White House: Russian efforts 'not about supporting one candidate over the other'

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill




BY AVERY ANAPOL - 02/16/18 09:15 PM EST

Link to tweet

White House spokesman Raj Shah on Friday claimed that new indictments in the Russia probe prove that the Russians did not try to promote one presidential candidate over another in 2016, despite the special counsel charging the opposite.

The indictment, which targets 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups, details Russians' alleged attempts to promote President Trump’s campaign while seeking to undermine his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

“All of these efforts were about sowing confusion in the electoral process and undermining the next president, not about supporting one candidate over the other,” Shah asserted during an appearance on Fox News.

The fourth page of the 37-page indictment accuses the charged individuals and organizations of carrying out efforts to promote Trump’s campaign and “disparage” Clinton.



Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374339-white-house-russian-efforts-not-about-supporting-one-candidate-over

[sharedvalues]

1. Why are you repeating flat lies? You're helping the GOP spread their lies.

I know - the Hill told the lie, not you. But by posting this headline, you are spreading propaganda. And hurting America.

On DU and in the media, we should be reporting facts. Not repeating lies.

[forgotmylogin]

2. Know thine enemy. (n/t)

[sharedvalues]

4. Yes, but follow Lakoff: Truth FIRST. Then note lie. Then return to truth.

Better headline:

"Indictment says Russians aimed to help Trump; White House issues denial."


First at fault is the Hill, but other journalists are helping the White House hurt America by repeating these lies.

[forgotmylogin]

6. We've got all kinds of truth here.

How is one supposed to gauge this sort of thing exactly?

[sharedvalues]

8. Here's a good place to start reading about that.

Link to tweet

Also, journalists know what is a lie, and can say so. As Woodward said, journalism's obligation is to get to the 'best possible version of the truth'.

[forgotmylogin]

9. Okay....so...don't quote Trump?

That sounds...counterproductive to refuting lies that appear in the media.

[sharedvalues]

12. YES! Don't quote him, it helps him. That's what he WANTS!

If you're going to quote him, explain the truth FIRST.

[Igel]

16. I like the intelligence assessment.

1. Russians first aimed at sowing discord and discontent.

2. Russians secondly aimed at hurting HRC.

3. As a result of #2, Russians eventually supported X, where X wound up being Trump.


Later, the reports (non-US-intelligence) was that (4) in furtherance of #1, they supported anti-Trump actions.

We ignore 1 and figure that 2 results from 3. And we deign never to acknowledge 4. We're fixated in 2/16, as though all time is located then.

In complex patterns, numerous simple patterns can be perceived. I'll often leave it to the professionals to spot the patterns--they tend to have more information than me, even though I read DU and have slept in a Holiday Inn. Esp. since in this case it places the emphasis on what I think Russian goals should reasonably be if I were Russian and nurtured the grievances that Russian Marxo-nationalists otherwise nurture. Trump? Picayune goal. Short-term goal that only short-term thinkers could think worth focusing on. Yes, I think he's just that unimportant in the middle-term. Longer-term goal: Demoting the US to chomeur status, crucial. (Oops. That last bit's a bit arcane, but that's how I view it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%B4meur.)

[DonViejo]

7. Wow. I'm posting the news; if you don't like it, don't read it. I never see you complaining

when someone pops up reporting the latest Sham Hannity fallacy...that they saw while watching his program and increasing his viewership.

On edit:

If you bother to read the fourth paragraph of the OP, you'll see The Hill rebuts the WH line. I know! Details! Details!

[sharedvalues]

10. Sorry to say - journalists who repeat lies are complicit.

I certainly do call out the lies of Fox and Limbaugh -- very frequently.

If someone repeats a lie, from the President, the White House, Fox, Limbaugh, whereever: if I see it I call it out.

We've talked about this before, and I've sent you Jay Rosen's excellent expositions on why media repeating lies is destroying America. You have rejected them.

If you answer this, I can provide some more precise arguments:
Where did you get the idea that repeating lies is a form of journalism? J-school? Editors? (If j-school, you should respect Rosen and CJR.)

[DonViejo]

14. Please put me on ignore, relieve me of having to endure your self-righteousness. eom

[sharedvalues]

21. I'm really earnest. This is perhaps the most important issue facing America.

Honestly, the GOP exploiting the media is tearing our country apart.

They have figured out how to seed their propaganda into our mainstream media.

