedly, it is the Times' job to vigorously report it. But this paper has clearly failed to do so.

David Graupner Texas September 10, 2016
I fear that the NYT's coverage of Trump is going to be a repeat of its coverage leading up to the Iraq war. Something that will be seen as an abdication of journalistic duty and failure to demand answers to tough questions.

TJ USA September 10, 2016
There is something rotten at the NY Times. Someone at the top has a patent anti-Clinton bias. The fact that you've decided to tout the hard-hitting Whitewater reporting (another absolutely nothing-burger scandal) speaks volumes. I will be cancelling my subscription. This is really the last straw.

Brian DeWitt Napa, CA September 10, 2016
The public editor misses the mark here. Trump tells so many lies that the media cannot possibly keep up, factually, in covering him. When he does this, he is not engaging in debate or discussion, but planting falsehoods, rumors, libels knowing that the media will repeat and extend them. It's a deliberate thing. Pointing out that what he's said is false is not to insert a judgment, but to objectively report the facts. For instance, when Trump claimed falsely at the Commander In Chief forum that he opposed the Iraq War, NBC News tweeted "Donald Trump doubles down on disputed Iraq war opposition claim." Using the word "disputed" instead of "false" was inaccurate reporting since the record is clear that Trump did not oppose the Iraq War at the time. This is what people are talking about when they complain about false balance. NBC has since corrected this headline by replacing "disputed" with "false."

Arden Jones Atlanta September 10, 2016
Those of us who believe that there is no equality in reporting note that the Clinton Foundation, or the e-mails are mentioned on a weekly basis for years - LITERALLY years. Meanwhile, actual Trump corruption in the form of bribery, Russian connections, bankruptcies, etc. seem to barely garner a paragraph, and no story runs for more than a day or two at best. Very rarely is fact-checking completed (see Matt Lauer for a prime example). The Times, among others, has tried to be neutral and has passed over the facts in the process. It isn't debatable that the media cowers to the right in order to provide a false balance, and realistically why wouldn't you? The Trump demographic is the primary consumer of cable news and other print sources. But to say that the media is immune from shaping the belief that both politicians are extraordinarily crooked, despite overwhelming evidence that one candidate is on his own level, is a cop-out. I think that many of us in the Millennial generation, who still had some semblance of respect for journalism or journalists have lost most of it.

Jonathan Koomey SF Bay Area September 10, 2016
The issue is that journalists (like the writer of this editorial) have an ideology, and insist that "both sides do it", so they apply that filter indiscriminately. Sometimes both sides do it, but often not, and in this election, definitely not. Here's in example of that ideology in action, expressed in this very article: "Weisberg used an analogy, saying journalists are accustomed to covering candidates who may be apples and oranges, but at least are still both fruits. In Trump, he said, we have not fruit but rancid meat. That sounds like a partisan’s explanation passed off as a factual judgment." This public editor is saying that If one side is criticized more than the other side, there must be something wrong. But in this case, it's not at all wrong. For example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/09/09/trumps-nons... and http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/why-cant-america-see-that-c... The Times needs to shape up. It is failing America when we need them most.

 

[ZealousD]

A counter argument like this might have had more merit if we existed in a media landscape where Trump wasn't graded on a curve.

Clinton and Trump are going to have their presidential debate and you're going to hear the media talk about how Trump beat the expectations game. Clinton could run circles around Trump on every topic and yet you'll hear the media say things like "Trump did much better than expected so some might say he won tonight."

I know this'll happen because the media pulled the same shit when Biden ran circles around Sarah Palin. And they'll do it for Trump, too.

 

[Lord Frieza]

Yeah, I think Bill Clinton put it pretty well in his recent Daily Show interview: When he was running, there was probably about 20% of the active voting population up for grabs with most of the country deciding Dem or Rep beforehand, but that has gradually shrunk to 5-10% from 2000 onward. The polarized partisanship in this country is very obvious to anyone actually following what's happening.

 

[Lord Frieza]

A counter argument like this might have had more merit if we existed in a media landscape where Trump wasn't graded on a curve.

Clinton and Trump are going to have their presidential debate and you're going to hear the media talk about how Trump beat the expectations game. Clinton could run circles around Trump on every topic and yet you'll hear the media say things like "Trump did much better than expected so some might say he won tonight."

I know this'll happen because the media pulled the same shit when Biden ran circles around Sarah Palin. And they'll do it for Trump, too.

