Top Progressive Journalism Magazine Condemns Media’s Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The media’s mishandling of Russiagate is responsible for declining trust in the media, argues a major four-part series in the progressive magazine, The Columbia Journalism Review. “Before the 2016 election, most Americans trusted the traditional media and the trend was positive,” notes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jeff Gerth. “Today, the US media has the lowest credibility — 26 percent — among forty-six nations.” A big part of the reason for that, Gerth suggests, was a barrage of one-sided media coverage since 2016 falsely claiming that President Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election, sometimes referred to as Russiagate.
At the end of the series, Gerth explained why he wrote it. “I’ve avoided opining in my more than 50 years as a reporter,” he writes. “This time, however, I felt obligated to weigh in. Why? Because I am worried about journalism’s declining credibility and society’s increasing polarization…. journalism’s primary missions, informing the public and holding powerful interests accountable, have been undermined by the erosion of journalistic norms and the media’s own lack of transparency about its work.”
After the 2016 presidential election, writes Gerth, “the Times produced a steady stream of stories about whether Trump conspired with Russians to win the election without knowing whether the allegation was actually true…. Paul Krugman, in his Times column called Trump the ‘Siberian candidate,’ citing the [alleged] ‘watering down’ of the [GOP] platform [by Trump to make it less anti-Russia]. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, labeled Trump a ‘de facto agent’ of Putin.”
Meanwhile, people within the FBI were debunking the news media coverage. The day before Trump’s inauguration, the Times published a story: “Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry into Trump.” The piece evoked a strong reaction from FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was leading the FBI inquiry. Strzok said, about the piece that there was “no substance and largely wrong…the press is going to undermine its credibility.” Strzok’s admission is important because an investigation later revealed that Strzok was famously anti-Trump. Before the election, when a colleague asked whether Trump would “ever become president,” Strzok said, “No. No, he won’t. We’ll stop it”
Not all journalists got Russiagate wrong. Gerth quotes reporters Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and Thomas Friedman of the New York Times criticizing the media’s coverage. And Gerth singles out Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, and Aaron Maté as three journalists who got the story right (he could have also included Michael Tracey), and accurately debunked other news media’s coverage of the allegations and evidence. Gerth also credits Michael Isikoff, a well-known investigative journalist who has worked for the Washington Post, Yahoo News, and other publications, for changing his news coverage after uncritically reporting on an infamous memo written by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, which suggested, among other things, that the Russian government-controlled Trump by hiring prostitutes to urinate on him.
But the whole of the news media got the story wrong. There is little evidence that either Woodward or Friedman did much either in their own reporting or within their institutions to contradict the barrage of stories reinforcing the Russiagate hoax. Taibbi, Greenwald, and Maté wrote for alternative publications, not the mainstream news media, and Greenwald famously left the publication he co-founded after his own editors tried to distort his reporting around Hunter Biden’s laptop. “It was a career-changing moment for me,” Taibbi told Gerth. The “more neutral approach” to reporting “went completely out the window once Trump got elected. Saying anything publicly about the story that did not align with the narrative — the repercussions were huge for any of us that did not go there. That is crazy.”
And, notably, many mainstream news reporters, along with anti-Trump members of Congress, routinely accused Taibbi, Greenwald, and Maté, on Twitter, in print, and on television, not only of being wrong but working for the Russian government. Those accusations flew despite the fact that all three were widely known as anti-imperialist Leftists and critics of U.S. government military and intelligence secrecy through both their journalism and commentary. Greenwald won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for his heavily-publicized reporting for The Guardian that the U.S. government was spying on Americans based on files stolen by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, about whom an Oscar-winning documentary was made .
While some of what Gerth reports has been written and discussed elsewhere, Gerth’s series is shocking to read because it is the clearest and most credible explanation of media misinformation on Russiagate to date. It may have a bigger impact than the Mueller report, which did not change many minds. Polling shows that 48% of Americans and 84% of Democrats still believed after it was published that Trump or his campaign “worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election.” Gerth finds a few journalists willing to stand by that claim, pointing to meetings between Trump campaign aides and Russians as proof of collusion.
Russiagate is just one of many issues where the news media has been overwhelmingly one-sided. We have extensively documented news media bias on climate change, hurricanes, forest fires, food, and much more. Others have documented media bias in allowing adolescents diagnosed with psychiatric disorders to take puberty-blocking drugs and undergo surgeries to alter their genders. And there has been widespread media bias in terms of overcovering police killings of unarmed African Americans (31 last year) and underreporting of black lives lost to violent street crime (~8,000).
