Thread by @normative

Y’know, I don’t want to defend everything anyone wrote about the Steele Dossier, but… the original reporting on it was, in fact, quite accurate. As was most of the *reporting* (as opposed to punditry) I recall seeing on it. buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…

https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1467946695254228993

Here’s the original Buzzfeed article. They say it’s “unverified, and potentially unverifiable” and note that it “contains clear errors.” They make clear they regard it as newsworthy mainly because it’s “circulating at the highest levels of government.” buzzfeednews.com/article/kenben…

There’s certainly a decent case against publishing it—I probably wouldn’t have, at least at that time—but at some point the fact that the FBI is investigating it makes it newsworthy independent of the credibility of the underlying claims.

A lot of the rhetoric around the Dossier seems to involve a dishonest shell game: Plenty of pundits and partisans got over their skis on it, so now it’s supposed to be clear that “the media” embarrassed itself. But the straight news coverage was mostly accurate.

This WSJ piece rather conspicuously doesn’t link any of the WaPo or NYT articles that supposedly botched the story so badly, or quote some egregiously false claims from the reporting. You’re just presumed to KNOW they got it all wrong. wsj.com/articles/the-m…

There WERE genuine reporting errors: McClatchy wrongly reported Mueller had evidence supporting Michael Cohen’s supposed trip to Prague. WaPo misidentified a possible source for the dossier… washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…

The really embarrassing examples of misplaced credulity, however, are mostly stuff pundits said on cable shows. Glossing that as “the media” is a way of pretending hard news print reporters & TV opinionistas were all saying the same thing, all equally irresponsible.