This isn't a sure thing at all. The Commander-in-Chief Forum was a good example of why it's not. While the criticism was mostly aimed at Lauer for his shitty performance, it showed the media skewed heavily in favor of Hillary since the narrative was almost overwhelming that Hillary got screwed over, while Trump got the softball treatment.

While I agree it's true that Trump is graded on a curve, as it were, the idea that the general media simply lays down and gives Trump a pass on everything, all the time, is frankly, a load of bullshit. His recent 'denouncing' of birtherism is another good, more recent example. The headlines were not, 'Trump finally renounces Birtherism, offers Olive Branch to Obama,' they were almost overwhelming skepticism about how much his statement really meant, and why anyone should believe such a clearly insincere statement. Trump was also not covered very favorably covered during the primary debates. While it wouldn't surprise that Trump may end up being the talk of the debates, the idea that it will be positive no matter what is far from any guarantee, unless the only coverage you follow is right-wing media coverage.

 

[benjipwns]

A counter argument like this might have had more merit if we existed in a media landscape where Trump wasn't graded on a curve.

Clinton and Trump are going to have their presidential debate and you're going to hear the media talk about how Trump beat the expectations game. Clinton could run circles around Trump on every topic and yet you'll hear the media say things like "Trump did much better than expected so some might say he won tonight."

I know this'll happen because the media pulled the same shit when Biden ran circles around Sarah Palin. And they'll do it for Trump, too.

That's starting with the implication that they should be bad at the press conferences. It's openly acknowledging the expected superiority of one candidate.

You had the same for Kerry and Obama and Gore and Clinton and Dukakis and Mondale and Carter. You had and have had stories running for months about how the Democratic candidate is expected to be better in the press conferences.

If they put out stories about how Trump should dominate the press conferences because Corrupt Hillary won't be able to stand up to his lighting bolt blitzkrieg that dominated the GOP press conferences everyone would be throwing a fit about how they're trying to stack the deck in favor of Trump. They write that Trump is blowing off preparations and says he may not even do practices and suddenly it's "lowering expectations" to stack the deck in favor of Trump.

Plus reporting on "who won" isn't even a fact-based thing. There's no objective "scoring" system. Lots of people saw Romney crushing Obama in the same event that an equal amount saw Obama nailing Romney endlessly on every subject. Their view on who won happened to align oddly with which candidate they preferred and agreed with more, it was weird.

 

[The Technomancer]

This is a weird piece. Its too late to get too deep into it now, but my brief thoughts on reading it are that it seems to miss the point of the complaints in two ways:

-The proportion of coverage given to different scandals seems off. No-one is seriously angry that Clinton's email scandal was covered in the abstract. People are frustrated that we seem to spend 50% of our time talking about Trump's many scandals, and 50% of our time talking about Clinton's emails.

If, hypothetically, Trump had 8 scandals and Clinton had 2 of "equivalent magnitude" there's no reason to spend equal time on each candidate unless you need to preserve the horse race. It diminishes the magnitude of Trump's scandals to give them disproportionately less time. Trump's campaign has been actively gish-galloping for months now and everyone has fallen for it

-Major journalists from just about every major network and even print publications are failing basic diligence when it comes to fact checking, and its difficult to figure out a reason why if its not wanting to avoid appearing "too hard on Trump". Its genuinely ridiculous the amount of factually incorrect things that are getting said on air to national audiences without "reporters" clarifying, pushing back, or calling bullshit. The Matt Lauer interview is such a clear crystallization of this exact phenomenon

The piece seems to, oddly enough, fall into the information saturation trap, the idea that more information is always better, irrespective of veracity. This is the exact structural problem that internet as a whole fell into; far from ushering in an age of enlightenment when you truly make it possible to post and spread any and all information indiscriminately 90% of what gets spread is bullshit

 

[Kin5290]

The criticism of the New York Times (and other media) is not that they dare to publish reporting that is critical of Hillary Clinton. It's that they publish reporting critical of Hillary Clinton that is, to put it simply, probably false. When it comes to emails or the Clinton Foundation, these outlets publish stories that imply wrongdoing on the part of Clinton or her staff while burying the actual fact that no wrongdoing actually occurred.

Basically, these articles say that such and such "raises questions" about possible misconduct while burying in paragraph 24 that the records also answer those questions to the tune of "no". Reporters at the Times bury the lede, which is that recently released emails show that no misconduct occurred, to imply (to a population that won't necessarily read a full article) that misconduct did occur.

