[HN Gopher] My Resignation from the Intercept
___________________________________________________________________
My Resignation from the Intercept
Author : yasp
Score : 745 points
Date : 2020-10-29 17:44 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (greenwald.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (greenwald.substack.com)
| hagmonk wrote:
| In my mind, a media organization censoring a story that could aid
| Trump just days before the election is acting for the greater
| social good. I don't feel that optimizing for Greenwald's
| personal value system _at this particular time_ would be the
| right tradeoff for America as a whole. Greenwald having the
| satisfaction of doing the right thing while the rest of us endure
| the rule of a strong man hell-bent on becoming America 's Putin
| is not a fair trade.
|
| It sucks that we don't live in a society where "The Truth" - if
| it could only be exposed to sunlight - would stand taller and
| brighter than everything else around it. If Greenwald wants to
| cosplay Walter Cronkite, and who wouldn't, he has to understand
| the impossibility of that in our current context. Everything is
| turned into spin for the disinformation machine. Everything is
| distorted, filtered, weaponized, super concentrated, and targeted
| directly to those it will anger the most. Truth has no power and
| no legitimacy in this context. Have we not learned anything from
| watching Trump these past four years?
|
| We have to solve _that_ problem before we can enjoy the benefits
| of truthful journalism. A problem for which _we_ have to take
| some responsibility, since _our_ technology is being abused to
| create this wretched hellscape.
|
| It sucks and it isn't the world in which I want to live. I have
| young children myself. They will grow up with no Walter Cronkite,
| no trusted source of information. They will grow up in a world
| where truth is disconnected from reality. It's broken, and we
| can't ignore that, no matter how much it hurts us personally.
| Nacdor wrote:
| On the one hand, this is shocking because Glenn co-founded the
| Intercept as a response to the rampant partisan censorship
| happening at other media outlets.
|
| On the other hand, I had been reading The Intercept regularly
| since at least 2016 and there was a very noticeable lack of
| "independent" journalism as the years went by. At some point this
| year I stopped visiting their website because the worthwhile
| articles were few and far between, buried in a mountain of
| partisan rubbish.
|
| If _founding your own company_ isn 't enough to avoid censorship,
| then what is? Is there any hope left for truly independent
| journalism in this country?
| ehsankia wrote:
| Who knew that even when you fund a company, if you get
| qualified people with integrity, they'll stop you from peddling
| foreign nation misinformation even if you're the boss.
| ryeights wrote:
| >foreign nation misinformation
|
| Source?
| Nacdor wrote:
| > Source?
|
| There is no source that disputes the authenticity of the
| Hunter Biden documents. On the contrary, there are many
| pieces of evidence (such as Secret Service travel logs)
| that support them.
|
| The liberal media spreads disinformation as often as it
| condemns it, this is just one example. They will happily
| bend over backwards and contort themselves into the most
| bizarre logical positions in order to do so:
| https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1320358217382268934
|
| > "We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a
| foreign intelligence operation -- even if they probably
| aren't."
| Nacdor wrote:
| You seem to have insider info that the rest of us are not
| privy to. What misinformation was he attempting to spread?
| ehsankia wrote:
| The fact that Ukraine has been trying to spread these
| emails, coincidently around the same time Giuliani happened
| to be there, which ended up getting the president
| impeached.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/time-hunter-biden-emails-
| sho...
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| In order to be misinformation it has to be false. The
| emails are inconvenient for one political party, not
| false.
| Nacdor wrote:
| Your own source contradicts you:
|
| > The two people said they could not confirm whether any
| of the material presented to them was the same as that
| which has been recently published in the U.S.
|
| Furthermore, they made no effort to determine the
| authenticity of the documents, so I find it odd that you
| assume they must be fake:
|
| > The two people who said they were approached with
| Hunter Biden's alleged emails last year did not know
| whether any of them were real
|
| So you used two anonymous sources to support your
| erroneous conclusion, yet you don't believe all of the
| sources who have publicly come forward to say the
| documents are legitimate?
|
| Very interesting.
| ismail wrote:
| The original draft has been posted. have submitted at the link
| below:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24935216
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Objective journalism is dead. Glen Greenwald is not by any
| measure a Republican or a conservative, but he is a good
| objective journalist. It's a shame that a newspaper he co-founded
| will not print one of his stories because of their non-objective
| partisanship, but unfortunately this is all too common today.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Knowing Greenwald, what he describes as "censorship" is what a
| news editor would call "fact-checking."
| Lendal wrote:
| There are more reasons to junk a story than just fact-checking.
| It could be that the story has already been covered
| sufficiently. That there is nothing new it. That it is only of
| interest to a certain group of people who just want to wallow
| in that same story every day. He hasn't actually published the
| story yet so nobody knows for sure, but if it's about Hunter
| Biden then I think it's probably in this category.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| I'm just going by Greenwald's past work where he has
| repeatedly stated things that are easily verified to be
| false.
| r721 wrote:
| Erik Wemple, Washington Post media critic:
|
| >Intercept EIC Betsy Reed sent me this statement regarding the
| departure of @ggreenwald, saying there's a "fundamental
| disagreement over the role of editors in the production of
| journalism and the nature of censorship."
|
| https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1321896097099489283
|
| UPD https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-
| resigns-...
| yasp wrote:
| Greenwald's follow up posts:
|
| Article in question https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-
| joe-and-hunter-b...
|
| Emails with editors https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-
| intercept-edito...
| lherron wrote:
| Funny that he marked the comment section subscriber-only.
| Regardless of the validity of the story, optics sure look like a
| ploy to kickstart his new SubStack with an engineered October
| surprise.
| zzleeper wrote:
| A year or so ago I was about to donate to the Interept and went
| to their website to do so. There, together with Bolsonaro
| investigations I was quite surprised that a lot of Greenwald's
| stance was quite pro Russia, anti democrats. Not sure in what
| parallel universe he lives where he thinks that one week before
| the election Trump needs his help with anti Biden op-eds. What is
| he thinking?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Greenwood has always been "pro-Russia" because of how Snowden
| was able to stay away in Russia from whatever date laid in wait
| for him in the US.
|
| People seem to forget why Greenwald and Poitras are famous in
| the first place. Why would he be for the party that tried to
| kill his source and which he had to stand up against to publish
| the stories that made him famous? Why would he be against the
| nation that shielded that source from life imprisonment (and
| possibly death)?
| subtypefiddler wrote:
| The dichotomy between Greenwald's complaints (censorship of his
| article despite contractual guarantees, Reality Winner cover-up,
| what editors forced Lee Fang to do, lack of reporting of Assange
| hearing, and "lack of editorial standards when it comes to
| viewpoints or reporting that flatter the beliefs of its liberal
| base") and the editor in chief response in the NYT [0] (he is a
| "grown person throwing a tantrum") is frightening.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/business/glenn-
| greenwald-...
| hsod wrote:
| what is frightening about it?
| burlesona wrote:
| Honest question: is it just me or is it getting harder to
| determine what is factual and what is not? It seems like the US
| has begun to splinter such that there are two different sets of
| "facts" on many issues, but of course that is not how facts work.
| Nevertheless, when doing research and investigation is it often
| hard for me to pin down the truth behind any of the "facts" that
| are thrown at me, whether that's by the partisans, by the media,
| or just by random people on HN etc.
