I was only looking at credibility.
It is easy to dismiss a report that only one outlet is offering. It is harder to dismiss it if it is being reported widespread.
CNN has already been falsely accused of being a fake news organization by this so-called administration. I don’t want this swept under the rug because they are the only report on this. It is too big to be ignored because one doesn’t agree with the politics.
Trump doesn’t give much of a damn what the NYTimes says post election: they backed him when it counted.
Granted there is nothing careless about Trump Inc’s communications with the Russians.
Archangel
You and your Times-hating allies on this board are becoming increasingly hysterical in both senses of the word. The Times has never backed Trump’s candidacy or his policies before or after the election. If they said during a particular news cycle that they found insufficient evidence to draw a particular conclusion implicating him, that hardly constitutes backing him or supporting him. It simply means that at a certain moment in time they believed more evidence was needed to draw that conclusion. Investigations of a matter by various news organizations do not proceed in lockstep,nor should they. The first organization to jump to a particular conclusion, even one that we may find most satisfying, is not necessarily the most accurate or the one most likely to stand up to further scrutiny. That should be obvious, but here it seems that often it’s not.
From my perspective, this is simply not true. If you have real evidence supporting your position instead of simply alleging it, I suggest you supply it. As for the Times playing Trump’s visit to Mexico as a “statesmanlike pivot,” I’m sure you’re ignoring the usual qualifications that inevitably accompany such broad statements. I’m sorry that the Times didn’t change its earlier story quickly enough to suit you once it became apparent that there would be no such pivot. Such a brief delay is not necessarily a sign of malice nor an attempt to dupe the papers using the Times services into relying on the earlier story. Even Freud admitted that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!
Yeah, that one belongs near the top of the list. Thanks for the reminder.
First, I have a question for you: Do you have any evidence of tough Trump coverage by the Times from before, say, Labor Day? Any actual enterprise coverage, where reporters dig for information, rather than just reporting on whatever juicy thing Trump said or tweeted that day? You’ve offered no evidence in any of your comments.
Second, I suggest you reread my comment you responded to; it contains some of the particulars you say I haven’t supplied. (Trumpian projection on your part.)
And @timbo pointed out this additional major failure by the Times on Russian hacking, which ran shortly before the election. We learned soon after the election that it was completely wrong.
Finally, below are links to two critical columns from the NYT public editor. Keep in mind, these columns are from Liz Spayd, who usually bends over backwards to avoid finding fault with the Times, unlike her predecessor, Margaret Sullivan. When even Liz Spayd thinks you messed up, you probably messed up.
The first is about the paper’s failure to cover Trump’s Russia connections aggressively enough. It’s from before the election. Even without knowing everything we know today, it was clear at the time that the Times had missed the boat.
The second, on the Mexico-Phoenix debacle that you dismiss, notes that other news organizations managed to keep up with the day’s news. But the Times failed to do so, even though the Mexico visit and the Phoenix rally were both scheduled events and not out-of-the-blue breaking news.
And as I said in my prior comment, the impact of what the Times does extends beyond setting an agenda that other news orgs tend to follow. Many metro and smaller papers around the country pay to run actual Times articles, like a higher-class wire service. So a lot of people around the country woke up to the Times’ slobbering coverage of the Mexico City visit in their local papers the next morning.
I agree in principle with your statements, and also that Russian cooperation is not a new thing for Trump in his life. I also agree that this is why the leaks are coming, it’s the only way the IC can fight back. My point is that nothing is on the record, and all the leaks are limited. He’s so odious anything is believable, but what has been confirmed thus far is worse than golden showers.
The continuous false denigration of Clinton up to and including accusations of breaking non-existent laws was of great help to Trump. Given the many egregious flaws transgressing journalistic norms, most of us fear that it was deliberated.
Why shouldn’t an institution that helped promulgate the WMD fantasy remain suspect? We’d be foolish not to.