- Sep 2024
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abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
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People don't leave my rallies.
Lie. Yes they do.
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People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there.
That's a lie. Harris's rallies have been better-attended than Trump's lately. And attendees are there voluntarily.
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her boss, if you call him a boss, he spends all his time on the beach,
A lie about Biden, who spends relatively little time at the beach.
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Democrats, Republicans and everybody else and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states.
Lie.
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Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote.
An astonishing lie. Actually, nobody wanted it returned to the state. Most people wanted Roe to remain law. Those that didn't, want abortion outlawed federally.
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her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it's execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay.
Total lie.
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In other words, we'll execute the baby.
Lie. The statement, by a former governor of Virginia, not West Virginia, pertained to a baby born with a fatal condition, and the choice the parents could make about its medical treatment.
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they have abortion in the ninth month
Lie.
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millions and millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly where it's I believe 21 million people, not the 15 that people say, and I think it's a lot higher than the 21.
That's a lie. An estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants have entered the country during Biden's tenure. Not 21 million a month.
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Everybody knows she's a Marxist.
This is two lies in five words. She's not a Marxist. Essentially nobody thinks (or knows) she is.
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She's going to my philosophy now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA hat. She's gone to my philosophy.
This is an obvious lie.
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We hardly make chips anymore because of philosophies like they have and policies like they have.
This is a lie. Biden's Chips Act has resulted in a huge surge of U.S. based chip-making.
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People can't go out and buy cereal bacon or eggs or anything else. These the people of our country are absolutely dying with what they've done. They've destroyed the economy and all you have to do it look at a poll. The polls say 80 and 85 and even 90% that the Trump economy was great that their economy was terrible.
This is three lies. Of course people are still buying cereal and bacon and eggs. Nobody is dying. And there are no polls that say what he says here.
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They aren't gonna have higher prices what's gonna have and who's gonna have higher prices is China and all of the countries that have been ripping us off for years.
That's a lie.
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many of those professors, the top professors, think my plan is a brilliant plan, it's a great plan
That's a lie. He was just making that up.
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the only jobs they got were bounce-back jobs.
This is a lie. About 6 million new jobs have been created beyond the bounce-back.
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We did a phenomenal job with the pandemic.
This is a lie. Trumps inadequate response to Covid made him personally responsible for tens if not hundreds of thousands of American deaths, according to multiple studies.
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I have nothing to do, as you know and as she knows better than anyone, I have nothing to do with Project 2025.
This is a lie. He has repeatedly praised the authors, many of whom worked for him.
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They're at the highest level of criminality
This is a lie. The crime rate for immigrants is lower than for natural-born citizens.
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they're destroying our country.
This is a lie. The country is not being destroyed.
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they're taking jobs that are occupied right now by African Americans and Hispanics
This is race-baiting, derogatory, and a lie.
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I had no inflation
This is a lie. There was modest inflation during Trump's term, totaling about 7.8 percent.
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We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation's history. We were at 21%. But that's being generous because many things are 50, 60, 70, and 80% higher than they were just a few years ago.
This is a lie. The inflation rate peaked at 9.1 percent.
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I took in billions and billions of dollars, as you know, from China.
This is a lie. The tariffs were on Chinese products, but they were paid by the importers.
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Other countries are going to finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we've done for the world.
This is a lie. Foreign countries don't pay tariffs, domestic importers do, who then pass the increased costs on to consumers.
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- Dec 2022
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modernizecongress.house.gov modernizecongress.house.gov
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The mission is vital to the future of our government andour nation.
Test
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- Aug 2022
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www.supremecourt.gov www.supremecourt.gov
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Coral Ridge now asks us to reconsider the “actual malice”standard. As I have said previously, “we should.” Berishav. Lawson, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (opinion dissentingfrom denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 2). “New York Timesand the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-drivendecisions masquerading as constitutional law.” McKee, 586U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 2). Thosedecisions have “no relation to the text, history, or structureof the Constitution.” Tah v. Global Witness Publishing,Inc., 991 F. 3d 231, 251 (CADC 2021) (Silberman, J., dis-senting in part). This Court has never demonstrated other-wise. In fact, we have never even inquired whether “theFirst or Fourteenth Amendment, as originally understood,encompasses an actual-malice standard.” McKee, 586 U. S.,at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 10).I would grant certiorari in this case to revisit the “actualmalice” standard. This case is one of many showing howNew York Times and its progeny have allowed media organ-izations and interest groups “to cast false aspersions onpublic figures with near impunity.” Tah, 991 F. 3d, at 254(opinion of Silberman, J.). SPLC’s “hate group” designationlumped Coral Ridge’s Christian ministry with groups likethe Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis. It placed Coral Ridge onan interactive, online “Hate Map” and caused Coral Ridgeconcrete financial injury by excluding it from the Ama-zonSmile donation program. Nonetheless, unable to satisfythe “almost impossible” actual-malice standard this Courthas imposed, Coral Ridge could not hold SPLC to accountfor what it maintains is a blatant falsehood. Dun & Brad-street, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U. S. 749, 771(1985) (White, J., concurring in judgment).Because the Court should not “insulate those who perpe-trate lies from traditional remedies like libel suits” unless“the First Amendment requires” us to do so, Berisha, 594U. S., at ___ (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (slip op., at 3), I re-spectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari.
Read this section of Clarence Thomas's dissent from the Supreme Court's decision in June 2022 not to reconsider NYT v. Sullivan -- at least for now!
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- May 2022
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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The report said “the U.S. decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan,” despite the inability of Afghan forces to support themselves, was the most significant factor in the country’s collapse.“When the contractors pulled out, it was like we pulled all the sticks out of the Jenga pile and expected it to stay up,” former senior U.S. commander David Barno told researchers. “We built that army to run on contractor support. Without it, it can’t function. Game over.”
The U.S. spent $90B and 20 years making the Afghan army dependent on U.S. military contractors. Then the army collapsed when the contractors fled.
Maybe building it to be dependent on U.S. military contractors was the problem?
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Former senior Afghan government and security officials have provided similar accounts to The Post suggesting Ghani feared his own security forces would ultimately turn on him.
Let's be clear: This is not an argument for why the US should have stayed longer.
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U.S. watchdog details collapse of Afghan security forces
Headline avoids any conclusions. It's like "don't read me".
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- Dec 2021
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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So, will these new voting laws swing elections?Maybe. Maybe not.
Argh!
First of all, "maybe" is cause for massive alarm.
And wrapping things up, Corasaniti reduces the issue to restrictions on voting, evidently not taking seriously the threat of further attempts to steal elections.
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He did not mince words
Was he right or was he wrong? If he's right, then this whole story is wildly understated (which it is.) If he's wrong, then say so.
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But in his first year, he did not make voting rights a top priority. As his administration battled to pass infrastructure and economic-relief programs, voting rights groups have grown frustrated, calling for a more aggressive White House push on federal voting legislation.
This is true, but does it take away from what Biden said in the previous paragraph?
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The Supreme Court has greatly weakened the Voting Rights Act over the last decade
This is key.
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The Justice Department has filed lawsuits challenging Republican voting laws in Georgia and Texas, and has also doubled the size of its civil rights division, which oversees voting litigation.
