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

[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.


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