Thread by @reedfrich

On the corporate press's contorted, pathological refusals to simply & directly call out politicians for "lying." My latest for @FAIRmediawatch.
fair.org/home/the-patho…

Case in point: The day of the Mueller indictments, WH @PressSec offered up the boldface lie that they nothing to do with the Trump campaign. (She also claimed they showed Russian collusion by Clinton.)

But instead of calling out Sanders' lies, MSM headlines instead pushed the same WH narrative that pro-Trump, right-wing media did.

For example, three headlines here are from the NYT, NPR, & Newsday. The other three: Breitbart, NYPost, & Fox News Insider. Which ones are which?

(Answer: left are MSM, right are RW.)
My point: if your top-level framing of indictments/guilty pleas of Trump campaign officials is effectively the same as a white nationalist site, your news org has a blind spot that accommodates/enables WH lying.

Another journalistic tic that abets political lying: passive headlines that make elected officials's false claims the object & conflicting evidence the subject (while meekly asserting the evidence).

Now compare that style of headline to the candor of this Vanity Fair one, which clearly and directly attaches agency of the lie to Trump, its author.

Historian with broad expertise in the presidency has already recognized what the mainstream press is loath to report out loud.
vox.com/platform/amp/2…

This NYT story on Trump's non-stop lying is a master-class in the MSM's pathological need to employ euphemisms to avoid that word. Let's count the ways, shall we?…
nytimes.com/2017/11/28/us/…

1. Right up in the lede. As the story even notes, Trump himself admitted it was him on the "Access Hollywood" tape, to deny that now meets any definition of lying.

2. Ah, Trump's story about the tape now isn't a bold-faced "lie," It's merely changed.

3. This is a common MSM tactic: Wordily describing the mechanics/details of the lie, without pointing out it's inherently false, bad-faith intent to deceive.

4. Guess who helps politicians "seed doubt" about verifiable facts? News orgs whose press coverage pulls its punches when the powerful obviously lie.

5., 6., & 7. A Three-fer! Fully three-quarters of this paragraph is devoted to avoiding the most blatant truth, which could be summed up on in one sentence: "Mr. Trump's recent lies continue of a lifelong record of documented lying."

8. Also found in this 'realm of manufactured facts," a tragic, timid press corps that won't tell the public when the powerful are clearly lying, to remain 'objective.'

9. Pushing conspiracy theories *can* be different than lying, but the Trump examples are all of the definitely-false-and-provably-so type, so this is just unnecessarily dense language.

10. Judgment call, because NYT looks to be paraphrasing Sen. Flake on Trump here. It's still a four-word euphemism for when one would do, however.

11. Again, the NYT is working in concert with a politician from Trump's own party to employ muddying language and avoid using the verboten word "lying," thus draining his rampant lying of its shock value.

12. Honestly, why not say "lies" here, if not just for the sake of variety? But the NYT can't, because it's an unwritten rule of the MSM now that the word is not considered 'objective.'

13. This kind of straining, tortured language isn't just bad writing, it's bad journalism, making difficult to grasp something that should—and can—be plainly, simply stated.

14. & 15. The banality of these euphemisms hides what remains a highly shocking and ominous reality—the President of the United States cannot be trusted to tell the truth about, well, anything.

16. & 17. Bookending euphemisms in a paragraph that cites evidence from Trump himself that he routinely, knowingly misinforms. Again, pre-meditated motive + falsehoods = lying.

Bonus: Giving a Trump-friendly source a quote—with no pushback—that also normalizes and spins the president's incessant, unprecedented lying.

In all, a dozen-and-a-half instances of the NYT refusing to use the most accurate, accountable language to describe actions by Trump that are clear to everyone around the world—in an article specifically focused on Trump's lying!

I'd submit this NYT article is symbolic of a broken press, one whose fealty to neutrality is being wielded like a cudgel by Trump against its broader mission to tell the truth.

Right now, the mainstream press is stuck in an 'uncanny valley' when it comes to how it covers and characterizes Trump's ongoing, Orwellian campaign of lying.

Perhaps, to regain the public's trust, the press should stop trying to mollify an inured right-wing that already dismisses it as 'fake news' and has no good-faith interest in the press holding Trump accountable.

Better to openly accept that the press, as an institution, does have a bias—for the facts/truth. And that it will loudly and unashamedly call out all those in power who try to deny and contradict it.

Adding: as @ThePlumLineGS astutely points out, Trump's non-stop lies are about asserting his power over both the press & truth itself. For the press to enable/ignore this is to be complicit in its own destruction.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-lin…

Again, this White House is not bashful about it—this is straight-up Ministry of Truth authoritarian-speak right here.

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It's not just the Trump White House, these claims by McConnell defy reality & are brazen, mendacious lies—and the press is obligated to say so.

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This claim is easily verifiable as a lie. WH Press Corps should force Sanders to try to explain exactly which of the nearly 20 accusers—some of whom worked with him or were filmed with him on The Apprentice—he says he's never met.

Oy—this WaPo headline framing is so bad. Tell the reader what is true, NOT how Trump wants you to believe the truth isn't true.
washingtonpost.com/news/post-poli…

The reported story is better, but it still refuses to say Trump is lying, and instead goes with "simply false," which waters down his clear intent to deceive the public.

My version, which I submit is more honest and accurate, of this awful WaPo headline:
"Trump lies again about the claims of sexual harassment against him"

So frustrating—NYT documents + debunks more than a thousand lies told by Trump as president. But then undermines its own fact-checking by tagging it as "opinion."
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Hmmm, feel pretty sure there's a simpler, more forthright term WaPo could've used here…
washingtonpost.com/news/post-poli…

NYT with a succinct rundown of the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Trump camp's explanation of the Stormy Daniels payoff. But why must the public still be subjected to euphemisms like "conflicting statements" when "lies" is the obvious, plain truth?
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

A simple word with four letters: L-I-E-D, but the NYTimes is pathologically incapable of using it, no matter how much evidence Trump provides.

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Latest @maggieNYT story that focuses *explicitly* on Trump's long history of promoting conspiracy theories that also quotes several sources who vouch for his willful, bad-faith deception, but that also stubbornly refuses to say Trump is 'lying':
nytimes.com/2018/05/28/us/…

Really, the NYT has made concocting euphemisms for "lying" into its own tragic art form.
Today's selected examples include:
-unconfirmed accusations
-baseless stories
-peddle suspicion as fact
-narrative of dubious accusations and dark insinuations
-seemingly far-fetched charges.

That the NYTimes pulls this can't-say-the-plain-truth-about-Trump's-lying stunt repeatedly in a story where it also runs *this quote* says a lot about the paper's own deference to the White House and institutional blind spots when covering the powerful.