This, according to the NYT, is partisan.
It is not. It is how the Justice Department should work, period.
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How are Democrats pushing back?
This reduces the issue to a partisan fight, when it's a fight for all Americans other than those who want to steal the next election even if they don't win it.
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likely to affect voters of color disproportionately, echoing the country’s long history of racial discrimination at the polls
What a shameful way of finally addressing this issue.
This is blatant GOP attempt to limit voting by people of color, and is not an "echo" of the past, but a balls-out determination by the GOP to return to it.
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They have fueled widespread doubts about the integrity of American elections and brought intense partisan gamesmanship to parts of the democratic process that once relied largely on orderly routine and good faith.
Hugely messed up paragraph here.
"Widespread doubts about the integrity of American elections" is actually what the GOP is trying to accomplish, in order to steal them. People concerned about democracy don't have "doubts" they have fears -- legitimate fears.
And again with the "partisan gamesmanship" BS.
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Why are these legislative efforts important?
BECAUSE THE GOP IS TRYING TO CHEAT AND STEAL ELECTIONS THAT'S WHY.
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What are Republicans trying to do?
And now, finally, eight paragraphs after what should have been the lead, here is the key quesiton! Hooray, right? Wrong.
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Why are voting rights an issue now?
This entire answer is a boring, inaccurate distraction.
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the Republican Party has made a concerted new effort to restrict voting and give itself more power over the mechanics of casting and counting ballots
Excellent. This should have been the thrust of the headline and the lead. The next thing to do would be to explain their goals and describe how to stop them. But no.
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a central partisan battlefield with enormous stakes for the future of American democracy
Truly a pathetic first paragraph.
It's only a "partisan battlefield" because there are two parties and one of them is trying to undermine basic democratic principals.
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Republicans
I appreciate this being in the headline, which it is often is not. But it should be in the main one, not the subhead!
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Voting Rights and the Battle Over Elections: What to Know
That is one hell of an anodyne headline for a story that is about the massive GOP attack on voting rights and vote-counting.
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Jay tweeted about that column
And he wasn't the only one: https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/1468671719753850885
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“Can the Press Prevent a Trump Restoration?”
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I think there was a shift in how the media — and you could see it in the pages of our newspaper — how the media described things that he was saying and how willing the media was to say, this is a lie, or this is an untruth. And I think yeah, in certain ways, that accelerated with the post-election 2020 period.
I believe Ross is correct about that.
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I think journalists realized that this was an attack on the Democratic system, and they really had to try and reject it, and in ways that are much more frank and direct than they normally would use. They simply said, Trump was lying about the election, and they even expressed their outrage about it. And that, I took, to be a moment where journalistic practice changed.
I don't agree with Jay about the timing. But certainly, in the last months, reporters became bolder about using the word "lie," and that's good. But they still rarely do it about anyone but Trump, and it's really a low bar. They ought to be exploring the "why" behind the lie.
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a lot of highly exaggerated stories, where Trump’s real sordidness was blown out of proportion, a lot of cases where Trump did things, sometimes, that were reasonable policy that got covered as if they were the work of Hitler.
There are almost no such examples, other than some of the Russia and Steele stuff. His actual sordidness and "things" he did were routinely covered with way too much deference by a stenographic press corps. See, for instance, the coverage of Trump and Covid.
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for my colleague Ross Douthat, a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon is just good journalism.
Hilarious! Jay wins the debate before it even starts. Coaston's unsparing and accurate summary of Douthat's ridiculous column is game, set and match.
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- Nov 2020
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an article from The Atlantic
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- Jul 2020
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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as the Trump administration has strayed from the advice of many of its scientists and public health experts, the White House has moved to sideline Fauci,
This is revisionist, and way too easy on Trump. He never took the advice of experts. The only difference now is that Fauci is speaking out a bit more.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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negative media coverage of his outstanding speech at Mount Rushmore
Washington Post NEWS reporters David Nakamura, Ashley Parker, Colby Itkowitz and Maria Sacchetti called it "a dark speech ahead of Independence Day in which he sought to exploit the nation’s racial and social divisions and rally supporters around a law-and-order message that has become a cornerstone of his reelection campaign."
Thiessen's previous column -- which is probably what led to his invitation for an interview -- was a vociferous defense of Trump's speech and an attack on the media for mischaracterizing his words.
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An interview with President Trump
The Washington Post shouldn't be sending its house lickspittle to interview Trump; it should be demanding a sit-down with NEWS reporters.
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By Marc A. Thiessen
Thiessen, a former Jesse Helms staffer and George W. Bush speechwriter, was a leading defender of torture and the Iraq war. Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt hired him as a regular columnist in 2010, not long after firing me.
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The president discusses foreign policy and his response to Russian electoral interference.
But wait, there's more!
And either Trump said something newsworthy, in which case it should be in the NEWS section. Or it's just more nonsense.
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“Maybe I’m a voice in the wilderness,” he said, “but most people agree with me. And many won’t say it, and they might not even say it in a poll, but I think they’ll say it in an election.”
He is both the lone warrior and the leaders of a majority? It's all just such nonsense.
This whole interview is an embarrassment.
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I could say I’m against everything — ‘I’m against everything, I’m totally in favor of all of the hate.’
This is bizarre.
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Trump would be in a stronger position to defend the Union if he renamed the bases — and forced his opponents to protest that naming military installations after Washington and Jefferson was inappropriate.
This is Thiessen's idea of taking a bold stand.
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I mean he was a general, he was a tough general
Braxton Bragg is considered one of the Worst generals in the Civil War by the editors of the Blue and Gray Trail.
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they were named as a reconciliation to bring our country together
They were named "to appease racist white political leaders and locals who didn’t want a more integrated military nearby," as Vox explained.
“Those generals fought for the institution of slavery,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said on Capitol Hill. “We have to take a hard look at the symbology. The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution. Those officers turned their back on their oath.”
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These Confederate generals were the Benedict Arnolds of their day.
Well put!
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It was my opponent.
This is laugh-out-loud funny.
But also intriguing. What does it mean? The mind reels.
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they want racial justice. “I do too,” Trump interrupted.
This was an opportunity for an interviewer of integrity to ask Trump what he meant by that -- and press him on it.
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Trump also contends that the Black Lives Matter movement preaches violence against the police.
Black Lives Matter is an uplifting, national movement to address systemic racism. It is winning broad acceptance because it deserves it.
Trump's contention can only derive from profound racism, serious delusion, or both. Simply reporting it as if it were based in fact is irresponsbile.
Here, to clear your soul of this calumny, is an inspiring little essay from a founder of BLM.
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The president’s critics in the media conflate his criticism of mobs tearing down statues with criticism of the broader racial justice movement.
An absolutely essential part of Trump's culture-war stoking is to conflate dissent not just with violence and law-breaking in general, but specifically with anarchy and terrorism.
The violent police attack on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square last month, to make room for a smirking photo-op, has become an iconic episode for him.
His support for peaceful protesters is entirely theoretical. In practice, they are always "professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others."
He retweeted a message from his former lawyer which claimed that "The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real. They are terrorists using idle hate filled students to burn and destroy."
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I am adamant about defending the past
This is risible.Trump has no attachment to history and frequently makes claims that are ahistorical to soothe his ego..