|
| Does anyone else feel this way?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Back in the day, truth was what UPI, AP, CBS, NBC, and ABC
| agreed it was. All five outfits were in competition to break
| stories, but also all five were pretty centrist, and they had
| no effective competition. You either watched the evening news,
| or you read the paper, or both.
|
| Now the various arbiters of truth diverse very strongly from
| each other. CNN is (picking a number) maybe 20 times as far
| from Fox as NBC was from CBS.
|
| When the different sides are so far from each other, and both
| are constantly spewing how right they are, how do you tell
| what's true?
| scsilver wrote:
| If I was a foreign adversary of the US, I would be supporting
| this "balkanization" of the US
| serial_dev wrote:
| If I was part of the intelligence community, I would be
| supporting this "balkanization" of the US.
|
| I find that many in the US are quick to blame and suspect
| foreign adversaries behind everything where the intelligence
| community makes just as much sense (to me).
|
| Reminds me of Scott Adams recent Robot Reads News cartoon
| (couldn't find a link) where the gist of the joke was: "There
| is no evidence yet that Russia is behind the leaks. That is
| _so Putin_! "
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| It's becoming harder to trust information at face value.
| Everyone has an angle and everyone is using their platform to
| push their angle. But personally I don't feel I have a hard
| time determining truth to a high degree of accuracy. A well-
| honed power of Inference to the Best Explanation is a
| superpower in today's disinformation economy. Truth has a way
| of fitting together cleanly without loose ends and without
| unexplainable coincidences. Fabricated stories have rough edges
| and requires leaps of faith. These leaps are easy for true
| believers to make, which is why the media environment seems so
| splintered.
|
| Train your ability to model the world and judge whether new
| information fits with the current model or requires substantial
| revision. This is a powerful guide to whether the new
| information is true. Of course, this requires you have the
| ability to dispassionately analyze information and judge how
| well events fit together. If you're a partisan or an emotional
| thinker, IBE won't do you any good. The truth is available for
| those who are capable of dispassionate analysis. If you're not,
| then you're doomed to a steady diet of falsehoods and a
| worldview that diverges from the truth.
| pashamur wrote:
| It's not accidental, that is actually the result of a well-
| known propaganda technique known as
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| It's the echo chamber and unoriginal thought.
|
| In a free society, people are free to speak about the world and
| how they see it. This is practically the job of a journalist:
| observe, record goings-on and ask insightful questions that
| generate understanding.
|
| But now people that don't cleave to the consensus opinions of
| the crowd are essentially discarded based on the post-modern
| view of dubious "lived experience", suspect motivation, etc.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| It's certainly getting harder and I have this sinking feeling
| that's by design.
| [deleted]
| gitpusher wrote:
| So what exactly was this "Biden story" that he wanted to publish?
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The revolution devours its own children
| adfm wrote:
| I can't believe anybody is talking about plain text email without
| verified cryptographic signatures in 2020. The technology is over
| 30 years old at this point. Anybody telling you different is a
| fraud -- guaranteed.
| [deleted]
| hiisukun wrote:
| Here is a link to the article (draft) that is discussed in the
| resignation post, and posted an hour or so later:
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
|
| And here is the content of emails with the editors, discussing
| the alleged censorship:
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-edito...
| jMyles wrote:
| Reading the full article really puts me firmly on Greenwald's
| side of this thing. It's solid, restrained reporting on the
| simple facts of the matter, along with completely fair
| critiques of the way those facts have been handled by other
| media.
| fatbird wrote:
| And what about reading the email exchange with the editors
| where they provide feedback?
| captain_price7 wrote:
| Peter maas' arguments seemed quite reasonable, but then so
| did the counter arguments of Glenn. Hard to take sides.
|
| But that response from another editor Betsy was garbage-
| she threw around words like "offensive" and "unacceptable"
| and didn't even bother to explain her position.
| mikeruhl wrote:
| meanwhile, we are watching Trump's entire family profit from
| DTJ's presidency. Why doesn't Greenwald write a story about that?
| His article is basically, "well no one confirmed none of the
| deals happened! So there's still a chance!" Come on man, we're
| watching this unfold in real time in the current administration.
| Clean your own house.
| thrownaway954 wrote:
| jesus... that article sounded like a child crying cause they
| didn't get their way.
| StreamBright wrote:
| Jimmy is funny
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfn83YmKSKc&ab_channel=TheJi...
| technoplato wrote:
| Why was this removed from the front page?
|
| https://youtu.be/YCLkTYwN7VQ
|
| Edit: I'm a moron and it just dropped a bunch suddenly. Was not
| removed.
| vaccinator wrote:
| Sometimes they manually down-rank stories to take them out of
| sight, and sometimes the storry gets flagged so much. But it is
| #6 on the front page right now.
| technoplato wrote:
| So two thoughts here. Are they artificially inflated and then
| deflated to counter act "bot" behavior? OR are they
| organically inflated and then censored? I just wish I could
| be a fly on the wall and know. I just can't believe this
| would be a damning enough piece to artificially inflate
| unless there's a serious game of reverse psychology going on
| behind the scenes
| donohoe wrote:
| This tweet which includes a statement from Intercept EIC Betsy
| Reed , and it says it all:
|
| https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1321896097099489283
| supercanuck wrote:
| I feel like the response from the Intercept should be part of
| this thread:
|
| GLENN GREENWALD'S DECISION to resign from The Intercept stems
| from a fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the
| production of journalism and the nature of censorship. Glenn
| demands the absolute right to determine what he will publish. He
| believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and
| anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor. Thus, the
| preposterous charge that The Intercept's editors and reporters,
| with the lone, noble exception of Glenn Greenwald, have betrayed
| our mission to engage in fearless investigative journalism
| because we have been seduced by the lure of a Joe Biden
| presidency. A brief glance at the stories The Intercept has
| published on Biden will suffice to refute those claims.
|
| The narrative Glenn presents about his departure is teeming with
| distortions and inaccuracies -- all of them designed to make him
| appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a
| tantrum. It would take too long to point them all out here, but
| we intend to correct the record in time. For now, it is important
| to make clear that our goal in editing his work was to ensure
| that it would be accurate and fair. While he accuses us of
| political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle the
| dubious claims of a political campaign -- the Trump campaign --
| and launder them as journalism.
|
| We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald
| used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with
| him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his
| original journalistic roots, not The Intercept.
|
| The defining feature of The Intercept's work in recent years has
| been the investigative journalism that came out of painstaking
| work by our staffers in Washington, D.C., New York, and across
| the rest of the country. It is the staff of The Intercept that
| has been carrying out our investigative mission -- a mission that
| has involved a collaborative editing process.
