Why BuzzFeed News Published the Dossier - by Ben Smoth

[DonViejo]

Since BuzzFeed News published a 35-page dossier of unverified allegations about ties between President Donald J. Trump and Russia, I’ve heard a chorus of criticism from journalists who say we abdicated our role as gatekeeper, and a chorus of thanks from readers who want to be trusted to judge dubious documents.

BuzzFeed News decided to publish the dossier, with appropriate context and caveats, for two related reasons, and only after we had spent weeks with reporters in the United States and Europe trying to confirm or disprove specific claims.

First, the documents were in wide circulation among top intelligence and elected officials and news organizations. They were being fought over — and acted on — at the highest levels of power. But the rest of the country was getting only the occasional glimpse of those battles, never the source documents themselves.

“The only party to this whole affair that didn’t know about it, it seems, was the public,” as the newspaper editor Seth Lipsky wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/opinion/why-buzzfeed-news-published-the-dossier.html?emc=edit_th_20170123&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284

[HoneyBadger]

1. Is the dossier considered real or fake now?

[GliderGuider]

3. It's starting to look all too real.

Verification will only come during the trials. The only people who could verify it now are the IC, and they aren't about to say anything because it's active evidence.

[GliderGuider]

2. I supported the publication then, and support it now.

If you want to see Trump's tax returns, it strikes me that the dossier is at least as important.