Only recently, he claimed that he had done more for black Americans than any president with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, who freed slaves and ended the Civil War, noting that Lincoln “did good, although it’s always questionable.”
He has also explcitily defended Confederate memorials, which he ludicrously alleged were "a gesture of healing,” even though most were erected long after the war ended in order to bolster segregation during the Jim Crow era,
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They’re going to get slaughtered if they don’t push back.”
This is one of the most inflammatory things Trump has ever said. It is tantamount to calling on his culture warriors to "slaughter" back.
This should have been the lead of a news story, not buried in a sycophantic heap of word trash.
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what China did to us, is just unbelievable
See, by contrast, in the credible,reality-based NEWS columns of the Washington Post: "Trump the victim: President complains in private about the pandemic hurting himself"
Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey wite: "Trump has always exhibited a healthy ego and his self-victimization tendencies are not a new phenomenon, according to those who have known him over the years. But those characteristics have been especially pronounced this summer, revealing themselves almost daily in everything from private conversations to public tweets as the pandemic continues to upend daily life across America and threaten the president’s political fortunes."
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the president remains confident
Maybe he sounds confident to Thiessen, but I don't think even that's true. It's what's Thiessen was told to write.
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Trump 49, Biden 45
This is a poll from... wait for it... One America News Network! The "network" promises polls that show Trump winning and pulls them when then don't.
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key swing states
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Florida, up one
Biden is up by 6 according to 538.
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Pennsylvania tied
Biden is up by 8 in Pennsylvania, according to 538's poling average.
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Wisconsin, up one
Biden is up by 8 in Wisconsin, according to 538's polling average.
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‘The real hate is the hate from the other side’
This is incontrovertibly untrue. Hatred is arguably the central theme of Trump's re-election campaign, and this headline is a big lie, right there in the Washington Post.
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- Jun 2020
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www.msnbc.com www.msnbc.com
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So I`d like to see boards, hold COEs accountable to actually make quantifiable objectives, and when those objectives aren`t met, folks don`t get their bonus.
Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, talking to MSNBC's Brian Williams, identifies precisely what it will take for corporate diversity measures to really happen. It's all about the incentive structure.
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- Dec 2019
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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a White House official involved in the communications effort who spoke on the condition of anonymity
What exactly is the relationship between the "rapid response" team and the journalists who receive their emails? Are those emails presumptively on background? I've been wondering about this for more than two weeks, when several reporters made passing mention of getting "rapid response" emails.
See, for instance: https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/1196830675531444224
Since then, they've either gone underground or stopped.
I think reporters should print them in full, and identify the source.
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Doug Band
Yes, that Doug Band. Super slimy.
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Sayegh and Bondi have shied away from characterizing the president’s thinking, allowing them to avoid being contradicted by him, a regular occurrence for aides who try to speak to Trump’s state of mind.
This is a marvelous sentence, so compact and yet so redolent with meaning. Basically, they realized that anyone who tries to explain Trump is hopelessly screwed.
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griped that Trump was making their job defending him harder because of erratic moves such as his sudden withdrawal of troops from Syria and his decree — which was later rescinded — that he would host the Group of 7 at his Doral, Fla., golf resort.
News flash: You don't solve this problem with better messaging; you solve this problem by not making erratic moves anymore.
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That strategy has made the messaging effort all the more central to the president’s survival.
Word salad alert! This makes no sense at all to me. The White House is stonewalling Congress, refusing to allow people with vastly incriminating information to testify... and THAT is what makes this messaging effort central to Trump's survival?
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according to half a dozen current and former Trump administration officials who were interviewed for this story.
That's not a super helpful description. Does it include anyone on the team? I've never really understood the idea of giving anonymity to people whose job is to talk to the press.
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an anti-impeachment talking-point factory built for an impeachment battle playing out in a frenetic news cycle that burns through half a dozen fresh revelations a day. The environment favors Trump’s approach of repeating a single catchphrase endlessly until it sinks in.
So it's specially built for the frenetic news cycle.... but the goal is one catchphrase a day endlessly repeated?
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had just observed Trump following a talking point.
"I want nothing!" was the talking point? They must have been so proud. A little more skepticism from the reporter would have been appropriate here.
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- Nov 2019
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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Hill had labored in the White House for more than two years but said she didn’t fully grasp how the Trump administration actually operated until she watched Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor turned diplomat, testify before Congress last week.In the White House, Hill had seen Sondland as an impulsive neophyte overseeing an off-the-books campaign to pressure Ukraine to open investigations that would be politically beneficial to Trump.Sondland’s testimony showed something else. As Hill watched, it dawned on her that Sondland was running a different policy channel that didn’t include her and was working, at Trump’s behest, toward a very different goal.
See my Nov. 22 article about how career civil servants and political appointees (particularly Trump's) operate in two different universes.
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full of wheeler dealers inside and outside the official ranks who exist to do his political bidding.
This is an excellent description of Trump's inner circle, and ought to be used on second reference every time one of them is mentioned. But is won't, because a nonspecific analysis doesn't set off alarm bells at the Post, but a specific judgement is cut or self-censored for being too opinionated, or on account of source preservation
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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his statements repeatedly undercut the case Republican defenders in Congress have made on his behalf.
This is extraordinarily generous to House Republicans, as if they had a good argument if Trump just didn't tweet so much!
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- Aug 2019
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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When Representative Andy Kim, who flipped his New Jersey district by less than two percentage points, faced voters in his district on Tuesday night, he got an earful on the issue, The Burlington County Times reported.“Why is it taking so long? I want him gone” one attendee interjected. “Do your job,” yelled another in reference to impeachment.
I'm very interested in how the town halls go. Need to watch the local papers very closely!
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When Representative Kim Schrier of Washington, who narrowly flipped a Republican seat in 2018, announced her support this week for an inquiry, the House Republican Conference’s campaign arm denounced her as a “deranged socialist” who was “so blinded by her hatred of President Trump that she is perpetuating impeachment conspiracy theories instead of working for her constituents.”
You think maybe they protest a bit too much?
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Republicans are watching in wait for what they believe could be a suicidal decision for Democrats.
This accepts what Republican say on face value.
Here's how Castro put it at CNN's second presidential debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=n3_5zzF-bu0
And what's going to happen in the fall of next year, of 2020, if they don't impeach him, is he's going to say, "You see? You see? The Democrats didn't go after me on impeachment, and you know why? Because I didn't do anything wrong. These folks that always investigate me, they're always trying to go after me. When it came down to it, they didn't go after me there because I didn't do anything wrong."
Conversely, if Mitch McConnell is the one that lets him off the hook, we're going to be able to say "Well, sure, they impeached him in the House, but his friend, Mitch McConnell, Moscow Mitch, let him off the hook."
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Impeachment was barely a whisper in two nights of Democratic presidential primary debate.
???? Booker, Castro and DeBlasio all spoke forcefully about it!
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Mr. Quigley said individual members’ views are being shaped by a range of factors, including possible primary challenges, Mr. Mueller’s testimony last week, comments by Mr. Trump that are widely condemned as racist and the administration’s refusal to comply with certain investigative requests by Congress.
Moral outrage, anyone?
