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So, in dumping on this story in the @dcexaminer about how the media hurt the country by reporting on the Russia investigation, @TPCarney notes that I implied the story faults *the investigation*. It doesn't. It just implies that the whole Russia story was bullshit. /1
Written *before* the release of the Mueller Report - because hey, why not - it's a litany of things "the media" got wrong, conflating pundits with reporters at will. (CNN is Ralph Peters!) It's a litany of places where people like Brian Ross got things wrong. They did. /2
But the whole piece is about how the media "hype[d] a false story for two years." Get that? Two years. From the start. The "collusion bust" is why people don't trust "institutions" like the media. Not "hey, here's some places pundits and reporters went too far," but "a fable." /3
And reporting on this fable was "a collusion narrative that has done untold harm to Congress, the intelligence community, and the press." Right there on page one. Not: "Wow, this story was mostly right," but "damn you media jackals to hell for not getting it right." /4
Because the media *were* mostly right. The "narrative" turned out to be, you know, true. Yes, was Rachel Maddow way over skis? Yes. I said so, many times, and took endless crap from liberals and Rachel loyalists. But the story of Trump and Russia is a thing that happened. /5
Should I have tweeted that the story said the "investigation" was bad for America? No, @TPCarney, I will so stipulate. But the story makes clear that *but for the media* this whole thing wouldn't have been a thing. It's just a "fable." A "narrative," a "theory." /6
The fact that reporters got any of this story at all, in the face of endless lying, gaslighting, and *conservative* pundits who went from "Nothing happened, ever" to "well this here specific thing is a not a chargeable crime" is amazing in itself. But they did. /7
The Adams piece is meant to lead us to the conclusion that the Russia story, in every way, is crap; that journalists knew it was crap; that liberal journalists were behaving "atrociously" to further "a tendentious obsession." This is weaponized bullshit in itself. /8
And especially gutsy for a piece that deplores the "bravado of media executives" to come out with that piece ahead of the actual report. Because, hey, only journalists "obsessed" with a story would do that. /9
Fortunately, despite the bias and, dare we say, "tendentious" nature of the piece, it was all balanced out on page 57 by a nice piece from Devin Nunes that someone thought was a good idea, titled: "The Russian collusion hoax meets unbelievable end." /10
Forgive me if I drew too much connection between the two. Correction noted. /11x