|
| We have no doubt that Glenn will go on to launch a new media
| venture where he will face no collaboration with editors -- such
| is the era of Substack and Patreon. In that context, it makes
| good business sense for Glenn to position himself as the last
| true guardian of investigative journalism and to smear his
| longtime colleagues and friends as partisan hacks. We get it. But
| facts are facts, and The Intercept's record of fearless,
| rigorous, independent journalism speaks for itself.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
| ajarmst wrote:
| Greenwald has done important, admirable work. As has _The
| Intercept_. Unfortunately my estimation of both has
| catastrophically declined. _The Intercept_ outed an important
| source (Reality Winner) with comically incompetent OpSec, which
| is unforgivable given their niche. Greenwald was once an
| important critic from the Left of the Obama Administration---
| which got a pass on a lot of things ( <cough> drones <cough>)
| that Republicans wouldn't have. Unfortunately (and for some
| complex and sometimes understandable reasons) he moved away from
| trenchant criticism and into a sort of foaming unhinged rage at
| former members of that administration. At times, he rivals
| Infowars performances, except I don't think Glen is just playing
| a role. He's demonstrably unable to report in a professional
| manner on Biden, and non-propagandist outlets (are there any
| left?) are right to decline to publish the article---as is
| demonstrated by an even casual look at his Twitter feed when
| Obama, Clinton or Biden are mentioned. Greenwald has some
| justification for his resentment, but that doesn't make him a
| credible source.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Somewhat Off Topic: Glen just did an interview on Joe Rogan [1].
| I would suggest it may be worth watching for those interested in
| this. He discussed some of these issues.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA
| Tokkemon wrote:
| I'll pass giving that loser another view.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Erik Wemple (@ErikWemple on Twitter) was forwarded a response
| from from Intercept Editor in Chief Betsy Reed. (Source:
| https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1321896097099489283)
|
| I've copied it below to the best of my ability.
|
| ===============
|
| Glenn Greenwald's decision to resign from The Intercept stems
| from a fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the
| production of journalism and the nature of censorship. Glenn
| demands the absolute right to determine what he will publish. He
| believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and
| anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor. Thus the
| preposterous charge that The Intercept's editors and reporters,
| with the lone noble exception of Glenn Greenwald, have betrayed
| our mission to engage in fearless investigative journalism
| because we have been seduced by the lure of a Joe Biden
| presidency. A brief glance at the stories The Intercept has
| published on Joe Biden will suffice to refute those claims.
|
| The narrative he presents about his departure is teeming with
| distortions and inaccuracies - all of the mdesigned to make him
| appear a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum.
| It would take too long to point them all out here, but we intend
| to correct the record in time. For now, it is important to make
| clear that our goal in editing his work was to ensure that it
| would be accurate and fair. While he accuses us of political
| bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle a political
| campaign's - the Trump campaign's - dubious claims and launder
| them as journalism.
|
| We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald
| used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with
| him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his
| original journalistic roots, not The Intercept.
|
| The defining feature of The Intercept's work in recent years has
| been the investigative journalism that came out of painstaking
| work by our staffers in Washington D.C., New York, and across the
| rest of the country. It is the staff of The Intercept that has
| been carrying out our investigative mission - a mission that
| involved a collaborative editing process.
|
| We have no doubt that Glenn will go on to launch a new media
| venture where he will face no collaboration with editors-- such
| is the era of Substack and Patreon. In that context, it makes
| good business sense for Glenn to position himself as the last
| true guardian of investigative journalism and to smear his
| longtime colleagues and friends as partisan hacks. We get it. But
| facts are facts and The Intercept record of fearless, rigorous,
| independent journalism speaks for itself.
|
| ===============
| nindalf wrote:
| With respect to Greenwald, his view that publishing something is
| an unmitigated good and can be countered by other reporting is
| only true in theory, not in practice.
|
| Since he's talking about publishing an article about a Democratic
| presidential candidate days before an election, let's compare
| that to the last time this happened.
|
| Every media outlet starting from the NYT breathlessly repeated
| "but her emails". Some of us knew it was a non story at the time,
| but it was impossible to compete with the front page of the NYT
| and 24 hour news networks. Literally everyone was focused on the
| god damn emails, very little on the policy proposals of each
| candidate. This had an impact on the election and it's safe to
| say with hindsight, that it was a non story and shouldn't have
| been covered. Perhaps Glenn Greenwald would call not covering it
| "suppression" and "censorship" but it was also the right thing to
| do.
| adobecs3 wrote:
| Still more of a story than "Russia collusion"
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| Inb4 Greenwald takes a job with Trump Campaign as Head of PR lmao
| how incredibly transparent.
| chaganated wrote:
| yoichi shimatsu made a compelling argument that "the intercept"
| is basically a honeypot for catching usgov whistleblowers. yoichi
| is a little out there, but given the track record--snowden,
| manning, winner--perhaps he's on the genius side of the line
| instead of the insanity side on this particular issue?
| [deleted]
| olivermarks wrote:
| the biden article
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
| mudil wrote:
| A phrase that comes to mind:
|
| Make Orwell Fiction Again!
| blintz wrote:
| > I encouraged them to air their disagreements with me by writing
| their own articles that critique my perspectives and letting
| readers decide who is right, the way any confident and healthy
| media outlet would
|
| Glenn Greenwald is advocating for an abdication of basic
| journalistic practice. The role of The Intercept is not simply to
| air Glenn Greenwald's musings; it is not a blog. The entire point
| of an editorial process is to hold published materials to a high
| bar with regards to factual accuracy and quality.
|
| Responding to a disagreement about accuracy or fact-checking with
| your own editors by claiming they are 'New York-based' and 'Biden
| is their preferred candidate' is deeply unprofessional. If you
| disagree with an editor's call, have an adult conversation; if
| you cannot see eye to eye, feel free to resign. If you want, you
| can even publish a piece about the disagreement - including
| details over what was alleged as true, and what information you
| believe editors incorrectly assumed or overlooked.
|
| The one thing you should never do is resort to simply calling
| your editors 'angry libs' and claim you are being 'censored'.
| This does nothing to further a conversation, and it certainly
| disincentives anyone from honestly editing your work in the
| future.
| vinhboy wrote:
| The fact that this comment is "grayed" out makes me
| uncomfortable with where this discussion is going on HN. I
| think you made the most valid argument about this specific
| article of all the comments I have read here.
|
| > Responding to a disagreement about accuracy or fact-checking
| with your own editors by claiming they are 'New York-based' and
| 'Biden is their preferred candidate' is deeply unprofessional
|
| Even if when the actual article gets released and it's 100%
| factual and great, the "pre-article" we are reading here is
| just playing politics -- which is exactly what it claims to be
| fighting against.
| SamBam wrote:
| The Intercept responds:
| https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1321896097099489283
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I m sorry but what record of rigorous independent journalism,
| outside of glenn's contributions (including the ones about
| Brazil corruption)?
| mc32 wrote:
| I think this is the main indictment:
|
| >"Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized
| voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just
| another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan
| loyalties, a rigid and narrow range of permitted viewpoints
| (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft leftism, but
| always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party)"
|
| It was originally supposed to allow dissent from the mainstream
| but now toes a particular strain of mainstream orthodoxy.
| angry_octet wrote:
| Excellent. His more recent delusional ranting really harmed the
| reputation of The Intercept.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| These are the same garbage attacks that succeeded when the FBI
| directory came out and said "there -might- be something in the
| emails" and quietly report a bit after "yeah nothing there" but
| the electorate who are easily persuaded by headlines were firmly
| of the idea that Hillary was a "benghazi traitor". The general
| public is woefully apt to have confirmation bias or just decide
| an important thing on a whim because they saw a headline.