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It appeared last week as if House leaders might have found a middle ground that could satisfy both proponents of an impeachment inquiry and queasy moderates still lined up against it.
Again something "appeared". To who? And who seriously though it would satisfy either side? That makes no sense. So it's unattributed nonsense.
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But far from relieving pressure,
Again, a good point from Signorile:
In the re-writing of the narrative he then gives more speculation, that Nadler’s using the word “impeachment”was meant to placate, but actually led to allowing more members to come out.
Again, no sources, just lots of generalizations.
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It was not necessarily supposed to go that way. The House’s departure last Friday was expected to lower the temperature around the prospect of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. An unexpected declaration by the House Judiciary Committee in court papers on Friday that an impeachment investigation was effectively already underway might well have cooled matters further.
This Twitter threat from veteran journalist Michelangelo Signorile is really devastating. Who "expected" it? The author expected it! Last week!
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The trickle of Democrats coming out in favor of opening a full impeachment inquiry is threatening to turn into a flood
This is the language of someone who sees impeachment as a thing to be avoided. You wouldn't say a rainy day is threatening to turn into a sunny one.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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And so this is a difference with a lot of us on this debate stage. I believe that we in the United States Congress should start impeachment proceedings immediately. And I'll tell you this... (APPLAUSE) Debbie Stabenow now has joined my call for starting impeachment proceedings, because he is now stonewalling Congress, not allowing -- subjecting himself to the checks and balances. We swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. The politics of this be dammed. When we look back in history at what happened when a president of the United States started acting more like an authoritarian leader than the leader of the free world, the question is, is what will we have done? And I believe the Congress should do its job. LEMON: Senator Booker, thank you very much. Secretary Castro, what's your response? CASTRO: Well, I agree. I was the first of the candidates to call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. There are 10 different incidents that Robert Mueller has pointed out where this president either obstructed justice or attempted to obstruct justice. And I believe that they should go forward with impeachment proceedings. As to the question of what my Department of Justice would do, I agree with those who say that a president should not direct an attorney general specifically to prosecute or not prosecute. However, I believe that the evidence is plain and clear and that if it gets that far, that you're likely to see a prosecution of Donald Trump. LEMON: Thank you, Secretary. Mayor de Blasio, I'm going to bring you in. What's your response? DE BLASIO: I think it's obvious at this point in our history that the president has committed the crimes worthy of impeachment. But I want to caution my fellow Democrats. While we move in every way we can for impeachment, we have to remember at the same time the American people are out there looking for us to do something for them in their lives. And what they see when they turn on the TV or go online is just talk about impeachment. We need more talk about working people and their lives. For example, are we really ready -- and I ask people on this stage this question -- are we ready to make sure that the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes? That's something every American wants to know about. That's something they want answers to right now. So, yeah, move for impeachment, but don't forget to do the people's business and to stand up for working people, because that's how we're actually going to beat Donald Trump. The best impeachment is beating him in the election of 2020. (APPLAUSE) LEMON: Mayor, thank you very much. Senator Bennet, how do you respond to this conversation? BENNET: I think, look, as we go forward here, we need to recognize a very practical reality, which is that we are four months -- we've got the August recess. Then we are four months away from the Iowa Caucuses. And I just want to make sure whatever we do doesn't end up with an acquittal by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, which it surely would. And then President Trump would be running saying that he had been acquitted by the United States Congress. I believe we have a moral obligation to beat Donald Trump. (APPLAUSE) He has to be a single-term president. And we can't do anything that plays into our -- his hands. We were talking earlier about -- about climate up here. It's so important. Donald Trump should be the last climate denier that's ever in the White House. LEMON: Senator Bennet, thank you very much. Secretary Castro, please respond. BENNET: But we need to be smart about how we're running or we're going to give him a second term. We can't do it. LEMON: Secretary, please, your turn. CASTRO: Well, let me first say that I really do believe that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. All of us have a vision for the future of the country that we're articulating to the American people. We're going to continue to do that. We have an election coming up. At the same time, Senator, you know, I think that too many folks in the Senate and in the Congress have been spooked by 1998. I believe that the times are different. And in fact, I think that folks are making a mistake by not pursuing impeachment. The Mueller Report clearly details that he deserves it. And what's going to happen in the fall of next year, of 2020, if they don't impeach him, is he's going to say, "You see? You see? The Democrats didn't go after me on impeachment, and you know why? Because I didn't do anything wrong." (APPLAUSE) These folks that always investigate me, they're always trying to go after me. When it came down to it, they didn't go after me there because I didn't do anything wrong." Conversely, if Mitch McConnell is the one that lets him off the hook, we're going to be able to say... LEMON: Secretary... CASTRO: "Well, sure, they impeached him in the House, but his friend, Mitch McConnell, Moscow Mitch, let him off the hook."
This is more than a "whisper".
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Liberals who support opening impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump had hoped that testimony by the former special counsel would finally electrify their efforts. The early verdict suggests that did not happen.
Fandone ends up having to revisit this a week later, when it turns out he was WRONG. https://hyp.is/x69LKrSlEemIr0vyo-DAgg/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/politics/impeachment-house-democrats-trump.html
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- Jul 2019
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www.alternet.org www.alternet.org
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One mistake that was made by the media — and which is constantly being made — is living off Donald Trump’s tweets. I call it the kitty-litter box full of Trump’s tweets. The way it works is Donald Trump sends out a tweet. The cable news immediately repeats Trump’s tweet, instead of doing what I would have done if I were king of the world and editor. I would look and see the changes inside the bureaucracy and the system. What is Trump doing? He is replacing good people everywhere with these extreme conservatives — they are not all necessarily fascists. These Trump government types do not want to give food to the poor. They don’t think that immigrants should be treated well. We’re seeing this strategy of Trump ruining the government all over the place.
Sy Hersh on media coverage of Trump.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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Trump’s attacks often have come in response to efforts by Facebook, Google and Twitter to remove hate speech, threats of violence and other troubling content from their platforms. These tech giants have been under pressure to address a litany of online ills, including the rise of disinformation, three years after Russian agents spread falsehoods on social media during the 2016 election. But Trump and his close allies have decried some of social media’s content-moderation policies as censorship, putting those companies in a political bind.
This is useful context.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center charged that the president is “essentially conducting a hate summit at the White House,” said Heidi Beirich, the director of the group’s work to track online extremism.
The obligatory quote from the SPLC -- although, honestly, with all the recent revelations about the SPLC's own race problems, I think it's obligatory to go someplace else instead these days.
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In response, critics fretted that Trump had essentially endorsed such controversial tactics in the early days of the 2020 presidential race.
ditto
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Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups said they were most alarmed that Trump had invited supporters who have a history of targeting the president’s political opponents with inflammatory tweets, misleading videos and hard-to-debunk conspiracy theories.
And again. This is all called "editorializing by proxy" and here is has been done with spectacular cowardice.
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a move that led some critics to express dismay that the president aimed to use the policy summit as a reelection push.
Again with the "critics"? This is not a reach.
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critics chastised for giving a prominent stage to some of the Internet’s most controversial, incendiary voices.
Must the writer hide behind the "cirtics" construction here? There is nothing even vaguely controversial about calling these people controversial and incendiary.