Why is that? How did the U.S. news media become so biased, particularly as it related to Trump, but also as it relates to broader issues?
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The media destroyed itself trying to "get Trump." It's impossible to see any of these outlets as anything but public relation agencies.
Hillary made them all her bitch after she flipped out when Trump beat her ass.
To this day few are smart enough to have made that connection.
Pretty sad.
“It was a career-changing moment for me,” Taibbi told Gerth. The “more neutral approach” to reporting “went completely out the window once Trump got elected. Saying anything publicly about the story that did not align with the narrative — the repercussions were huge for any of us that did not go there. That is crazy.”
Thank God. The idea that journalists should have been neutral about Trump is ridiculous. BEFORE election day 2016 Trump was a KNOWN pathological liar, crook, bigot, moron and cheat. The sad thing would have been if the media did treat such a person "neutrally".
Even as it is the media went far too easy on Trump over the past 7 years.
you should rejoice. You won John. Facts, accuracy, objectivity don’t matter anymore. Just pure partisanship.
let’s just hope the country ever needs reporting it can rely on to be accurate, like during public health emergency.
Facts? Here are facts.
I briefly looked through the seeded article. The writer refers to Trump's asking the Russians to find Hillary's emails as a "quip".
"Quip"? lol. Trump was very serious and we have proof of that. Three years later he asked another foreign government to find dirt on his political opponent. Does anyone think Trump was "quipping" to Zelensky?
THEN, in 2022 Trump again asked Putin to find and release dirt on Biden. This took place during the first weeks of the Ukrainian war for gods sake.
We have to get rid of Trump, not make excuses for him.
Is this Columbia Journalism Review really left leaning as claimed here?
Only thing I could find claims it's center - center of what I don't know.
Or a top progress journalism magazine as claimed I should have said.
progressive
It was a punch line in a campaign rally. That anyone, ever, tried to turn into some national security issue is exactly the problem. That sort of hallucinatory conspiracy repels anyone who hasn't drank the kool-aid.
It started with a Hillary talking point designed to deflect from her own very real Russian connections and than it became a search to find things to shoehorn into a theory Hillary made up.
lol.
Sean, Trump wanted Russia to hack Hillary Clinton. Stevie Wonder told me so.
Trump's requests of Zelensky and later Putin in 2019 and 2022 are overwhelming evidence he was not "joking" in 2016.
So is that what makes the 'article' 'top progressive journalism'?
lol is right
n Twitter, he frequently criticizes " wokeism " and critical race theory . [6] en.wikipedia
Oh lord, he's not obsesses with race and identity politics. The monster.
Seriously John, of all people to criticize sources for seeds....
.This is a summary of the CJR series, (which is too long for people here to read but is linked in the article). I'm sorry if AlterNet hasn't gotten around to calling the Columbia Journalism Review a den of white supremacist Nazis. I await your seed claiming it.
How could anyone hack a server that Hillary already destroyed ?
I dont read the Columbia Journalism Review so I cant really say exactly what its ideology is. I do think it is considered a mainstream publication though (as opposed to fringe).
What is a little disturbing is that the people rallying around this story (Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Katrina vanden Heuvel, ) are all heavily critical of the Democratic Party, and have been for years. The writer, Jeff Gerth appears to have had a long lasting dislike of the Clintons and was accused, correctly, of misrepresenting the Whitewater scandal in his previous writings.
Im not sure what is going on here but there is more to it than meets the eye.
Trump is a moron. Thats why.
He either was or would have been more than happy to collude with the Russians.
It's probably the most prestigious critic of journalism in the country,
And had been in FBI custody for almost a year, you have to be a fucking moron to think trump was seriously asking Russia to hack Hillary.
What you know about logic I could write on the back of a flea's ass.
I could be in a coma and I would have a better vocabulary and be a better writer than you are.
Newsflash to the triggered. Russian has been trying to mess with our elections since they were Soviets.
This is nothing new for thinking people.
A few days ago a media mouthpiece for the Putin government said that the war in Ukraine could be resolved if Trump were president again. Trump would simply tell Zelensky what to do (in other words agree to Russian demands).
Oddly, lol, Trump did not voice disagreement with the Russian position on that.
Sadly, TDS continues to cloud your otherwise intelligent observations.
It’s beyond chronic, it’s debilitating.
There ya go again John. Resorting to childish insults when you can't provide an intelligent and informed response.