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| Keep in mind we're just seeing Greenwald's side of this. It sure
| sounds like he's trying to paint it a way that makes him look
| good and the Intercept look bad. Lots of claims of "censorship"
| etc.
|
| I want to hear their side of it as well. My guess is that there's
| a lot more to this story. My guess is if all his peers thought
| the claims were not solid enough to publish, there is probably a
| reason for that -- not simply a desire to "censor" someone
| they've worked with for years.
|
| Remember also that the NY Post writer behind the original "Hunter
| Biden laptop" story refused to put their name behind the article,
| probably due to the flaws in the claims and evidence presented.
| r721 wrote:
| Betsy Reed's statement:
|
| https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1321896097099489283
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
| eric_b wrote:
| She attacks him personally without ever refuting any of his
| points. She hand waves that they will correct the record "in
| time." Her response is riddled with sensationalist language.
|
| I'm gonna go with Greenwald's version of events on this one.
| This person seems fully compromised.
| untog wrote:
| I'd suggest reading the e-mail thread regarding the
| article:
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-
| edito...
|
| The editor in no way seems compromised to me. There's a lot
| of very clear, straightforward and polite feedback. I
| suspect what we're seeing in the statement is a great deal
| of frustration, which is perhaps not surprising.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Just because it's clear, straightforward, and polite
| doesn't mean that it is right or we should uncritically
| accept it.
|
| As an example, I've read many "clear, straightforward,
| and polite" illegal eviction letters sent by landlords in
| the past few months.
| untog wrote:
| Rather than deal with hypotheticals, why don't we talk
| about the actual e-mails in question?
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| If anything, Greenwald comes off as compromised by his
| own political biases. The editor says fairly gently that
| there are concerns with poorly-supported claims and
| omitting key information -- such as the media reporting
| on corruption claims and the fact that media outlets have
| not been given access to the supposed hard drive of
| emails. This results in a meandering and potentially
| misleading article that leads readers to conclusions it
| does not actually support.
|
| They suggest a way to focus it more on core points which
| are well-substantiated and get a solid article out of it.
| They're not censoring his political views, if anything
| they're encouraging him to express them in an article
| indicting liberal media for going soft on Biden. They're
| trying to get a shorter, more tightly-focused article for
| publication. Which is to say, a more solid article.
|
| That sounds like an editor doing their job -- editing is
| supposed to be the art of removing words, after all!
|
| Greenwald sends first a polite reply, then a much less
| polite one that jumps to this vitriolic claim:
|
| > I want to note clearly, because I think it's so
| important for obvious reasons, that this is the first
| time in fifteen years of my writing about politics that
| I've been censored -- i.e., told by others that I can't
| publish what I believe or think
|
| Followed by insinuations that they're suppressing the
| story due to their political biases. It sounds like
| Greenwald can't accept that there may be legitimate
| explanations for why the content isn't focused or solid
| enough.
|
| That's downright nasty and unprofessional.
| hsod wrote:
| Greenwald's version is basically attacking all his co-
| workers as democratic partisans and contains no actual
| evidence, so I'm not sure what line you're drawing here
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| My impression was the opposite. Greenwald went around
| slinging wild accusations of censorship and bias, and the
| Intercept's response was fairly measured in comparison.
| They even included an acknowledgement of respect for his
| work.
| Terretta wrote:
| First rule of journalism is to not become the story.
|
| So almost by default, Greenwald's blown that. But don't
| think it's not on purpose.
|
| Because Greenwald's "version" of events is just that, a
| skillfully selected version, riddled with deliberate
| selective omissions of facts and context.
|
| Seems unlikely he's unaware of these facts. Mostly he only
| omits them, though in one case he says there's no evidence
| of something when there is substantiated hard evidence of
| it.
|
| At the end of the day, the laptop story is a delivery
| vehicle to spotlight dubious evidence of a few different
| things, most (not all) already looked into by adversarial
| investigations yet found without merit.
|
| Greenwald even mentions that a couple times mid-article,
| which would mean whether true, or planted with stolen
| content, the laptop is a non-story as far as the
| candidate's fitness is concerned.
|
| Still, Greenwald proceeds as though choosing to not play
| into a partisan-placed non-story is the end of journalism
| ...
|
| PS. Please subscribe to his newsletter.
|
| - - -
|
| _Footnote: "Non-story" in the sense that the content is
| weak, pointing at situations mostly already settled by
| adversarial investigations in Biden's favor, or that seem
| quaint by comparison with trading on the Trump name by
| Trump kids also paid by the White House or campaigning for
| Trump today. The dramatic reveal and reek of scandal
| distracts from the "literally not new news" parts, dresses
| those up with some new info -- already debunked, no there
| there, as Greenwald acknowledges -- in a swirl of
| controversy perfectly packaged as red meat:
| https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/the-crazy-
| last-..._
|
| _All that said, I 'm annoyed I can't find either on left
| or right or center, any "here's everything we know" take on
| the complex backstory and present situation, well
| contextualized and contrasted. That's needed to help people
| make sense of this without researching dozens of pieces
| from now going back several years._
|
| _Per NYT, in his Substack post, Greenwald wrote he 'd been
| considering starting his own media outlet before making the
| decision to leave The Intercept. He said he had talked with
| "journalists who kind of are politically homeless, who are
| neither fully entrenched in the liberal left media or the
| Democratic Party, nor the pro-Trump right."_
|
| _So why didn 't Greenwald write that balanced piece?
| Perhaps because if he had, you wouldn't be reading this._
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| There we go. A journalist is supposed to follow the facts
| wherever they go -- even if it reveals something they're
| uncomfortable with. They build a reputation by researching
| and checking their stories, and not running stories unless
| the facts hold up.
|
| Greenwald made his name with quality investigative
| journalism. It sounds like he has fallen from this standard
| by trying to run a story with dubious political talking
| points and pass it off as factual news. We have a term for
| people like this: tabloid writers or opinion commentators.
| This is a sad decline to see.
|
| He's free to do whatever he likes in his own name -- and it
| sounds like this is the path he has chosen.
| technoplato wrote:
| This is definitely true, but why is this post removed from the
| front page? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24934192
|
| Edit: I'm a moron and it just dropped a bunch suddenly. Was not
| removed.
| uncoder0 wrote:
| From what I have observed anything even tangentially related
| the Biden stories gets to the front page quickly and
| sometimes it sticks there for a few minutes then gets flagged
| enough to start dropping down the ranks. This one lasted a
| lot longer on the front page than most have.
| technoplato wrote:
| So two thoughts here.
|
| Are they artificially inflated and then deflated to counter
| act "bot" behavior?
|
| OR
|
| are they organically inflated and then censored?
|
| I just wish I could be a fly on the wall and know. I just
| can't believe this would be a damning enough piece to
| artificially inflate unless there's a serious game of
| reverse psychology going on behind the scenes
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| I'd bet on bot-busting or possibly something that de-
| ranks stuff with political keywords close to the election
| to avoid spam and noise. Human moderation and content
| curation is a lot rarer than people think online.
| Primarily because it takes a lot of labor and and
| response times tend to be slow compared to how fast
| things go viral.
| theknocker wrote:
| "It sure sounds like he's trying to paint it a way that makes
| him look good and the Intercept look bad."