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Trump accuses social media companies of ‘terrible bias’ at White House summit decried by critics
This is a horrible headline. It airs Trump's completely scurrilous grievance, while weakly acknowledging that critics exist
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datasociety.net datasociety.net
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reporters should, at the same time, avoid overcompensatory framings that preclude them from making forceful truth claims. One staff writer at a large global news outlet highlighted this tension. On one hand, she noted, you need to indicate when false claims are false. However, in so doing, you risk injecting (or being accused of injecting) opinion into the reporting. She noted that one common workaround she’s used, and has seen many other reporters use, is to editorialize by proxy. This approach uses a euphemistic “critics say” or “others say” as a way to hint that something isn’t what it appears to be, without having to assert a clear position. While editorializing by proxy might feel more comfortable from a reporting perspective, this reporter conceded, not taking a clear position risks lending plausibility to objectively false and/or manipulative claims. Furthermore, couching fact as opinion does not lend greater objectivity to the reporting. It actually undermines that objectivity. The reporting of facts (and, conversely, debunking of untruths), this reporter maintained, must therefore not be conflated with editorial stances.
This is brilliantly put. "Editorializing by proxy" should be a common term among media critics. I will endeavour to make it so.
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Not surprisingly, the whole concept of the event alarmed the president’s critics.
The obligatory "critics say" stuff tacked onto the bottom of the story. And not particularly enlightening quotes, at that.
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Other supporters who had made the journey from the internet’s backwaters to the White House included “Carpe Donktum,” who created a fake video of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that Mr. Trump shared on Twitter. There was also Bill Mitchell, who enjoys discussing QAnon, an online conspiracy theory that purports to share government secrets. And there was Ali Alexander, who shared a tweet questioning Kamala Harris’s racial background.
This paragraph could have been higher up, after the "crap" quote!
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That’s really not what happened.
No its not. But the way Rogers slams Deere for describing the summit is almost exactly how Rogers described it above ("the president went in search of .. ideas.") So she's only slamming herself.
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So on Thursday, the president went in search of outside-the-box campaign ideas from a group that also has little use for playing by the rules.
Here's an unusual interjection of a reporter's unvarnished, unattributed analysis. But it's oddly unclear where this idea came from, and hardly the kind of critical perspective needed here. Perhaps that's why the editors let her keep it.
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“The crap you think of,” Mr. Trump said as he surveyed his Twitter kingdom, “is unbelievable.”
Obviously a seminal quote. But it is left to the reader to interpret. I would have liked to see the next paragraph remind readers of some of the crap Trump was celebrating.
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White House Hosts Conservative Internet Activists at a ‘Social Media Summit’
Some people will only see the headline. This one leaves them no more informed than they were before they read it.
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White House Hosts Conservative Internet Activists at a ‘Social Media Summit’
Some people will only see the headline. This one leaves them no more informed than they were before they read it.
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That’s really not what happened.
No its not. But the way Deere inaccurately described the summit is almost exactly how Rogers described it above ("the president went in search of .. ideas.") So she's only contradicting herself.
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So on Thursday, the president went in search of outside-the-box campaign ideas from a group that also has little use for playing by the rules.
Here's an unusual interjection of a reporter's unvarnished, unattributed analysis. But it's oddly unclear where this idea came from, and hardly the kind of critical perspective needed here. Perhaps that's why the editors let her keep it.
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“The crap you think of,” Mr. Trump said as he surveyed his Twitter kingdom, “is unbelievable.”
Obviously a seminal quote. But it is left to the reader to interpret. I would have liked to see the next paragraph remind readers of some of the crap Trump was celebrating.
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- Jun 2019
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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At the Pentagon, officials have quietly voiced concerns for months that the current trajectory might make military conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This paragraph should be the second one in the article, not the 18th.
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- May 2019
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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a strategy that many legal and congressional experts fear could undermine the institutional power of Congress for years to come.
and this...
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amounting to what many experts call the most expansive White House obstruction effort in decades
This is what is called "editorializing by proxy." It is weak. Read more about editorializing by proxy.
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datasociety.net datasociety.net
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She noted that one common workaround she’s used, and has seen many other reporters use, is to editorialize by proxy. This approach uses a euphemistic “critics say” or “others say” as a way to hint that something isn’t what it appears to be, without having to assert a clear position. While editorializing by proxy might feel more comfortable from a reporting perspective, this reporter conceded, not taking a clear position risks lending plausibility to objectively false and/or manipulative claims.
Editorializing by proxy coined, and defined, by Whitney Phillips in a report for the for the Data & Society Research Institute. Phillips is now an assistant professor in communication, culture and digital technologies at Syracuse University.
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- Apr 2019
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theintercept.com theintercept.com
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The so-called Liberty City Seven case is indicative of how the U.S. government plays up the dangers of terrorism defendants when they are arrested but then never acknowledges that such purportedly dangerous individuals are routinely returned to their homes in the United States, in some cases just a few years after their arrests. As in other stings, the defendants in the Liberty City Seven case had no connection to terrorists. An undercover FBI informant, pretending to be an Al Qaeda agent, was the only alleged connection to terrorism.
A refresher on the Liberty City Seven
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www.justice.gov www.justice.gov
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the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony.
This is a far cry from asserting that Trump didn't direct Cohen to lie. Cohen told Mueller that Trump didn't -- but it's clear that for good reason Mueller doesn't take anything Cohen says at face value.
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- Jan 2019
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Yet privately, Mr. Trump dismissed his own new strategy as pointless. In an off-the-record lunch with television anchors hours before the address, he made clear in blunt terms that he was not inclined to give the speech or go to Texas, but was talked into it by advisers, according to two people briefed on the discussion who asked not to be identified sharing details.Editors’ PicksThe Lives They Lived 2018A Struggling Desert Town Bets Its Future on Pot$3,700 Generators and $666 Sinks: FEMA Contractors Charged Steep Markups on Puerto Rico RepairsAdvertisement
Not so privately, I guess. Attendees were said to include: CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
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- Nov 2018
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www.state.gov www.state.gov
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Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen.
I didn't realize the Houthis had to go first...
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- Sep 2018
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whitehousewatch.com whitehousewatch.com
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And these are all false, to me. These are false accusations in certain cases
That's how long.
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I won’t get into that game.
How long does this last?
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protectdemocracy.org protectdemocracy.org
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The ruling party in Poland, which came to power in 2015, five years after Orbán’s party came to power in Hungary, is “following the same template,” according to Stanford international studies professor Anna Grzymala-Busse: “First, target the highest courts and the judiciary, then restrict the independence of the media and civil society, and finally transform the constitutional framework and electoral laws in ways that enshrine their hold on power.”
Some history on Poland's destruction of the indpendent judiciary.