 

[ZealousD]

This isn't a sure thing at all. The Commander-in-Chief Forum was a good example of why it's not. While the criticism was mostly aimed at Lauer for his shitty performance, it showed the media skewed heavily in favor of Hillary since the narrative was almost overwhelming that Hillary got screwed over, while Trump got the softball treatment.

While I agree it's true that Trump is graded on a curve, as it were, the idea that the general media simply lays down and gives Trump a pass on everything, all the time, is frankly, a load of bullshit. His recent 'denouncing' of birtherism is another good, more recent example. The headlines were not, 'Trump finally renounces Birtherism, offers Olive Branch to Obama,' they were almost overwhelming skepticism about how much his statement really meant, and why anyone should believe such a clearly insincere statement. Trump was also not covered very favorably covered during the primary debates. While it wouldn't surprise that Trump may end up being the talk of the debates, the idea that it will be positive no matter what is far from any guarantee, unless the only coverage you follow is right-wing media coverage.

I certainly don't feel like the media is soft on Trump all the time. But the extent to which they go after him for which things and for how long feels random. This latest dust-up about birtherism has been controlling headlines for days. Meanwhile Newsweek did a huge cover story about potential international conflicts of interest for Trump and that stayed alive less than 24 hours.

On the same day that Trump suggested that Russia should find Hillary's 30k missing e-mails and leak them to the press (itself a huge giveaway that conservative outrage about Hillary's e-mail is 100% manufactured and disingenuous), Trump said something that made me more angry than any other singular thing he's ever said. He suggested that he wished he had to power to hack into the e-mail servers at the DNC. Basically, openly admitting that he wished he had the power to direct a modern-day Watergate break-in. Trump admitted that he wished he could direct the remake to the greatest political scandal of the 20th century and it wasn't even the biggest headline that day. It became just another crazy Trump quote that was circulated and quickly forgotten.

 

[BarringGaffner]

Rolling Stone is the last publication that should be pontificating about journalism.

You've never heard of Matt Taibbi?

 

[Armaros]

The criticism of the New York Times (and other media) is not that they dare to publish reporting that is critical of Hillary Clinton. It's that they publish reporting critical of Hillary Clinton that is, to put it simply, probably false. When it comes to emails or the Clinton Foundation, these outlets publish stories that imply wrongdoing on the part of Clinton or her staff while burying the actual fact that no wrongdoing actually occurred.

Basically, these articles say that such and such "raises questions" about possible misconduct while burying in paragraph 24 that the records also answer those questions to the tune of "no". Reporters at the Times bury the lede, which is that recently released emails show that no misconduct occurred, to imply (to a population that won't necessarily read a full article) that misconduct did occur.

Or how the AP responded to criticism of their Clinton Foundation coverage. Misleading tweet/headling into an article that spend all of its time talking about a Nobel Peace Prize winner that had a legitimate reason to be contacting the State Department.

The AP only deleted the tweet weeks after the article had run its course and it was out of the headlines. (after their editor agreeing in an interview that the tweet was misleading)

 

[benjipwns]

Matt Lauer's forum got the same number of viewers as America's Got Talent in the next hour.

More people probably heard the loud criticism of it than saw any of it uncommentated on.

 

[The Technomancer]

Or how the AP responded to criticism of their Clinton Foundation coverage. Misleading tweet/headling into an article that spend all of its time talking about a Nobel Peace Prize winner that had a legitimate reason to be contacting the State Department.

The AP only deleted the tweet weeks after the article had run its course and it was out of the headlines. (after their editor agreeing in an interview that the tweet was misleading)

The AP thing was genuinely weird

 

[dave is ok]

Attacking Jimmy Fallon of all people for not being harder on Trump is insanity. He's Jimmy Fallon. His show is playing party games and nostalgia singing old songs from the 90s

 

[AlphaDump]

Chicken little media had to keep themselves busy by working everyone up. They trashed their credibility by focusing on Clinton emails and Benghazi, which amounted to nothing. "Hillary derangement syndrome" is an actual term, and specifically exists because of the media.


It makes me miss the Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report so damn much.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Chicken little media had to keep themselves busy by working everyone up. They trashed their credibility by focusing on Clinton emails and Benghazi, which amounted to nothing. "Hillary derangement syndrome" is an actual term, and specifically exists because of the media.


It makes me miss the Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report so damn much.

I really wish Jon was able to last just one more election cycle. I need a cushion for all this crazy that has been going on for over a year.

 

[Coriolanus]

I liked this bit

Media consumers voting with their eyeballs for ever-dumber political coverage creates the biggest imbalance in reality, but the "false equivalency" debate is mostly over a separate, more parochial issue of journalistic ethics.

quite to the point

You've never heard of Matt Taibbi?