|
| omg you caught him!
| nickysielicki wrote:
| > not simply a desire to "censor" someone they've worked with
| for years.
|
| This reads as though you're implying The Intercept existed
| independently of Greenwald. They didn't, _he co-founded The
| Intercept_. He ought to (and I imagine, he does) have seniority
| on any editor.
|
| I think it speaks volumes about him as a journalist and his
| journalistic integrity that he setup The Intercept as an outlet
| where he and his co-founders don't rule with iron fists. His
| submissions aren't treated specially. It's not his mouthpiece.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| So your argument is that Greenwald's latest submission should
| be treated specially because he founded The Intercept as a
| media outlet where his submissions aren't treated specially?
| nickysielicki wrote:
| No, my argument is that he had the choice to override his
| editors, and that his choice to instead resign instead of
| corrupting the editorial process is noble.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > He ought to (and I imagine, he does) have seniority on any
| editor.
|
| He may or may not have some contractual guarantee of
| independence, but his own statement of the situation
| indicates that he and his cofounders _deliberately chose_ not
| to have the authority and responsibility that goes with
| running the show but to leave that to others so that they
| could keep being reporters.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| That's an incredibly low bar for praise.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Only if you choose to be blind to the relationship between
| most "journalism" outlets, their owners, and the types of
| stories they publish.
|
| If you don't think Bezos influences what WaPo writes, or
| that Murdoch influences what Fox writes, indirectly or
| directly, you're not looking hard enough.
| mcphage wrote:
| > He ought to (and I imagine, he does) have seniority on any
| editor.
|
| > His submissions aren't treated specially. It's not his
| mouthpiece.
|
| These two statements are contradictory.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| No, they are not.
|
| I am saying that while he is in a superior position at an
| organizational level, and thus has the authority to seize
| any responsibility he would like, he is noble for
| respecting the responsibilities he has delegated to his
| editors and not doing so.
| mcphage wrote:
| > he is noble for respecting the responsibilities he has
| delegated to his editors and not doing so.
|
| He quit rather than allow them to perform those
| responsibilities. That's not respect.
| joobus wrote:
| And HN just removed this from appearing on the front page...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| On first glance Intercept's editorial staff could be trying to
| avoid becoming like Wikileaks during the 2016 election. That is,
| going from a broadly anti-surveillance state, "information wants
| to be free" publication to one that unintentionally gets involved
| in partisan electioneering.
| hluska wrote:
| Honestly HN, what in the fuck?? The comments here have run the
| gamut from conspiracy to arguing there's a purge coming against
| the media.
|
| If this is the state of 'hacking', I'm cancelling my internet
| access.
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| If the entire issue boils down to the fact that left-leaning
| media outlets have finally dropped-down to the same dishonerable
| level as the right-leaning media outlets, and stooped to
| supressing anything that doesn't jibe with the world
| view/propaganda that they respectively push, then what's the
| problem -- seems like the playing field just got a little more
| even for everyone.
| mundo wrote:
| It seems impossible to hold a strong opinion on this without
| reading the article, and in particular, seeing how it is sourced.
|
| The elephant in the room (which Greenwald barely acknowledges in
| this essay) is that many mainstream news organizations have
| concluded that the evidence for this story was too weak to
| publish, and some believe it was fabricated by Russian
| intelligence. If Greenwald has evidence to the contrary, great,
| the world wants to see it, and (claims of "censorship"
| notwithstanding) he will have no trouble getting the word out. If
| all he has is salacious hearsay, it's hard to fault his former
| editors.
| parliament32 wrote:
| Does this explain why the tried to stop him from publishing
| elsewhere? Relevant section:
|
| >Worse, The Intercept editors in New York, not content to
| censor publication of my article at the Intercept, are also
| demanding that I not exercise my separate contractual right
| with FLM regarding articles I have written but which FLM does
| not want to publish itself. Under my contract, I have the right
| to publish any articles FLM rejects with another publication.
| But Intercept editors in New York are demanding I not only
| accept their censorship of my article at The Intercept, but
| also refrain from publishing it with any other journalistic
| outlet, and are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats
| to coerce me not to do so (proclaiming it would be
| "detrimental" to The Intercept if I published it elsewhere).
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| It is undeniably not fabricated Russian intelligence. We have:
|
| - e-mails which have been confirmed by the others on the
| e-mails
|
| - videos of hunter biden engaging in sexual activity while
| doing hard drugs
|
| - text messages between hunter and various family and
| associates
|
| - audio tapes of Hunter Biden's voice talking about his Chinese
| business partner disappearing
|
| - financial documents of the agreement between various parties
| (Hunter Biden, Bobulinski, and others)
|
| It is so obviously not "fabricated by Russian intelligence". By
| the way, the original claims of Trump being compromised by
| Russia have been proven absolutely false - something Greenwald
| himself has written about. Greenwald is incredibly critical of
| the democrat establishment for the entire Russia Hoax - and it
| is a hoax - and he is equally critical of their coverage of the
| laptop story which is at this point undeniable.
| meundies9 wrote:
| Jeez you are so dumb
| mundo wrote:
| Oooh! What kind of sex? Which drugs? ...yes, that would be
| the salacious hearsay I was referring to. If there's evidence
| that Joe Biden did something corrupt, I'd like to see it, but
| without the rest of the chaff.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| what do you mean by hearsay? There are videos and pictures
| of him doing this stuff: sex with what looks like
| prostitutes and hard drugs (you can find them too on the
| internet). Those don't make the emails real, and it might
| still be a disinfo attempt, but the sex and drugs part is
| real for sure. This should warrant some reporting on it's
| own.
| uncoder0 wrote:
| >The elephant in the room (which Greenwald barely acknowledges
| in this essay) is that many mainstream news organizations have
| concluded that the evidence for this story was too weak to
| publish, and some believe it was fabricated by Russian
| intelligence.
|
| Senate Homeland Security committee and DNI director both said
| that this was not an issue of foreign disinfo.
|
| In addition there is an interview from one of the co-
| conspirators that's 45 minutes long and he's provided documents
| that could be easily verified if the journalists did the leg
| work and asked the people who received or sent those emails if
| they were legitimate.
| ciarannolan wrote:
| > Senate Homeland Security committee and DNI director [...]
|
| Both of these are partisan, unreliable sources. The DNI used
| to be a nonpartisan that you could at least trust somewhat.
| Not anymore.
| insickness wrote:
| The burden of proof is on you to prove that it is Russian
| disinfo, not to prove that it is not. No one has any proof
| that it is. And Greenwald lays out plenty of reasons in his
| article why the documents are likely real.
| colordrops wrote:
| OK, but doesn't there have to be at least a _shred_ of
| evidence from _any_ source, partisan or not?
| [deleted]
| lainga wrote:
| Greenwald co-founded it; how did it get out of his control and
| lead to this situation?