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www.whitehouse.gov www.whitehouse.gov
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Q What lesson do we take from what happened in Puerto Rico? How do we apply the lessons we took from Puerto Rico? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think Puerto Rico was incredibly successful. Puerto Rico was, actually, our toughest one of all because it’s an island, so you just — you can’t truck things onto it. Everything is by boat. We moved a hospital into Puerto Rico — a tremendous military hospital in the form of a ship. You know that. And I actually think — and the Governor has been very nice. And if you ask the Governor, he’ll tell you what a great job. I think probably the hardest one we had, by far, was Puerto Rico because of the island nature. And I actually think it was one of the best jobs that’s ever been done with respect to what this is all about. Puerto Rico got hit not with one hurricane but with two. And the problem with Puerto Rico is their electric grid and their electric generating plant was dead before the storms ever hit. It was in very bad shape. It was in bankruptcy. It had no money. It was largely — you know, it was largely closed. And when the storm hit, they had no electricity — essentially before the storm. And when the storm hit, that took it out entirely. The job that FEMA and law enforcement and everybody did, working along with the Governor in Puerto Rico, I think was tremendous. I think that Puerto Rico was an incredible, unsung success. Texas, we had been given A-plusses for. Florida, we’ve been given A-plusses for. I think, in a certain way, the best job we did was Puerto Rico, but nobody would understand that. I mean, it’s harder to understand. It was very hard — a very hard thing to do because of the fact they had no electric. Before the storms hit, it was dead, as you probably know. So we’ve gotten a lot of receptivity, a lot of thanks for the job we’ve done in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was very important.
Trump's comments on Puerto Rico.
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www.penguin.co.uk www.penguin.co.uk
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shamanistic incantation. As Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon “endless repetition,” designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.
Here's the Klemperer citation.
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theintercept.com theintercept.com
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4) The investigation was extremely narrow in its focus. Committee staffers only looked at what the CIA did in its black sites; whether it misled other officials; and whether it complied with orders. That is somewhat like investigating whether a hit man did the job efficiently and cleaned up nicely.
Why Kavanaugh wasn't mentioned/
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www.acslaw.org www.acslaw.org
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in a recently unearthed 1999 roundtable discussion, Kavanaugh argued that one of the most important Supreme Court decisions limiting executive power was wrongly decided. In 1974, the court ruled 8-0 that then-president Richard Nixon's "executive privilege" did not make him immune to a subpoena from the Watergate special prosecutor. It ordered Nixon to hand over audio tapes of his conversations and calls. He did. And two weeks later, he was waving goodbye in a helicopter. But Kavanaugh lamented the decision, saying that "maybe Nixon was wrongly decided." His reasoning: "Nixon took away the power of the president to control information in the executive branch by holding that the courts had power and jurisdiction to order the president to disclose information in response to a subpoena sought by a subordinate executive branch official. That was a huge step with implications to this day that most people do not appreciate sufficiently."
Kavanaugh on U.S. v Nixon
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- Aug 2018
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www.npr.org www.npr.org
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Despite Strong Economy, Federal Deficit Soars
The reason the federal deficit is soaring is because of Trump's massive tax cuts. That kind of deserves mention here. It also assumes the deficits are intrinsically bad. Deficits to finance public investments, for instance are good. (Deficits that enrich the super-rich are stupid.)
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Like a family that's maxed out its credit cards, policymakers may have less room to maneuver the next time they're confronted with an actual crisis, as a result of the government's mounting debt load.
So wrong. For instance, families can't raise taxes or print money.
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the government is still acting like a spendthrift family, piling up credit card bills even though times are good
The U.S. government isn't a family. It's an awful and insidious analogy championed by those who oppose higher taxes and government support for the poor. See, i.e., The Federal Budget is NOT like a Household Budget: Here’s Why
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archive.is archive.is
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aspiring traitors like Clapper, Hayden, Tapper, Acosta, Hillary Clinton, Comey, John Podesta, Maddow, McCabe, Brennan, Page, Strzok, Wray, the reporting staffs of the Washington Post and the New York Times, the Council on Foreign Relations, and most of all, by the foreign-born Obama.
Michael Scheuer's list of "aspiring traitors" just might include you.
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The familiar advice, easy to state, hard to follow, but if there’s another way, it’s been kept a dark secret: honest, dedicated, courageous and persistent engagement, ranging from education and organization to direct activism, carefully honed for effectiveness under prevailing circumstances. Hard work, necessary work, the kind that has succeeded in the past and can again.
What to do? Here is what Chomsky advises.
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the most highly regarded moderates firmly uphold doctrines that are, quite literally, too outlandish to discuss. For example, Richard Haass, a respected scholar and diplomat and long-time president of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, instructs us with a straight face that “International order for 4 centuries has been based on non-interference in the internal affairs of others and respect for sovereignty. Russia has violated this norm by seizing Crimea and by interfering in the 2016 US election. We must deal [with] Putin’s Russia as the rogue state it is.” Words fail.
"Words fail."
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While Trump’s policies make no sense from a geostrategic perspective, they fall into place on the assumption that he is continuing to pursue his “Me First” agenda, damn the consequences for the world, matters we’ve discussed before. The agenda requires maintaining the loyalty of his base and ensuring that they will remain loyal if the Mueller investigation comes up with something that damages him. The centerpiece of his press conference with Putin, bitterly condemned by elite opinion, was his effort to discredit Mueller. The tactic is succeeding quite well. A large majority of Republicans approve of the way Trump dealt with Putin, and polls show that Mueller’s public image is at an all-time low. Meanwhile, the sharp escalation and threats satisfy the national security hawks.
Chomsky explains Trump's facially nonsensical behavior in Helsinki.
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In the case of Western democracies — Trump, Western Europe — what’s wrong with today’s democracy is its decline, with the attendant attack on prospects for a decent life as the political system falls even more than usual under the control of concentrated private power and hence becomes less responsive to human needs.
Authoritarianism thrives when the ostensible "liberal democracy" fails to respond to human needs.
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the major attack on the institutions and values of liberal democracy is by the powerful business classes, intensifying since Reagan as both political parties have drifted toward greater subordination to their interests
Chomsky says the harm to liberal democracy caused by Russian interference pales in comparison to the fact that the government is not responsive to voters.
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- Jul 2018
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caselaw.findlaw.com caselaw.findlaw.com
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1. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. 2 In these circumstances, [343 U.S. 579, 636] and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth) to personify the federal sovereignty. If his act is held unconstitutional under these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government [343 U.S. 579, 637] as an undivided whole lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it. 2. When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law. 3 3. When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling [343 U.S. 579, 638] the Congress from acting upon the subject. 4 Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.
Justice Jackson's three categories of presidential power in national security decisions.
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- Jun 2018
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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which suggests traders are concerned about long-term growth — even as the economy shows plenty of vitality.
Maybe they are all just scared shitless about Trump, like so many of the rest of us!
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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In a few instances, a staff member may have to move to a different department — from business and financial news, say, to the culture desk—to avoid the appearance of conflict.
Clearly, this is not unheard of.
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A City Hall reporter who enjoys a weekly round of golf with a City Council member, for example, risks creating an appearance of coziness, even if they sometimes discuss business on the course.
From DOJ IG report: "FBI employees improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and m eals, and admittance to nonpublic social events."
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int.nyt.com int.nyt.comfull.pdf1
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In addition to the significant number of communications between FBI employees and journalists, we identified social interactions between FBI employees and journalists that were, at a minimum, inconsistent with FBI policy and Department ethics rules. For example, we identified instances where FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work byreporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events. We will separately report on those investigations as they are concluded, consistent with the Inspector General (IG) Act, other applicable federal statutes, and OIG policy.
Question: Does any of this violate journalistic ethics? Some of it is good source maintenance, but is some over the line?
