Durham indictment is ‘bad news’ for mainstream media on Steele dossier reporting: critic
It's no secret that the lefts propaganda machines were working overtime to push Democrat lies.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A prominent press critic has warned mainstream media outlets they face a “steep journalistic challenge” to back up their initial reporting on the Steele dossier in the wake of the latest indictment secured by special counsel John Durham.
Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote Monday that last week’s indictment of Igor Danchenko, a key source for former British spy Christopher Steele’s report, is “bad news” for several media outlets — including Wemple’s own employer.
“The Danchenko indictment doubles as a critique of several media outlets that covered Steele’s reports in 2016 and after its publication by BuzzFeed in January 2017 … CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones, the McClatchy newspaper chain and various pundits showered credibility upon the dossier without corroboration — and found other topics to cover when a forceful debunking arrived in December 2019 via a report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz,” Wemple wrote.
Danchenko, a Russian citizen living in Virginia, is accused of lying to the FBI regarding his sources — one of whom turned out to be a PR executive with close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Danchenko helped Steele compile the dossier, which put forth several outrageous allegations — including that Russian security services possessed a tape of Donald Trump in a Moscow hotel room with prostitutes who were urinating on a bed where then-President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama had previously stayed.
On Monday, Wemple said the indictment revealed that the sourcing behind the file was “threadbare in the most charitable of depictions,” as were initial media reports about the dossier’s contents.
One example Wemple cited was reporting by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and ABC News in 2017 alleging that the most headline-grabbing claims in the dossier — including the supposed existence of the “pee tape” — came from Sergei Millian, former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.
However, Danchenko’s recent indictment claims that while Danchenko “never spoke” to Millian, Steele believed Danchenko had “direct contact” with Millian.
“News organizations may face a mismatch as they place their reporting alongside the indictment,” he wrote. “Where the indictment relies on emails, interviews and other powerful investigative tools, the Journal’s initial scoop cited a single anonymous source. The sourcing for the Post’s reporting about Millian’s alleged conversation is unclear, while ABC News attributes its primary assertion to ‘a person familiar with the raw intelligence provided to the FBI.’
“These news outlets now face a steep journalistic challenge — that of returning to their source(s) in an effort to back up the original claims that Millian was an unwitting source for the dossier,” Wemple added. “If that effort doesn’t produce enough evidence to surmount the allegations in the indictment, there’s only one option: Retract the stories. Allowing one version of events to sit awkwardly alongside another — and leaving it to the reader to decide — won’t cut it.”
The media critic also called out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow after she suggested that Durham was trying to, as she put it, “discredit the whole Russia investigation by arresting various sources for that investigation, to discredit the Steele dossier because so many people have been led to think that was the reason for the investigation.”
“Just as Durham can’t use the dossier to deflect from the larger Trump-Russia tableau, however, people such as Maddow and others can’t use the larger Trump-Russia tableau to deflect from their coverage of the dossier,” Wemple concluded. “A reckoning is years overdue.”
Over the weekend, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said he is expecting “many indictments” from Durham’s investigation and argued that everyone involved in creating the dossier is in “jeopardy.”
“What happened with the Steele dossier, a grand jury is saying, was criminal in nature and I expect that all of the folks that are involved with creating it and peddling it falsely would be in jeopardy,” Ratcliffe told Fox News, “and I know that that’s what John Durham is looking at, and as I talked about, this goes to the highest levels of our government and government agencies involved.”
Seems the Clinton News Network and (P)MSNBC, Mother Jones and the rest of them are going to be going into overdrive to cover their asses.
Now we know why democrats tried to shut down the Durham investigation.
With their propaganda machine is out of action, the have nothing to run on.
You two have great seeds about Durham and his work. I put one up too but mine is about the role of the mainstream media in pushing the big lie regarding Trump and Russia.
I almost, almost feel bad for the people who relied on the MSM and fell for this insanity. But the truth was out there, and the people who paid attention to independent news sources have understood what happened for years.
And are now sitting back with a beer laughing as those who still stand by the MSM are in full out denial.
The New York Post laid waste to the msm about that very thing. A total takedown.
I'm loving just watching them panic.
Ooh, a Durham indictment! WTF has he been doing for all these years? What a slacker!
Has anyone ever seen John Durham's teeth under that rat's nest?
What an ugly mug. I hate seeing it every day here.
Nice to know…He’s a great American!
It really makes Nixon look like a goody two shoes. I doubt he could have imagined being this reckless. Of course, Nixon knew the media would hold him to the fire and not lie on his behalf.