It is hurting the country. And it makes me sad and upset. I wish you'd be open to discussing more. I'm only saying this because I think it's vitally important for the country.

[DonViejo]

22. I'm also really earnest, PUT ME ON IGNORE eom

[sharedvalues]

25. I wish we could have a discussion about it. I'm ready anytime.

thanks and have a great night and weekend!

[sharedvalues]

11. And I know it's really the Hill's fault. But we shouldn't help them.

[Roy Rolling]

31. It's simple:

Late-Breaking News requires a headline. Complaining about the requirement is different than faulting the sharing of the story.

I know that was not your intention, but in subtle matters such as this, properly exhibiting our outrage is an important aspect.

[sharedvalues]

13. OK, I do have a great article to share: Josh Marshall on Big Lie Politics and media failing

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gop-and-big-lie-politics

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.

The US media needs to get organized and figure out how to stop being exploited by the right. Or our democracy is at risk.

[sharedvalues]

17. You're making my point!

If you bother to read the fourth paragraph of the OP, you'll see The Hill rebuts the WH line. I know! Details! Details!

So the Hill article is:

Misleading Headline, repeating White house lie unchallenged

Paragraph
Paragraph
Paragraph
Paragraph that rebuts the lie.

That's exactly WRONG. Many people don't read beyond the headline. The correct form for modern US journalism (when the GOP is trying to exploit journalism by lying) is:

Headline that tells the truth

Paragraph on truth
Paragraph
Paragraph
Paragraph that notes the lie.

[DonViejo]

19. Try a new experience, follow the link to the article and read the entire article...

assuming, of course, you can take time away from lecturing.

[sharedvalues]

23. I just want to help us all resist GOP propaganda, which is harming our democracy

I'd be happy to have an in-depth discussion with you.

I think headlines are vitally important, because fewer people read the whole article than read the headline. And I think the right knows this - their goal is to get their quotes into headlines, and the rest of the article be damned. So a bad headline affects many people, even if the article is great.

[Honeycombe8]

15. It's commonly posted here what the "lie" on the opposition is, esp Faux News.

Why select this particular post?

I knew immediately when I saw the headline what it was. It says "White House says."

[sharedvalues]

18. I think these articles cover it well - Truth first, then note lie.

Lakoff: Truth first. https://www.marketplace.org/2017/04/18/economy/make-me-smart-kai-and-molly/transcript-blog-trump-george-lakoff

Josh Marshall: Media incapable of dealing with GOP lies, which leads to a RIGHT-WING biased media. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gop-and-big-lie-politics

Brian Beutler: GOP lies are designed to kill journalism, and journalists are helping them. https://crooked.com/article/mainstream-media-liberal-embrace/

[Honeycombe8]

20. You are free to post your own posts, you know. I don't need anything filtered...

through certain sites or organizations.

I can accept legitimate news sources like The Hill, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT. They merely report the news. They regularly report the White House response. That's NORMAL REPORTING. Which is done here quite a lot. There are other posts that post articles that complain about the WH response, which is also legitimate. Nothing wrong with either.

[sharedvalues]

24. It is normal - that's the problem.

'Bothsidesist' journalism IS normal, and that's what's harming America.

When you have a media organization that repeats what people say, the way to attack that media organization is to say things that are lies. You get your lies in the headlines that way, and that helps spread your lies.

Over 30 years, a right-wing propaganda organization has sprung up that creates lies, repeats them, and aims to get them into mainstream media headlines. And succeeds.

This is the whole reason for 'but her emails' and for Benghazi. The right controls our public debate because the mainstream media repeats what people say - and the right lies. So the media repeats right wing lies.

A few news orgs are starting to figure this out and improve. The New Yorker is leading the charge, under David Remnick - a really smart guy. The Washington Post is pretty good. The Hill and NPR are at the other end of the scale.

[Honeycombe8]

27. You seem to think the OP is something other than it is. It's reporting FACTS.

Don't tell me you're against facts? I'm not.

Reporting works this way:

The WH says.....(whatever)
Adam Schiff says....(whatever)
Paul Ryan says.....(whatever)
Mueller files 13 indictments...click here to read the indictment....(whatever)

That's what journalism is.

What YOU are saying is that you don't want journalism and facts. You want ONLY partisan articles discussing things. That's not journalism. I hope we don't get to the point that journalism won't work for us, because we can't handle facts.

