Dan Froomkin: A pliant political press is wildly overplaying the Hunter Biden story

[Nevilledog]

https://presswatchers.org/2023/08/a-pliant-political-press-is-wildly-overplaying-the-hunter-biden-story/

Hunter Biden’s legal woes are newsworthy. No question.

But how newsworthy?

The president of the United States has a son who is deeply troubled and evidently corrupt as hell. After Hunter Biden’s plea deal with (Trump-appointed) prosecutor David Weiss blew up, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as a special counsel, cutting him loose from DOJ supervision. That’s all legitimate news fodder.

But no evidence has been unearthed to suggest that President Biden abetted or profited from Hunter’s frauds, beyond simply continuing to stand by him — as a good father is wont to do.

So unless that changes, it’s not really a legitimate campaign story. It’s a curiosity. Worse than that, it’s a distraction from the real stories.

Nevertheless, the highly accomplished Republican media-frenzy factory is going all out to turn it into a major story, and getting many takers in the mainstream media.

The obvious goal is confusing some voters into thinking that Biden is as much of a criminal as Donald Trump.

Which he is not.

*snip*

[The Unmitigated Gall]

1. Like I've said, and will say again...What's most concerning about the Hunter Biden thing...

Is what the fuck did Jared Kushner do to get 2 BILLION dollars from Saudi Arabia????

[MagickMuffin]

2. Dan is correct of course

Glad to see he’s still fighting the good fight

[chowder66]

3. WAS. He is no longer using and has a therapist. I think he's staying out of trouble now.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

4. Pity the mainstream media that only has two horses to ride into campaign ad season!

It’s only natural they keep on propping up the lame riderless nag with R on it…no platform in the saddle…only an obese orange blob chasing the poor thing with a social media pitchfork.

From artificial conflict, to made up strife and outright lies…comes massive profits.

The corporate mass media is a media failure on purpose.