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I doubt that it did get out of his control. He probably has the
| authority to override his editor and publish it under The
| Intercept regardless of their comments, but he's choosing to
| respect the editorial process and protect the institution by
| not crossing that red line.
| lwigo wrote:
| Happens regularly. Another example is what happened to Chris
| Ott and some others at Pitchfork.
| trothamel wrote:
| It reminds me of what happened with Steve Wozniak.
| secondcoming wrote:
| He was maybe more interested in being a journalist than running
| a business.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| It happens all the time, more often than you may think. More
| often than not.
| gkoberger wrote:
| Greenwald has really fascinated me the past decade. He was on
| track to being one of the most prolific reporters on the planet,
| and he has gone really down this weird victimhood "censorship"
| path.
|
| Sometimes it's legitimate censorship. Other times, your editor is
| just insisting you don't spread misinformation.
| Nacdor wrote:
| Do you have anything to support this accusation?
|
| I've been watching him closely for several years and it seems
| the mortal sin he committed was his failure to join the
| Russiagate bandwagon. In the end that was clearly the correct
| choice, but the liberal media no longer tolerates anyone who
| has the audacity to undermine their chosen narrative.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to say it was the correct choice. It
| was a choice, and one he was allowed to make, but it was one
| of many options.
|
| You say "the liberal media no longer tolerates anyone who has
| the audacity to undermine their chosen narrative". Isn't that
| what I'm talking about? He founded the org. Do you think "the
| liberal media" got together and decided to censor him? Or do
| you think people just weren't buying what he was selling? I
| don't get how you can accuse the liberal media of anything in
| this situation... it's not like he works for MSNBC or CNN.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Why was it not the correct choice? I may be misinformed but
| I thought all the hullabaloo about Russiagate ended up
| amounting to absolutely nothing and yet it was presented to
| the public like a scandal that would take down the Trump
| regime.
|
| I had family members over for the holidays bet actual money
| that Trump would be successfully impeached because of
| Russiagate, so when people are so out of line with reality
| based on something they read in the mainstream news, isn't
| that a fault of the news? Wouldn't it have been right to
| not go there with the rest of the news outlets?
| Nacdor wrote:
| > I don't think it's fair to say it was the correct choice.
|
| It's absolutely fair and the Mueller Report proved
| Greenwald was right all along:
| https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-
| not-m...
|
| > it's not like he works for MSNBC or CNN.
|
| There doesn't need to be some grand conspiracy among
| liberal journalists in order for them to engage in the
| partisan censorship he describes. It's clear that most of
| them believe supporting the "correct" candidate is far more
| important than publishing the truth.
| rat87 wrote:
| The Mueller report did no such thing.
| archagon wrote:
| > _clearly the correct choice_
|
| I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but saying something with
| confidence doesn't actually make it true.
| Nacdor wrote:
| You're right, the Mueller report is what makes it true:
| https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-
| not-m...
|
| > Mueller, in addition to concluding that evidence was
| insufficient to charge any American with crimes relating to
| Russian election interference, also stated emphatically in
| numerous instances that there was no evidence - not merely
| that there was insufficient evidence to obtain a criminal
| conviction - that key prongs of this three-year-old
| conspiracy theory actually happened. As Mueller himself put
| it: "in some instances, the report points out the absence
| of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular
| fact or event."
|
| $35 million wasted on an investigation that started with a
| FISA warrant based on a phony report (Steele Dossier)
| commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
| gkoberger wrote:
| The Steele Dossier was not commissioned by Clinton. The
| investigation was because of Carter Page, not the
| dossier. Mueller's scope of investigation was very
| narrow, was ended by Barr prematurely, and was filtered
| through Barr.
|
| Donald Trump definitely solicited Russian interference in
| the election. His family met with Russians in Trump
| Tower. Right after the meeting, Trump said to expect dirt
| on Clinton. Soon after that, he looked into a camera and
| told Putin to hack Clinton. Hours later, Clinton was
| hacked by Russians for the first time.
|
| Mueller may not have found a smoking gun from a legal
| perspective, but let's not act like this is a Democratic
| hoax. Trump was caught doing it again a few months later,
| with Ukraine, and was impeached for it.
| dkural wrote:
| My conclusion is the opposite. The Mueller report was heavily
| redacted, and misrepresented by AG Barr - precisely because
| it is so damning. Trump got impeached by congress over the
| Ukraine scandal later on, again enlisting foreign help. Trump
| asked a foreign power to help him against a political
| opponent - the Ukraine facts are not in dispute. Trump's
| campaign took multiple meetings with Russians bearing emails,
| and multiple members of his campaign are now in jail. These
| two facts are also not in dispute.
| Nacdor wrote:
| > The Mueller report was heavily redacted
|
| So your first argument is essentially "There's proof in the
| report, we just can't see it"?
|
| > multiple members of his campaign are now in jail.
|
| Don't you think you should mention the fact that they went
| to jail for reasons that have nothing to do with Russian
| collusion?
| phailhaus wrote:
| Er, Mueller straight up said "if we could exonerate the
| President for obstruction of justice, we would. But we
| can't." So Mueller has admitted that Trump obstructed his
| investigation, and several members in Trump's circle have
| gone to jail for _lying to the FBI_.
|
| Not to mention the fact that Mueller's investigation
| clearly found that Trump's campaign was in contact with
| Russian agents, knew they favored Trump's campaign, and
| "welcomed" their help (i.e., foreign interference). This
| is what the public understands as "collusion". However,
| "collusion" is not a legal term, "conspiracy" is and has
| a higher bar of proof. So yes, Trump colluded with
| Russia, we just couldn't prove that they explicitly
| conspired since Trump's circle lied for him.
| Nacdor wrote:
| You may find this shocking, but the Mueller report
| supports none of the substantive claims about Trump's
| campaign conspiring with Russians and actually
| contradicts many of them:
| https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-
| not-m...
|
| > Mueller, in addition to concluding that evidence was
| insufficient to charge any American with crimes relating
| to Russian election interference, also stated
| emphatically in numerous instances that there was no
| evidence - not merely that there was insufficient
| evidence to obtain a criminal conviction - that key
| prongs of this three-year-old conspiracy theory actually
| happened. As Mueller himself put it: "in some instances,
| the report points out the absence of evidence or
| conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or
| event."
| phailhaus wrote:
| "If we had confidence the President did not commit a
| crime, we would have said so."
|
| From the Executive Summary: "Although the investigation
| established that the Russian government perceived it
| would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to
| secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it
| would benefit electorally from information stolen and
| released through Russian efforts, the investigation did
| not establish that members of the Trump Campaign
| conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in
| its election interference activities."
|
| It is a lie to suggest that there was "no evidence";
| Mueller himself in a public statement literally said
| there was merely "insufficient evidence" to rise to the
| bar of conspiracy, contradicting your quote.
| Nacdor wrote:
| > "If we had confidence the President did not commit a
| crime, we would have said so."
|
| Expecting them to prove a negative in a conspiracy case
| is laughably absurd. Mueller said that there was not only
| insufficient evidence for all claims, there was zero
| evidence for many of the others.
| klyrs wrote:
| They got Don Gotti, Nixon, and countless other criminals
| on obstruction. But when the Senate and AG are fully
| loyal to the president, it suddenly isn't an indictable
| offense.
| Nacdor wrote:
| > As Mueller himself concluded, a reasonable debate can
| be conducted on whether Trump tried to obstruct his
| investigation with corrupt intent. But even on the case
| of obstruction, the central point looms large over all of
| it: there was no underlying crime established for Trump
| to cover-up.
