The NYT should tell readers whether it helped crooked FBI agents get Trump elected in 2016

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The combination of the NYT and crooked FBI agents got TFG elected. I canceled my subscription to the NYT back in 2016 due to the biased coverage. The NYT is not a real news organization and actually worked with the NYC office of the FBI to elect TFG

Link to tweet

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/mcgonigal-russian-oligarch-trump-2016-election-20230129.html

It was arguably the most consequential “October Surprise” in the history of American presidential elections. In the waning days of the 2016 race, with polls showing Hillary Clinton clinging to a lead over Donald Trump, two last-minute stories broke that rekindled on-the-fence voters’ ethical doubts about Democrat Clinton and quashed a budding scandal around her GOP rival.

Except the “October Surprise” was no surprise to one key player: Rudolph Giuliani, the ex-New York mayor and Trump insider who later became the 45th president’s attorney. Late that month, Giuliani told Fox News that the trailing Republican nominee had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”

Just two days later, then-FBI director James Comey revealed the bureau had reopened its probe into Clinton’s emails, based on the possible discovery of new communications on a laptop belonging to disgraced New York politico Anthony Weiner. The news jolted the campaign with a particularly strong boost from the New York Times, which devoted two-thirds of its front page to the story — and the notion it was a major blow to Clinton’s prospects.

It was later reported that Comey was motivated to make the unusual announcement about the laptop because he feared leaks from the FBI’s New York field office, which, according to Reuters, had “a faction of investigators based in the office known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton.” Indeed, Giuliani bragged immediately after that he had sources in the FBI, including current agents.

Link to tweet

......The government allegations against the former G-man Charles McGonigal (also accused of taking a large foreign payment while still on the FBI payroll) and the outsized American influence of the sanctioned-and-later-indicted Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska — also tied to U.S. pols from Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell — should make us also look again at what was really up with the FBI in 2016.

How coordinated was the effort in that New York field office to pump up the ultimate nothingburger about Clinton’s emails while poo-pooing the very real evidence of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf, and who were the agents behind it? What was the role, if any, of McGonigal and his international web of intrigue? Was the now-tainted McGonigal a source who told the New York Times that fateful October that Russia was not trying to help Trump win the election — before the U.S. intelligence community determined the exact opposite? If not McGonigal, just who was intentionally misleading America’s most influential news org, and why?......

It’s not only that America’s so-called paper of record has never apologized for its over-the-top coverage of the Clinton emails or the deeply flawed story about the FBI Trump-Russia probe. It’s that the Times has shown a stunning lack of curiosity about finding out what went wrong. In May 2017, or just seven months after Trump’s election, then-Times executive editor Dean Baquet ended the position of public editor, an independent journalist who was embedded in the newsroom to cover controversies exactly like these.

[Irish_Dem]

1. This was not just irresponsibility or laziness. It is deliberate sabotage of US democracy.

[unblock]

2. The story was always how right-wingers abused congress, the fbi, and the media to smear an opponent

They never had anything more than a fishing expedition or witch hunt against Hillary. What evidence of a crime did they ever have? Nothing!

There was never any accusation or evidence that she took money or was a spy. There was never any accusation or evidence that any classified program was damaged in any way. There was never any evidence that any adversary had gotten classified information from Hillary's server or emails.

What kind of criminal investigation starts with "hey, we have no dead body, but if we sift through this mountain of emails, someone might mention killing someone, so let's open a murder investigation"?

Zero indictments, zero law changes even proposed, one election upended. If that isn't a politically motivated witch hunt I don't know what is.

But even with the benefit of hindsight, no one calls it like it is. They *still* talk of it like a Hillary scandal when she was the innocent victim.

Republicans are never held to account for all their abusive scandal-mongering.

[Walleye]

3. They are too busy smearing Biden over the documents drama

[McKim]

4. Yes and Cheerleaders for the War on Iraq!

Yes and don’t forget their now discredited cheerleaders for the War on Iraq which cost this country trillions of wasted dollars and destroyed a functional country killing a million Iraqis.

[republianmushroom]

5. they should and they did.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Really?

Where? The results of the IG inspector report on the Clinton email scandal was buried by the NYT and even then the NYT did not admit that their prior reporting was wrong.

I cancelled my subscription for the NYT and will never trust this group on anything where TFG is concerned.

[Hortensis]

10. Agree. Proven facts. We took the NYT all through 2013-2017,

and watched the systematic sabotage of not just HRC's image but the Democratic Party.

[ificandream]

6. From someone who worked in newspapers ....

Last edited Mon Jan 30, 2023, 03:23 PM - Edit history (1)

First, reporters don't know or can't say how a story will end up. They have to go with what they know at the time and report the facts as they are. That means early stories don't always look like you might want them to. As far as the Biden documents story, reporters have to report what has happened and what is happening. They're doing it with Biden, Pence and Trump. Pence's story seems quiet because nothing has happened lately. But again, his story has been recounted again and again as background. Trump's situation is unique and good reporters (forget the right-wing blowhard media) have been backgrounding the past history. But again, nothing has happened lately. If it does, you will see lots and lots of coverage.

The Clinton story was reported as-it-happened. Much of the blame there goes to Comey, IMO. His dreadful timing made the story worse than it should have been. But that wasn't the fault of the New York Times. Good media doesn't draw early conclusions. They report facts. Which is why Fox is trash.

Finally, the legitimate media is on your side. Not Trump's, not Pence's, not the RNC or the DNC. Yours. It's their job to get to the truth. Sometimes that path is longer than we'd like. But look, for a great example, at Woodward and Bernstein's pursuit of Watergate.

[Abigail_Adams]

8. I don't disagree with

your basic point. Reporters are not prognosticators, nor should they be. But editors decide what is newsworthy, and how newsworthy it is. An item can run above the fold on page 1 or be relegated to page 11, splashed all over or given five lines, and that influence comes with great responsibility. The NYT failed in that responsibility in 2016-2017, IMO. It should reinstate the public editor and at least clarify the business between Giuliani and the FBI in 2016, Barr's whitewash of Mueller's report, and so on. I'm not going to hold my breath.

[ificandream]

9. I'm not sure exactly what you expect them to do.

I agree that editors make story decisions. But a lot of factors go into making those decisions. But again, the legitimate press has to report facts.

You mention Barr's whitewash of the Mueller Report. He said it. It's a fact and it has to be reported. But the legitimate media also reported (in those stories) the facts that what Barr said was wrong. The "problem" is that Barr had an authoritative position in the government and his statements couldn't be brushed under the table. Unfortunately.

As far as the public editor you asked for, I think their importance is overemphasized. The paper I worked for had public focus groups (I sat in on meetings with them) and I think far too much importance was placed on the opinions of people that didn't know that much about the workings of a newspaper and who based their opinions on what they'd heard on social media. (And much of that comes from the idiots of Fox and the way they've crabbed about their competition .... which, in itself, is not sound journalistically or ethically, especially when a company like Fox, which claims to be "news," isn't anything close to it.)

If you want to see how a paper works, watch "All the President's Men" for the editorial meetings hashing out the way the editors thought the story should be framed. That's how journalism works.