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Why is the Leading Media Watchdog Legitimizing Trump-Russia Disinformation? [1]
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Date: 2023-02-14
Now allied to our leading media criticism journal
That 90s Show
Hey! Remember Jeff Gerth? He’s was a leading character from the OG That ‘90s Show — the one where the media pushed the nothing Whitewater non-scandal so far and for so long that Ken Starr lucked into Lewinsky. Gerth’s shoddy reporting in the Times started it. Then in 1999 Gerth followed up that disaster with bad reporting that led to the indictment and subsequent dismissal of espionage charges against scientist Wen Ho Lee. As Joe Conason points out, Gerth’s reporting was heavily influenced by partisan figures on the Right with agendas that obscured the truth. Gerth’s reporting was heavily criticized by among others, including the Columbia Journalism Review (“CJR”), the media industry’s leading press criticism publication, published by the Columbia Journalism School.
The CJR Article
And now, CJR has published a 23,000 word article by the very same Jeff Gerth, an article that serves to simply “legitimize Trump & Russian disinformation.” Actual press critics are furious, like Jay Rosen, who is astonished CJR would publish something arguing “Trump came in good faith; only bad journalism made him turn on the press.” Dan Kennedy shows the CJR piece is all trees and no forest. David Corn points out how Gerth deceptively reached his conclusion by narrowing the question to “press coverage of the Steele memos and the question of whether Trump directly schemed with Moscow’s covert operators.”
The definitive takedown of the Gerth article is by Marcy Wheeler, @emptywheel, whose four part response is linked in the thread below. She and the other critics show the Gerth article ignores or minimizes the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Report, which, writes Corn, details the Russian attack, notes Trump tried to deny this assault while seeking to benefit from it, and reveals how Manafort was interacting—colluding? collaborating?—with that Russian intelligence officer. Not surprisingly, the Gerth article is hugely popular with Russian apologists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taiibi.
A Media Watchdog Allying with the Enemies of Truth
We are in an information war right now, in which huge amounts of money and effort are being marshaled in support of a torrent of lies, where deceit colored by racism and hatred is funneled 24/7 through Fox, hate radio and social media. Thirty percent of the population believes lies about everything — the Chinese balloon, Hunter Biden’s laptop. the attack on Paul Pelosi and on and on. There is no question Russia interfered on behalf of Trump in the 2016 election and his campaign was actively involved. But with a pliant non-right wing media, the lies seep into the remaining 70%.
Yet the leading media watchdog is aiding and abetting a grossly flawed denial of that.
As one example, Gerth actually defends Barr’s request to dismiss charges against Michael Flynn, even though he pled guilty to them. Gerth claims a “Justice Department review found exculpatory evidence” as the basis for the dismissal request. As Marcy Wheeler shows, this is a straight-up lie. The lies Flynn told helped stymie investigation. To lie about this to support a false Trump-Russia narrative sinks to “man who killed parents pleading for mercy as an orphan” level. In a startlingly cynical (even for him) 2020 comment, William Barr said Asked how history would judge his move, Barr answered, “Well, history is written by the winner.” Well, Barr lost, but his allies are still trying to write the history. and they are being assisted by a pillar of the so-called liberal media.
CJR’s failure to respond
CJR’s Editor has been largely unresponsive to requests for a response from Marcy Wheeler and others. Jelani Cobb, the Dean of Columbia Journalism School, is a former New Yorker writer and hardly a conservative. He has also failed to respond. Why would they do this? Who knows? One clue is a partnership between CJR and The Nation, a progressive magazine, but also loathe to criticize Russia. The CJR also killed a story about The Nation’s bias toward Russia and help in spreading false theories about Russian influence in 2016.
All I know is we are dealing on every level with threats to democracy, and misinformation is high among them. Mainstreaming one of the foundational myths of the Trump post-Presidency is shocking and should be contested by anyone with a voice.
Here is the thread with Marcy’s series about the Gerth article:
x Part Two showed that he ignored the vast majority of the @nytimes and @washingtonpost reporting he claimed to be commenting on.
https://t.co/qQV9A8p0Do — emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 13, 2023
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