Partisan articles are good. But they are not journalism.

[gabeana]

32. you nailed it!

[sharedvalues]

34. But truthtelling should come first.

I think this is a good treatment of the history - how the press used to care about telling the truth, even if someone lied to them. But now for some reason they believe it's better to just repeat the lie.

This is from Jay Rosen, but he's just one example of a lot of people thinking hard about journalism these days:

http://pressthink.org/2012/01/so-whaddaya-think-should-we-put-truthtelling-back-up-there-at-number-one/

Something happened in our press over the last 40 years or so that never got acknowledged and to this day would be denied by a majority of newsroom professionals. Somewhere along the way, truthtelling was surpassed by other priorities the mainstream press felt a stronger duty to. These include such things as “maintaining objectivity,” “not imposing a judgment,” “refusing to take sides” and sticking to what I have called the View from Nowhere.

No one knows exactly how it happened, for it’s not like a policy decision came down at some point. Rather, the drift of professional practice over time was to bracket or suspend sharp questions of truth and falsehood in order to avoid charges of bias, or excessive editorializing. Journalists felt better, safer, on firmer professional ground–more like pros–when they stopped short of reporting substantially untrue statements as false. One way to describe it (and I believe this is the correct way) is that truthtelling moved down the list of newsroom priorities. Other things now ranked ahead of it.

But wait a minute: how can telling the truth ever take a back seat in the serious business of reporting the news? That’s like saying medical doctors no longer put “saving lives” or “the health of the patient” ahead of securing payment from insurance companies. It puts the lie to the entire contraption. It devastates journalism as a public service and honorable profession.

[sharedvalues]

33. It's about truth and facts - exactly. Journalists should transmit facts.

It's the exact opposite of what you state.

Journalism is about speaking the truth. Take the current Hill headline as an example. The indictment clearly says the Russians tried to help the president and hurt Hillary. The While House claims the exact opposite. Up is down, the sky is red. The Hill is distorting facts by using that headline.

Real journalism is saying what the TRUTH is. Repeating the lie is what's partisan - here it means the Hill is taking the White House's side. They have to pretend they don't know what the indictment says to use that headline with a straight face.


Somehow, in the past 40 years in America, we've come to believe that journalism involves repeating what people say, and it's somehow partisan to state the truth. I want truthful, not partisan, articles. The Hill is actually taking a right-wing partisan stance by repeating the lie, even if it's a fact that someone said it. If I went around saying someone told me the sky is red, without indicating right up front I could see it was blue, people would call me an idiot, and rightly so. This 'bothsideism' in modern journalism is a historical artifact - it wasn't true before 40 years ago - and it's not true in other countries, where the UK and German and French press is willing to call a lie a lie.

[yankeepants]

29. sharedvalues you need to chill

We are not sheep here. We are proud members of DU because we are aware of what propaganda is and how it works. That's what sets us apart from Foxnews bots. Cheers Yankeepants

[sharedvalues]

35. I know, I'll try to go easy, you're right

I only care about this so much because I think it is SO CRITICAL to our democracy. Just ask Steve Bannon - that's why he's launched his campaign on the press. It's not too much to say that the factualness of headlines at the NYT may well be the difference between returning the US to its previous place in the world and a long slow decline into autocracy and oligarchy. The mainstream press MATTERS. Truthtelling matters.


Deep breath. I'll try to chill. have a good night!

[msongs]

3. where's the LBN? nt

[Skittles]

5. LOL

[mr_lebowski]

26. LOL at Trump suddenly 'knowing' when the meddling started ... 2014!!!

Per the Faux Nooz crawl ...

I mean, it was just reported 2 days ago that he's been privately telling people he still doubts the meddling story altogether ... and he's NEVER ONCE publicly admitted that it ... you know, ever even HAPPENED ... now he's suddenly the fucking EXPERT on exactly WHEN it started, what's it's real goals were, etc.

Just hours after the indictments dropped.

LOLOLOLOL you fucking lying turd.

[dalton99a]

28. Shut The Fuck Up, Raj.

Such a damn whore

[Freethinker65]

30. When at first you don't succeed, try try again...and again ...and again

Fake news. Witch hunt. Partisan politics. Hillary. Obama. No collusion. No interference. Sore losers. Coffee boy.

[Thekaspervote]

36. Oh yes... they have that one right!!! As long as its a lying cheating repuke