Huge number of journalists with CNN, NBC, Politico, the Washington Post, etc. -- who spent all week claiming that the NY Post story was "Russian disinformation" and that its dissemination was reckless -- caused this obvious hoax to go viral by posting it without checking.
Look at how many people just these two media figures alone -- one from @MSNBC, the other from @POLITICOMag/@NYMag -- deceived and misled by recklessly spreading disinformation, a hoax, because it advanced their political agenda so they didn't bother to check first. So many others
However much contempt you have for the mainstream press right now, it's insufficient. I don't have words to adequately convey what they're doing.
One more point about what is happening in newsrooms:
If a journalist wants to publish claims that are consistent with the prevailing liberal narrative, no editing is applied. That's why they can lie & say the Burisma emails are "Russian disinformation" with no evidence. But:
If you want to pushback or question or challenge the prevailing liberal narrative in any way, editors will prevent it -- sometimes explicitly on the ground they don't want anything bad about Biden, sometimes with deceitful claims of editorial scrutiny.
It's worse than you think.
Quietly deleted without comment after she spread this to her 10 million followers without doing the slightest checking to see if it was true.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Even with Trump gone, Dems and their media outlets are going to keep centering/inflating the threat of Fascism and Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism because that's what keeps everyone in line behind the Dems: we can't fight neoliberalism or imperialism until we've vanquished fascism!
The Democratic Party and its media outlets - MSNBC, CNN, WPost/NYT - are drowning in cash. The key is to keep fear levels high: they keep everyone scared about a fascist takeover & present themselves as the only protectors. It's a model of profit and power that is not going away.
Huge swaths of US liberalism & even the left got convinced over 4 years that institutions like CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. - and neocons/right-wing operatives like David Frum, Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson - might not be perfect but they at least oppose fascism & care about democracy (lol).
Julian Assange has been imprisoned in the UK for 1 1/2 years because US Govt wants to prosecute him for publishing docs exposing war crimes. Convicted of nothing, he has no chance of freedom any time soon: even if he wins, US Govt will appeal & he'll remain imprisoned for years.
The attempted extradition of Assange -- pushed by Pompeo & Jeff Sessions -- is the greatest threat to US press freedoms in years. His -- and Snowden's -- only chance for freedom is a Trump pardon. People forget how repressive & malicious Dems are with whistleblowers. Watch, 2014:
In 2013, even the Obama DOJ -- which prosecuted more whistleblowers for espionage than all previous administrations *combined* -- concluded Assange couldn't be prosecuted without destroying press freedom. But Pompeo & Sessions don't care about that.
What happened in Brazil last year - with anonymous Bolsonaristas publishing obviously forged chats & documents in my name and other journalists and members of Congress - illustrates the point. Brazilian news outlets didn't ignore them: they debunked them.
When those forged emails & docs were published by Bolsonaro's goons about us, reporters asked us and we all said what any person in that situation would say: these chats are fake. That enabled journalists to debunk them. Why don't the Bidens say this?
But again: journalists don't have real doubts about the authenticity of these Hunter docs. That's the pretext, not the reason, for refusing to discuss them (do you believe the same media which spent 4 years on the Steele Dossier & Russiagate have rigorous verification standards?)
Journalists like this who write what they want and never attract the attention of any power center, let alone suffer threats or punishment, constantly prance around like they're endangered, all to inflate their self-importance. It's one big psycho-drama with them at the center:
Politics and journalism are so much more interesting, and the lives of online writers like this more exciting, if they concoct melodrama involving Kremlin infiltration and fairy tales about how they're being persecuted by fascism for their brave, solitary criticisms of Trump.
Anyway, thoughts and prayers and nothing but solidarity to @TomScocca for everything he's so intrepidly endured -- from state persecution to cultural ostracization -- as a result of his stalwart, courageous and dangerous @Slate mutterings that criticize the Big Orange Dictator.
Has a single person claimed, let alone proven, that a single email published by the NY Post is forged or fraudulently altered?
The only people who engaged in "disinformation" are the chirping parrots in the media & CIA who called this "Russian disinformation" with zero basis.
The biggest scandal in this whole tawdry, shameful episode isn't (yet) the misconduct or corruption exposed by the emails, but rather the way the intelligence community & journalists united to censor & just lie about these documents. And why is the @nypost account still locked?
There are newsrooms and top editors explicitly stating they do not want the Burisma emails investigated or this story reported — not because they believe the emails are fakes (nobody believes that) but because they think it’s wrong to report this on Biden given how bad Trump is.
I hope journalists realize: if Biden wins, and you report anything incriminating about his administration - even if you ask critical questions - you're going to get accused of spreading Russian disinformation and helping the Kremlin.
That's the toxic template being implemented.
When you're trying to live down that time you got exposed as a journalist who collaborates with the CIA, but then Bush/Cheney's CIA & NSA chief comes and endorses your attack on a journalist as a Kremlin asset.
This is the union between US journalism and the CIA, here: 👇