The news media, that once had tremendous influence is now in the hands of the left. How long that has been true is hard to say. Yes, it was Trump that sent them over the edge and Jeff Gerth's admission is refreshing, but correcting it is going to be an enormous task. I don't know if we ever can undue the damage that has already been done.
Like 8 years of Obama killed his gay lover stories?
Like Obama's birth certificate nonsense that Trump was all too willing to engage in?
Like Obamas coming to take your guns rumors? Again?
And put everyone in FEMA camps if they resist?
Like the partisan media frenzy that Obama was going to use Special Forces to take over Texas?
Like the falsehoods that Obama issued over 900 EUs when in fact it was only 279 after 8 years
(less than both Bush and Clinton after 8 years)
Or the ever persistent whopper that Obama banned the Pledge of Allegiance?
Yeah that media is evil. /S
Yeah, who can forget 60 minutes and the MSM running that story into the ground and the special counsel that was appointed based on their rumor mongering.
That's quite an argument you've made. The MSM and Alex Jones are one and the same. That's pretty harsh.
These people have highly selective memories.
SP made my point for me. I appreciate it. The MSM treated Trump like Alex Jones treats Democrats. Just lie after lie.
Your endless excuses for Trump are a sad story.
Pointing out that the MSM did not obsessively push conspiracy theories about Obama is not defending Trump.
We both know that this CJR story will be used to try and normalize Trump for 2024 and paint him as a "victim" (its already happening on Twitter). He aint a victim of shit.
Is there one prominent Republican in this country (other than Cheney, Kinzinger and Romney) who has told Trump publicly to get the fuck off the stage? I havent heard of any. You are all waiting and hoping he can be rehabilitated enough to win the 2024 election, which is a travesty.
Of course, because he was victimized. The ends don't justify the means.
You are all waiting and hoping he can be rehabilitated enough to win the 2024 election, which is a travesty.
I have zero desire to see him as President. It angers me that Democratic lying has turned him into a victim. It's not like there's a lack of actual material to criticize him with. No man has ever given his opponents more material to attack him with, and Democrats couldn't do it honestly. T
The CJR article is hardly the last word. First of all it is a one sided presentation. Second, it uses extremely dubious sources such as Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald who hate the Democratic Party. The fact that you call them "progressives" is irrelevant. Then I see that Gerth is someone with a decades long dislike of the Clintons. There is just too much going on here to say this is the last word. I expect a lot of pushback from some of the people and organizations gerth is belittling.
Secondly, he may have some examples of the media pushing it too far. What about all the instances where they did not push it too far? The June 9th 2016 meeting at Trump tower was collusion. Mueller would not indict because he couldnt prove Donald Trump Jr wasn't too stupid to understand he was doing something illegal.
Take off the blinders.
My point was that
whoever sits in the Oval Office takes a mostly partisan beating in the presses.
Lincoln and Grant had it no better than Bush or Obama.
The sad difference with Trump is that he didn't have the temperament
(class) to just roll with the punches, never has and probably never will.
By the way, the MSM includes FOX...which is anything but leftist
It's a biannual review 'magazine' for professional journalists.
It has a circulation of just under 1,000.
On MBFC it's rated just left of center to moderate.
As far as who is considered a professional journalist
apparently varies with the ideology.
Tucker Carlson had quite a crush on Alex Jones, praising Jones as a great journalist.
Sean said it is "progressive".
He's got to be better than Biden. He did a lot that was good for the country, while Joe is doing his best to destroy it.
Lol. That's your quibble? A liberal pundit called it left of center to moderate therefore calling it "progressive" is wrong.
If that's all you got.
They can't and don't want to at this point. They've chosen sides and their customer base won't tolerate honest reporting.
If you remember, about 20 years CBS ran with a fake story about Bush's national guard service based on forged documents. After the fraud was exposed CBS was extremally embarrassed for pushing such trash. It ended the careers of all involved. CBS set up a blue ribbon panel chaired by a former AG to get to the bottom of how it fell for the fake news and to examine its workplace culture to try and prevent it from happening ever again. To push fake news was just unbelievably embarrassing to a news division that at least aspired to be an honest broker.
Now, these stories happen ever weeks and they don't cause a ripple in the MSM pond. Just the other day, it was reported that MSM organizations pushed thousands of "Russian bot" stories that had no basis in reality. The media organizations simply ignored the story. . Their left wing customers sure don't care if what they read is accurate. It just needs to attack Republicans.
Are you right wingers actually proud of such shit?