|
| > All criminal investigations require a determination of
| a person's intent, what they are thinking and what their
| goal is. When the question is whether a President sought
| to kill an Executive Branch investigation - as Trump
| clearly wanted to do here - the determinative issue is
| whether he did so because he genuinely believed the
| investigation to be an unfair persecution and scam, or
| whether he did it to corruptly conceal evidence of
| criminality.
|
| > That Mueller could not and did not establish any
| underlying crimes strongly suggests that Trump acted with
| the former rather than the latter motive, making it
| virtually impossible to find that he criminally
| obstructed the investigation.
|
| If you were innocent of a crime would you really just sit
| back and watch the government waste $35 million
| investigating you?
| klyrs wrote:
| Who are you quoting here?
| laverya wrote:
| The Intercept article by Glenn Greenwald linked a few
| posts up the chain.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Er, Mueller straight up said "if we could exonerate the
| President for obstruction of justice, we would. But we
| can't." So Mueller has admitted that Trump obstructed his
| investigation
|
| There's a pretty big excluded middle between "We can say
| with authority that X obstructed" and "We can exonerate X
| of obstructing".
|
| (Which is not to say that details in Mueller's report
| don't tend to support the conclusion of obstruction, but
| Mueller saying that they could exonerate doesn't equate
| to saying that Trump did obstruct.)
| mullingitover wrote:
| > There's a pretty big excluded middle between "We can
| say with authority that X obstructed" and "We can
| exonerate X of obstructing".
|
| Mueller was following Justice Department policy - he
| can't even say he thought a crime was committed, despite
| mountains of evidence, because the department's policy is
| it will never prosecute the president, so they can't
| indict, and thus won't ever accuse.
|
| The president could murder someone on live television and
| department policy would be to say "Doesn't look like
| anything to me."
| phailhaus wrote:
| Mueller also said that, if the President did
| hypothetically obstruct justice, _he would not be able to
| bring charges_. That is Congress's job, he said.
|
| So, let's say Mueller found ironclad evidence of
| obstruction. What would he have done? He told us that he
| would have said exactly what he did. He does not believe
| it was in his power to bring charges, only present
| evidence. And then he said "if we could say that the
| President did not commit a crime, we would have said so."
| He's speaking like a career lawyer because he is one; he
| can't outright tell Congress to bring charges.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > The Mueller report was heavily redacted, and
| misrepresented by AG Barr
|
| Why would Mueller not say anything to that effect then?
| phailhaus wrote:
| He did: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/29/robert-
| mueller-wil...
| klyrs wrote:
| He did.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barr_letter#Reactions
| adobecs3 wrote:
| If it's againat Biden it's misinformation and if you don't
| agree you are alt right. Conpiracy theorist. Also Russia
| collusion has been proven.
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| It's scary I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
| [deleted]
| threatofrain wrote:
| Tucker Carlson just announced on Twitter that he has lost
| critical documents relating to the alleged wrongdoings of
| Hunter Biden.
|
| This was moments before Glenn Greenwald's resignation.
| Nacdor wrote:
| I'm not familiar with this conspiracy theory, can you
| explain how they're connected?
| threatofrain wrote:
| It means evidence backing up Greenwald's controversial
| position was still not checked out. The fact that the
| centerpiece of a story could be "lost" before it was even
| studied would show that Greenwald was jumping the gun.
|
| He has no access to the evidence but he is making very
| preliminary bets.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| i think what greenwald is basing is story on is all in
| the public domain. i think tucker is prone to hyping
| stuff so these documents probably don't add much.
| Nacdor wrote:
| Greenwald doesn't work for Fox and there are multiple
| copies of the documents, I don't see your point?
| threatofrain wrote:
| News agencies outside of Fox / NY Post haven't been able
| to study the evidence on a developing story, and Tucker
| Carlson has yet to reveal critical evidence.
|
| Glenn Greenwald's own editor is telling him not to make
| preliminary bets. What's so surprising here?
| benmmurphy wrote:
| he also tweeted that he has access to copies of the
| documents and UPS now have come out and said they found the
| missing documents.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/ups-said-found-lost-
| tucker-c...
|
| probably, just a weird coincidence but tucker wasn't lying
| about the situation.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| fyi, UPS found the missing mail. So we are waiting with
| bated breath for Tucker to blow our minds with the critical
| documents...
| serial_dev wrote:
| > In the end that was clearly the correct choice
|
| _You think_ (and to be honest, I agree with you) it was
| clearly the correct choice. If you ask anyone from the MSNBC
| /NYT/CNN/WaPo's audience (substantial amount of people), they
| will say it was clearly the wrong choice.
|
| Two movies on one screen.
| eindiran wrote:
| > Two movies on one screen.
|
| It reminds me of Shiri's Scissors:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-
| controversial/
| a_band wrote:
| "Misinformation" now seems to mean anything that threatens
| partisan objectives. Given Greewald's track record, I would
| give him a long leash.
| burtmacklin wrote:
| or how about stuff that just can't be, you know, VERIFIED?
| Unless you take Tucker Carlson at his word and that this
| proof did exist, he just lost it. Oops.
|
| Greenwald seems to have gone way off the deep end, what the
| heck happened???
| jorgenveisdal wrote:
| Absolutely. In lock-step with Bari Weiss
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| Exerpt:
|
| > refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical
| of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden
| jjeaff wrote:
| Was that the specific mandate? Nothing critical of Joe?
|
| Or was it that all the sections in the article critical of
| Joe were unsubstantiated.
| ehsankia wrote:
| This right here is a masterclass on how you can still
| technically be saying "facts", but by cherry picking and
| bending words make it seem very different from what it
| actually was. This kind of deception honestly makes
| everything this person says worthless to me.
| spamizbad wrote:
| This is the news site that broke the Tara Reade rape
| allegation against Biden this spring. To me, this makes me
| think there's more to this story. You have no problem
| dropping a rape allegation story days after Biden is the
| presumptive nominee (with numerous follow-up articles), but
| apparently are "censoring" critical comments about Biden from
| GG's articles?
| karlkatzke wrote:
| Keep in mind that this is Greenwald's perception.
|
| The story he's referring to has so many holes in it that it's
| more of a mesh than a woven cloth. Maybe a lace. There isn't
| much to it except criticism of Biden. Removing criticism of
| Biden just makes it threadbare and tawdry.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Perhaps his story fills in some of those holes? We'll see
| when he publishes it on his own.
| jtdev wrote:
| Please elaborate on what you perceive to be holes in this
| story.
| karlkatzke wrote:
| This is the Hunter Biden laptop story.
|
| The theory here is that Hunter Biden, for some reason,
| flew 3,000 miles away from his home to drop off some
| devices with unencrypted sensitive data for repair and
| data recovery at a place where the owner couldn't
| identify him positively because he's blind, and then just
| forgot them. The shop's surveillance camera footage for
| the time period in question got wiped clean even though
| there's footage from before and after.
|
| And instead of just deleting the data and moving on with
| life, the owner held on to it for a year (no one does
| this) and then somehow (we still don't know how) it ended
| up in the hands of Rudi Giuliani. And we can't see it
| except for a couple of screenshots from imessage, but
| we're told it's damning. It got mailed to Tucker Carlson
| but somehow got lost in the mail.