You've never heard of Cerium?

You forget Mr. Youngblood that all individuals who are part of a group share all qualities of that group. I'm surprised to see you, Stump, of all people forget that.

i c what u did there m8

 

[Calm waterfall]

Matt is on point.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

It sounds like this article is pretty much describing most of politiGAF, esp based on the first quotations lol. It's both sad and hilarious all at once. But overall I agree with what messages it conveys.

Just look at the cringe and useless comment above by user who has a Hilary avatar making a blanket statement instead of addressing the actual topic on hand.

 

[Macam]

Taibbi's work has been one of the few consistent highlights this year, and that piece is spot on.

 

[lastflowers]

Subscribed. Want to read this when I get more time.

 

[Dude Abides]

Matt Taibbi is a hack.

 

[Blader]

There are two basic ideas of how the press is supposed to operate. One is that the system works best when reporters are free, independent and annoying, giving the public as much information as possible, so that people may sort things out for themselves.

The other is that information is inherently dangerous, and the public is too stupid to be trusted with too much of it. Throughout history there has always been a plurality of people who will believe this.

Whether it's keeping "Fuck the Police" off the airwaves or news of the collectivist famine out of Pravda, the idea is the same: People can't handle stuff.

The giveaway in this latest "false balance" debate is the language. There are people wailing about a "weaponized" media that just this once needs to be leashed a bit, given the circumstances. This is classic "information is dangerous" rhetoric.

This whole digression is weird, because who is arguing this? People critical of any given media outlet's false equivalence of Hillary/Trump coverage aren't saying information is dangerous and journalists need to be leashed. Just the opposite! That many of these journalists (or their editors) are not doing their due diligence in releasing more information, and digging into the Trump scandals to the same degree they are into Hillary's emails or the Clinton Foundation -- coverage of the latter which, as Kin5290 pointed out, often involves burying the "there was no wrongdoing" lede under a misleading headline.

edit: typing too quickly

 

[The Technomancer]

This whole digression is weird, because who is arguing this? People critical of any given media's outlet false equivalence of Hillary/Trump coverage aren't saying information is dangerous and journalists need to be leashed. Just the opposite! That many of these journalists (or their editors) are not doing their due diligence in releasing more information, and digging into the Trump scandals to the same degree they are into Hillary's emails or the Clinton Foundation -- coverage of the latter which, as Kin5290 pointed out, often involves burying the "there was no wrongdoing lede" under a misleading headline.

Its very weird. The only way to read it coherently with what we actually see in the media is for it to be an actual argument for indiscriminate information saturation, as I mentioned above. That its "leashing" journalists to ask them to do things like "fact check" "claims" by a "politician" instead of just letting all the information out into the world for the consumer to decide on the truth of for themselves

 

[benjipwns]

Maybe the link in that section provides a hint:

Part of the reason is that Hillary Clinton is a real object lesson in how FOIA can go wrong when it's weaponized. Another part is that liberals are the biggest fans of transparency, and seeing one of their own pilloried by it might make them take a second look at whether it's gone off the rails. What we've seen with Hillary Clinton is not that she's done anything especially wrong, but that a story can last forever if there's a constant stream of new revelations. That's what's happened over the past four years. Between Benghazi committees and Judicial Watch's anti-Hillary jihad, Clinton's emails have been steadily dripped out practically monthly, even though there's never been any compelling reason for it. It's been done solely to keep her alleged corruption in the public eye.

Reporters aren't stupid. They know this perfectly well. And yet, news is news. They can't help themselves from covering every new release of emails, even if they don't really show anything very interesting. (And there's much more to come.) Donald Trump, by contrast, has adopted a policy of radical concealment—no tax returns, no medical disclosures, no business records, and certainly no internal emails—and it's worked great. He's taken some hits for all this, but they don't do much damage. With nothing new to report, it's hard to keep an investigation going.

So what's the answer? I'm not going to pretend to have a detailed policy to offer, but in general terms I think it's this: less transparency, but faster, more effective transparency. Even journalists might buy this trade. I believe that cabinet officers need to have a certain amount of space to have policy discussions without fear of every word they say becoming public. For this reason, FOIA should be tightened in some ways. At the same time, the biggest problem with FOIA is that it's abysmally slow and clunky. You have to word your requests just right. You have to pay fees that sometimes make no sense. And then you have to wait forever, and then maybe appeal, and then wait some more, because compliance departments are woefully underfunded and undermanned.