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0 pointsmlindner3y ago0 comments

> - Refusing to admit when they've misled people in the past, disinterest in publishing post mortems of their failures. Example: the lack of contrition over the Russiagate conspiracy theory.

On this point the media on both sides has so muddied the waters I now assume nothing about this as I can't tell which side is telling the truth anymore. I can't tell fact from fiction as the noise level has completely erased any signal at all (if there even was a signal).

Russia is known however to want to influence US politics, so my personal assumption is that they're amplifying BOTH sides to drive division, as stated by Russian author Dugin in his book "Foundations of Geopolitics". This nice quote from wikipedia containing quotes from the book is illustrative:

> Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

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7 comments · 2 top-level

GeekyBear3y ago· 3 in thread

> On this point the media on both sides has so muddied the waters I now assume nothing about this as I can't tell which side is telling the truth anymore.

The Columbia Journalism Review is about as reliable on media matters as you could want, and Jeff Gerth is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with decades of investigative journalism experience at the NY Times.

He lays out an extensive case showing that there was an effort to mislead the public.

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-p...

nswest233y ago

> The Columbia Journalism Review is about as reliable on media matters as you could want, and Jeff Gerth is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

These bonafides aside this particular piece has faced a mountain of criticisms [1] and from a quick read doesn't pass the smell test for journalistic integrity itself. It makes Trump sound like a victim, a saint and a martyr all at once.

> Trump, unaware of the coming tornado, including the most salacious contents of the dossier, set out to form a government and make peace with the press. He made the rounds of news organizations, meeting with broadcast anchors, editors at Condé Nast magazines, and the Times.

> Trump’s longest sit-down after the election was with the Times, including the then-publisher, editors, and reporters. For seventy-five minutes Trump’s love/hate relationship with his hometown paper was on display.

> At the end, he called the Times a “world jewel.”

> He added, “I hope we can get along.”

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerth#Career (last paragraph)

GeekyBear3y ago

> These bonafides aside this particular piece has faced a mountain of criticisms

Congratulations on relying on Trump's own strategy of declaring any critical reporting, no matter how well sourced, to be "Fake News".

> It makes Trump sound like a victim, a saint and a martyr all at once.

This is laughably false to any fair minded person who has even skimmed the article.

For example in paragraph six:

>At its root was an undeclared war between an entrenched media, and a new kind of disruptive presidency, with its own hyperbolic version of the truth. (The Washington Post has tracked thousands of Trump’s false or misleading statements.)

Throwing away the public's trust in the media because you're unwilling to stick to factual reporting on Trump's screw ups is the very definition of "You're not helping."

joenot4433y ago

That was a great read, thanks.

adolph3y ago· 2 in thread

“There was message distortion,” former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. told The Fact Checker in a telephone interview. “All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear in paragraph five.” He said he was unaware of how Biden described the letter during the debate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/13/hunter-bi...

mlindnerOP3y ago

Yes there's any number of sources one can dig up to support either argument that come from well trusted sources.

Russia's known to want to disrupt elections anywhere they can however. They'll even spread in the media the _appearance_ that elections were distorted to muddy the waters further even if no election interference took place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

adolph3y ago

I don’t doubt that many foreign entities have interests at stake and ongoing efforts to influence US elections and vice versa. These efforts will take many forms with some appearing less legitimate than others.

If you see the world as indecipherably muddy other than Russia has some otherworldly electoral propaganda power, well then it isn’t clear why you comment.

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