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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Trump tests journalists and news consumers in a way they’ve never been tested before. Like would-be autocrats elsewhere, Trump is pursuing a strategy of disorienting the citizenry with a steady stream of provocations, untruths and diversions. We cannot afford to treat any of this as the usual spin or garden-variety politics.
E.J. Dionne challenges journalists to stop falling for Trump's diversions, and call them out for what they are: the attempts of an autocrat to disorient the citizenry.
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A spokesman for the Justice Department said in an email that the new guidance policy would not affect the enforcement of science-based laws. “The Department of Justice continues to aggressively and successfully enforce the nation’s laws, including environmental and health laws,” the spokesman said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. “Assertions to the contrary are incorrect.”
This speaks volumes about both the Trump administration and the New York Times. The Justice Department won't respond on the record at all -- and the Times allows a SPOKESMAN to go on background and then stenographically prints a non-answer, blanket denial, supported by no evidence. Shame on everyone involved here.
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Mr. Trump’s lawyers fear that if he answers questions, either voluntarily or in front of a grand jury, he risks exposing himself to accusations of lying to investigators, a potential crime or impeachable offense.
This unsourced and yet unqualified paragraph is the Times clearly indicating that they were told this by Trump's lawyers, but only on condition that then not attribute it at all.
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- May 2018
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$102,000
Sold for $35,000 less in January 2018.
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property.spatialest.com property.spatialest.com
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Last Sale Date: Jan-25-2018 Last Sale Price: $66,500
Last sale
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www.niemanlab.org www.niemanlab.org
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Skok: I’m not saying that you are responsible — Gingras: No, I don’t say it with that intent. I have no problem with people criticizing us for what we do. I’m just saying let’s look at the questions on a larger scale and understand what’s really going on because it ain’t as simple as that.
Leaving us with another question: Can a centralized colossus reaping vast profits off what was supposed to be a decentralized web actually be part of the solution?
I think they can, but they need to spend A LOT more money.
I personally think they and Facebook should create a very large subsidy distributed to news organizations per local news reporter. I can't see anything less direct than that making that much of a difference -- although I think most of what Gingras is saying is right.
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So how do you understand the community’s needs? How do you address those needs? How do you rethink what the very nature and form of journalism is in this day and age? How do the contracts evolve in an environment where we’re all snacking off our cellphones? To what extent do narrative styles have to change? To what extent is it more immersive, or less immersive, or whatever? To what extent can data journalism become a stronger part of what we do, so that we’re not just covering news through stories and anecdotes but providing additional context to help people understand why something is important or not important to them? As we deal with these challenges, all of us as institutions — including Google, including the press — have to really rethink what our roles are in this very different world.
More (excellent) questions. Not all of them answered, as this particular interview is almost over.
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They don’t have marketers on staff, they have community organizers on staff and they go out and they arrange town halls and they’re trying to assess the needs and interests of their community, they’re trying to figure out how do they engage with their community.
And this is as close as Gingras gets to explaining what specifically he thinks news organizations need to start doing. So Nieman Lab's write-up about the Bristol Cable is essential reading.
Is that desirable, reproducible, and plausible?
There are lots of experiments going on in that direction. Among them are Jay Rosen's Membership Puzzle Project and FreePress's News Voices program.
Gosh, I wish them luck.
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Media literacy training is important, but can you design a new site that actually doesn’t need a user manual to tell you what you’re seeing, tell you what’s fact-based coverage versus opinion?
Funny he should mention that. An excellent, thought-provoking new report from Tom Rosenstiel and Jane Elizabeth was just released by the American Press Institute, and outlines several ways that people who produce the news can help readers tell good reporting from bad by building their journalism differently. Highly recommended (and annotated.)
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I was a founder of The Trust Project for pushing on the architecture of journalism.
The Trust Project is devoted to "developing transparency standards that help you easily assess the quality and credibility of journalism." Check it out.
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My own personal favorite definition of journalism is to give citizens the tools they need to be good citizens: to give them the information they need to when they go to the polls to make smart decisions about what’s important for their communities and that’s not what’s happening today.
Hell yes. That's certainly why I do journalism. Note: That does NOT mean telling people how to vote. It means making sure they are armed with accurate information about important things, so they can make intelligent choices.
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Can we create a weather report for our communities?
I think not. The weather report is interesting (crucial) because the weather changes constantly. so it's a bad metaphor.
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disproportionality. You’ve got the British Parliament attack in London and our cable news networks in the United States go wall to wall with it for three days. A sad event — four people died. [Five, plus the assailant. —Ed.] On those same three days, there were mass murders of four or more people that didn’t get covered. We have people going to the polls living in a farming community in Iowa concerned about terrorism, not understanding what the real needs and interests of their communities are.
Maybe the view from the colossus is better than fro down here, because I think Gingras makes a great point here. Disproportionality. Every news organization would do well to think about whether old habits are leading them to spend too much of their valuable resources covering things that don't actually matter very much.
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So what does that say about the future? I’m increasingly encouraged by what I see, but I think it’s a very, very different approach. And that’s the kind of success we’re seeing. It’s a much more community-centric approach. Earlier, there was a conversation that you need to think more about marketing, which is true, but I also think that, in a different way, I think you need to be smarter about community organizing, to be smarter about understanding the natural interests of your community.
Here, Gingras starts to develop his argument: Journalism needs to be more "community centric."
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User behaviors changed in terms of what you use a news site for, and with it went the advertising dollars. I can assure you that if Google didn’t exist, this still would have happened.
And here is the problem, in a nutshell
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What are the evolving forms and structures of journalism to better serve our communities in an environment where people are consuming information in so many different ways?
This is the central question.
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I think if we can look through the smoke of disruption, we’re beginning to see seedlings of success, of new approaches to journalism at the local level, at the national level, in terms of content and issues, that is extraordinarily exhilarating and inspiring.
This, Gingras's thesis, is not really something you hear very much these days. Let's see his evidence. Read on!
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www.whitehouse.gov www.whitehouse.gov
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We want to thank Kim Jong-un, who really was excellent to these three incredible people.
A contender
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www.americanpressinstitute.org www.americanpressinstitute.org
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Journalists can begin to help audiences become more discriminating by building and presenting content differently, in a way that explicitly displays and answers key questions reader may have — through boxes, billboards, and other elements placed on top of or alongside traditional narratives.
Interested in giving it a try with annotation? Email me at froomkin@gmail.com!
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Who is the writer and what are the writer’s credentials and background?
More than a sentence, please! This is key. Readers deserve to know where writers are coming from, and whether their opinion likely reflects partisan talking points, professional bias, actual experience, an unexpected departure, etc.
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If we have anonymous sources, why?
Generally, and according to widely-ignored in-house newsroom rules, reporters should explain both why the source requested anonymity, and why the reporter granted it. This almost uniformly fails to make it into stories. But it could make it into "billboards" or annotations!
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What don’t we know? What are the questions we are trying to answer?
So key.
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Why did we do this story? (Why does this story matter?) What’s new here? What questions did we set out to answer? What do we know now? What don’t we know? What’s the evidence? Who are the sources and why were they chosen? Why did we use unnamed sources? What might happen next? What could change? How and when will we cover it? How can you respond or get involved?
