TPM "..conventional news and commentary is incapable of handling willful lying in the public sphere"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gop-and-big-lie-politics

The GOP and Big Lie Politics
By Josh Marshall | February 6, 2018 12:54 pm

The biggest impact of the Nunes Memo – and the accompanying wave of propaganda – is that conventional news and commentary is incapable of handling willful lying in the public sphere. This is a pattern we’ve seen again and again. It’s one of the hallmarks of this political age. It’s worth saying it again: conventional media is not equipped to deal with willful lying in the public sphere.

Let’s consider the coverage of the Nunes Memo.

It’s fair to say that most commentary and reporting – outside of Fox and other propaganda-oriented conservative news outlets – has noted that the Nunes Memo picks out one piece of data and excludes all the rest, creating what is at best a highly misleading understanding about what happened with the Carter Page FISA warrant. There’s lot of good reporting on this. If you read widely you can get a fairly clear understanding of the situation, especially if you read the day after reporting which has pointed out how many of the Memo’s specific claims are not just misleading but expressly false. Still, however, you hear sensible people stating that the Memo’s claims were overstated, that the overall picture is a mix of both sides arguments, that the GOP argument about politicization is overstated, etc.

Listen to Chris Cillizza a few moments ago on CNN …

I think ultimately – I’m actually with [former Trump advisor Jason Miller] in that – I don’t know that either of these [memos] are the smoking gun that either side wanted. I know conservatives insist the Nunes memo – I shouldn’t lump them together – some conservatives think the Nunes memo, now that it has been released, proves once and for all that everything is totally fine and that Donald Trump is exonerated. I don’t think that’s so. I don’t think the Schiff memo is going to say, oh, my gosh, here it is, the smoking gun we have been waiting for.

Cillizza is one example. The upshot of the press coverage is that the Nunes Memo was likely overstated and political. But the idea that bias or anti-Trump animus helped drive the Russia probe remains as a reasonable viewpoint that needs to be accorded some respect amidst the clutter of conflicting claims and reports.

The reality is different.


keep reading - snip - link above

[GusBob]

1. They cant handle lies NOR the truth

In many ways the press is just like Trump. Say anything just for the attention, print anything for the clicks, or ratings

EDT TO ADD: This will be most evident when the Mueller report comes out. The press will spin themselves out of control trying to present "both sides" of the facts. The truth facts and Trumps alternative reality facts

[frazzled]

2. Anything with "I" in the language is de facto NOT reporting

There were seven "I"s in that snippet alone. And Chris Cillizza, at least in this capacity, is not a reporter. Most of what the cable outlets call news is not news, and it's definitely not reporting. This was not "coverage" or "news" or anything close to it. It's jibber-jabber commentary and opinion, made extemporaneously and off the cuff. We've known this for decades now. I'm surprised that Josh Marshall is surprised to discover this.

It's why I have not watched cable for some seven years now, except to watch live events (and then I turn the commentators and panels off immediately after). Anyone charged with blathering on for an hour is bound to say misleading, incorrect, or even stupid things. Even so-called "reasonable" people (though I'm not sure I'd lump Cillizza in that category, as Marshall has done.)

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. We've not watched TV in 10 years!

[american_ideals]

5. Me neither. That's part of the reason we are progressives - not distracted by cable propaganda

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. exactly. the power of repeated exposure - we are all vulnerable as humans.

best to not put ourselves in that situation.

[lagomorph777]

3. Both-siderism rests on a false assumption that there is some truth on each side.

Time to prick that balloon, and Cillizza's the wrong prick for the job.

[Cha]

7. Well said, Josh!

Thank you!

Damn M$M

[kentuck]

8. A truthful perspective:

"This all brings us back to the essential point. We don’t yet know what if anything Donald Trump is guilty of. We largely know on the obstruction front. The “collusion” front is much less clear. But all the evidence we have suggests a professional and if anything quite cautious investigation, one run from first to last by Republicans and on critical fronts by Donald Trump’s own nominees and appointees. The entirety of the “Deep State” anti-Trump bias storyline is no more than fakery and lies designed to cover up Trump’s misdeeds. It’s an effort that every member of the Republican party, up to its highest leaders like Paul Ryan, have made themselves party to. Yet none of it amounts to more than a big lie, The Big Lie. It’s just something repeated over and over to give it an appearance of verisimilitude even though it’s simply a lie concocted to defend President Trump at any cost."