You know what these questions have in common? These are exactly the best questions reporters get asked and answer when they go on TV to talk about their stories.
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contextual manner.
A great companion piece to this report is a really quite brilliant white paper recently published by the Knight Foundation: "Contextual Fact-Checking: A New Approach to Correcting Misperceptions and Maintaining Trust," by Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University.
She points out how damaging the lack of context can be:
First, inadequate factual information threatens readers’ ability to process the content—a critical ingredient for maintaining reader attention and trust. Second, leaving out key pieces of information can inadvertently help to create misperceptions by placing the burden of interpretation onto readers who might be ill- equipped to understand these complex issues.
And her proposed solution dovetails very nicely with API's idea of transparency:
[T]he goal of contextual fact-checking is to correct areas of confusion and misperception among members of the public.
Thorson's white paper is worth reading for many reasons, not the least of which is the wonderful "Case Study" on the national debt. Drives me crazy!
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Joy Mayer at Trusting News and Sally Lehrman at The Trust Project.
Follow those links! Two really fascinating projects.
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“What questions would this story raise in a skeptical consumer’s mind?”
This is a great question. And it sure beats the question on many beat reporters' minds, which is: "What will my sources think of this story?"
Heck just thinking about writing for the consumer, rather than the source, would be a big step toward if not transparency, then at least intelligibility.
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a nutrition label for news,
Ingredients, I'm all for. Percent of daily values, no sir!
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Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
Two of the most trusted names in news. Seriously.
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What facts don’t we know yet?
I love this in particular.
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What sources did you talk to and why them?
This particularly lends itself to annotation -- and can leverage research work already being done.
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imagine a format or presentation that, alongside the story, poses some key questions a discriminating or “fluent” news consumer might ask to decide what to make of the story.
You could, for instance, imagine annotation. Like this!
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If journalists want their audiences to be able to differentiate solidly reported news content from work that is more speculative, thinly sourced, or backed by rumor or innuendo, then they must create their journalism in ways that make it easier for anyone to recognize those qualities.
This is the nut graph -- and I totally agree. In fact, as I wrote nine years ago in my essay ‘Playing it Safe’ Is Killing the American Newspaper:
Daily newspapers are notoriously non-transparent, an old habit that at least in part stems from our lack of space. We historically haven’t had the column inches to “waste” on an explanation of how we got a story, or what the problems were in reporting it, or to defend it once it’s attacked. We just “let the story speak for itself.” Space seems to have been at a particular premium in the corrections box. But the Internet both demands and facilitates transparency. We should be much more willing to admit errors and explain ourselves — with a guiding principle being that the more people understand how we operate, the more they will trust us.
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www.huffingtonpost.com www.huffingtonpost.com
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Daily newspapers are notoriously non-transparent, an old habit that at least in part stems from our lack of space. We historically haven’t had the column inches to “waste” on an explanation of how we got a story, or what the problems were in reporting it, or to defend it once it’s attacked. We just “let the story speak for itself.” Space seems to have been at a particular premium in the corrections box. But the Internet both demands and facilitates transparency. We should be much more willing to admit errors and explain ourselves — with a guiding principle being that the more people understand how we operate, the more they will trust us.
This
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www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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Pants on fire is so tired. Could you ask your graphics department to use an icon of a steaming pile of feces instead?
Another redditor suggestion, this one somewhat less helpful.
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We always define the claim we're checking. We always reach out to the speaker and ask for his/her data. We always ask ourselves two things: What evidence would show that this claim is accurate. What evidence would show that it is less than accurate.
Process matters.
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I do talk regularly to press secretaries and spokespeople and hear them out if they don't like the outcome of a particular fact-check. Part of our regular process, too, is to talk to them extensively before we publish so we understand how they view the evidence.
This is something most people probably don't know, and is a huge advantage for reported fact-checks, like the ones done by Factcheck.org.
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I love how this response indirectly states that Republicans make more incorrect claims.
Can't get much past the redditors.
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Jon here: Lie is a loaded word and we leave it to the columnists to use it. For reporters, it is best to say that something is inaccurate, because we take the stance that we can only judge accuracy, not intent. And lying involves the intent to deceive. permalinkembedsaveparentreportgive goldreply[–]andew0100 [score hidden] an hour ago (0 children)"Pants on fire" is the same as calling someone a liar. Jon here: Lie is a loaded word and we leave it to the columnists to use it. I hereby dub this statement "pants on fire".
Whose pants are on fire?
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the Pants on Fire rating is "the claim is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim." Three editors vote on whether a claim should be False or Pants on Fire, and it's admittedly a judgment call.
What does Pants on Fire mean? Politifact explains here, but the redditors aren't convinced. See below.
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Wouldn't it better you'd introduce new rulings? Like misleading or irrelevant?
Suggestion from a redditor
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You seem to be unnecessarily harsh on the side of literal facts over general facts.
Interesting observation by a redditor
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we aim to let the hard numbers and facts do the talking. We try to pick claims that are susceptible to that approach and while there can be judgment calls, we aim to keep them to a minimum. From the very start of a fact-check, we ask ourselves two questions: What data would prove the statement correct, and what data would show that it is less than accurate.
This also explains the preponderance of quantitative, rather than qualitative, statements that get fact-checked
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www.refinery29.com www.refinery29.com
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Misogyny is both the input and output that keeps the fake news industry afloat.
That has the ring of truth.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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It has become standard operating procedure for Trump and his aides to deceive the public with false statements and shifting accounts.
This should be a standard disclaimer/second reference every time anyone in the White House is quoted.
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thebaffler.com thebaffler.com
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The clear takeaway from the Swift Boaters’ truth-mangling campaign remains the core cognitive and moral distemper at the root of our political press today—namely, the idea that the perceptions created by political actors matter more than the substantive facts that can be truthfully reported. And this has allowed the Swift Boaters’ libelous script to repeat itself again and again over the past grim fourteen years of our cultural and civic decline.
Jason Linkins traces the gradual rot of the civic space back to the Swift Boat calumnies of 2004. Here's the TLDR nut graph.
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- Apr 2018
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www.politico.com www.politico.com
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in a recent interview with Politico Magazine in his Times office.
OK i'm going to stop now because: 1) I've got other things to do 2) This is no fun 3) I just noticed that @kath_krueger did a thorough evisceration this morning already, at Splinter News. I am still not quite sure what Splinter News is, and she's new to me, but she did a splendid job so go read that.
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But some of them are jackasses
Great, highly appropriate kicker!
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equally polarizing
Translation: Someone advocating for something like Bernie Sanders's platform is "equally polarizing" as Trump's lying white nationalist lunacy.
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arguments are intended as instruments of illumination
in italics no less!!!!
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helping to recreate an intellectual and moral center in American public life
So he admits it!
This is like a car wreck and I can't stop watching.
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That earnest and nuanced answer was in its own way a distillation of the central issue regarding his leadership
Ack! OK now I'm really stopping.
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His tenure has been about standing strong on behalf of a style of discourse that requires making points with precision, insists on the distinction between honest argument and propaganda, and defaults to an assumption that the other side has a legitimate point of view and is deserving of respect
Actually, he's made the NYT op-ed page into a febrile hotbed of officious centrism, right at a time when it could be defining a progressive post-Trump future.
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