|
| Here's the interview with the shop owner:
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-
| hunter...
|
| This is classic KGB/FSB misinformation. It's right out of
| the playbook.
| secondcoming wrote:
| The apparent backstory of the laptop is better explained
| here, by a lawyer:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYzCwiURwwQ
| karlkatzke wrote:
| Sure, there isn't an expectation of privacy. But that
| implies that the property is Hunter Biden's in the first
| place and that there's an intact chain of custody of
| evidence if there are misdeeds, which there isn't.
|
| Again, this looks exactly like every other KGB/FSB
| misinformation operation.
| jtdev wrote:
| You just used a collection of logical fallacies to poke
| holes in the story while avoiding the question of Joe
| Biden being corrupt and indebted to foreign adversaries.
|
| Why did Hunter Biden get +$50,000/mo. salary from a
| Ukranian energy company that Joe Biden had dealings with
| during his time as VPOTUS? Why did Hunter Biden get $1
| billion windfall from China just days after visiting
| Beijing with his influential father?
| karlkatzke wrote:
| Why do Donald Trump's children have top secret clearances
| that they're ineligible for and work in the White House
| with him? Why does Donald Trump owe foreign banks nearly
| a billion dollars? Why did two banks forgive millions of
| dollars of loans against Donald Trump and then have
| bankers directly responsible for forgiving the loans
| receive positions within his administration? Why hasn't
| Donald Trump divested himself of his holdings in his
| companies as required to by the Emoluments clause? Why
| has the federal government paid Trump properties over a
| billion dollars for secret service and other agents to
| stay there?
|
| Until you can answer all of those questions with
| reasonable explanations that aren't "because he can" then
| I don't want to hear another word out of you about Hunter
| Biden -- who has had no role in the Obama/Biden
| administration and will have no role in the Biden/Harris
| administration.
| jtdev wrote:
| Jared Kushner - one of those supposedly unqualified
| family members, and one that the media has enjoyed
| throwing rocks at for years now - brokered multiple peace
| deals in the middle east, something that decades of
| establishment political and foreign policy figures have
| been unable to accomplish with little critique from the
| media.
| karlkatzke wrote:
| What Kushner did disassembled something like 30 years of
| UN effort in the region. He enabled an alliance between
| two bullies who could agree on a couple of things, and
| will now use that alliance to beat the shit out of people
| that disagree with them, to the detriment of, say
| Palestine.
|
| This "accomplishment" is the equivalent to smuggling some
| dinosaur embryos to a south american island in a
| cryogenic cylinder disguised as shaving cream. It's not
| so much that career diplomats COULDN'T do it, it's that
| they understood why they SHOULDN'T do it.
| Raidion wrote:
| Without knowing what's in there, it's really hard to make a
| call on that information alone.
|
| This could be anything from "Hey, the source for this
| information is notoriously unreliable and doesn't meet our
| standards" to "He can't publish this because then Trump might
| win and that's not worth the cost". One is a very valid
| reason to refuse to publish something, for the other, the
| ends don't justify the means and he's right to be upset.
| zo1 wrote:
| We will never know how much of his "prolific" career was
| actively stunted by him being censored by both editors and an
| overall "feel-good"/left-wing bias in society and the news-
| industry.
|
| With enough people being brave enough to stand up like this, we
| will finally start noticing truly how many people and their
| opinions have been silenced. Every additional brave person lets
| others see that they are not alone, that their opinions are
| reasonable and not hateful or fringe or unaccepted, and that
| they can once again speak freely in an open society.
| kev009 wrote:
| Setting boundaries on what one will and wont do isn't
| victimhood. He doesn't owe the world his output under any terms
| but his own.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I'm not talking about this specific situation; I'm talking
| about his career the past 5 years.
| uzakov wrote:
| Can you please provide examples?
| jMyles wrote:
| The actual article in question was published about 90 minutes
| after this one, here: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-
| on-joe-and-hunter-b...
|
| I think you'll be surprised by it. There's nothing about it
| that is fairly characterized as misinformation.
| [deleted]
| kev_da_dev wrote:
| "victimhood"?
|
| I find it hard to believe this comment is anything but
| gaslighting.
|
| Did you actually read his resignation? The editors are refusing
| to publish a story unless he removes all sections critical of
| Joe Biden. How in the world is this playing the victim card?
|
| The conversation regarding censorship is getting disgusting at
| this point. Censorship should be the main focus of ANY and
| EVERY journalist, full stop. The profession cannot coexist in a
| world with censorship. It undermines every single thing about
| honest, transparent reporting.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| The idea that the Intercept has a blanket prohibition on
| criticism of Joe Biden is transparently ridiculous.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/09/02/biden-foreign-policy-
| war...
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/09/01/biden-economic-policy-
| us...
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/08/13/biden-latino-
| deportation...
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/08/07/joe-biden-climate-
| policy...
|
| What Glenn's whiny rant leaves out is that it wasn't just the
| Intercept that refused to run the Hunter/Ukraine/China BS:
| reporters at the NY Post and Wall Street Journal both refused
| to put their names on the story. The NY Post had to use a
| producer on Tucker Carlson's show, while the WSJ ran the
| story as an op-ed since the reporters again refused to
| tarnish their reputation (they also ran a story from the
| actual reporters rebutting the allegations)
|
| Editorial judgment and criticism is part of free speech. It
| is not just about broadcasting the president's re-election
| propaganda as loudly as you can. And the idea that Glenn
| Greenwald can be trusted rests entirely on his 2007-2015
| work, and ignores how disgraceful, craven, and just plain
| pathetic he became in 2016. Anyone who appears on Tucker
| Carlson's show simply should not be trusted.
| collegecamp293 wrote:
| This is wrong. The WSJ did report as The Editorial Board
| (means all of them).
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-bidens-and-tony-
| bobulinski-...
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| You are wrong, the actual op-ed that "reported" the
| allegations was "written" by Strassel a week before the
| editorial you linked to:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-family-
| legacy-1160340...
|
| Edit: to clarify, the editorial you linked seems to be a
| real editorial that said "these questions need to be
| investigated" - the op-Ed I linked to presented itself as
| divulging new information. In 99.9999999% of cases this
| would be an odd use of an op-ed, but it appears to have
| been the only option since the reporters refused.
|
| It is also worth noting that WSJ has a unique and well-
| known dichotomy between "brilliant, hard-hitting
| reporting" and "unbelievably hackish Joe-Rogan-level
| opinions."
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Another Wall Street Journal article, this time from the
| news desk, found no link:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-
| partn...
| jdhn wrote:
| Who determined it was misinformation? Nobody on the Biden
| campaign has said that the emails are false. The media has just
| decided that it's "Russian misinformation", which is
| increasingly looking more like a justification for not
| investigating valid news that may paint their preferred
| candidate in a badl ight.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I don't know ... The Intercept is practically dead without him
| regardless. It's not like they managed to rise above him
| jtdev wrote:
| What leads you to believe that he was trying to spread
| misinformation? The suppression of criticism leveled against
| Joe Biden or any other individual in public service is a grave
| danger to democracy. I commend Mr. Greenwald for standing up to
| censorship.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Please entertain the _possibility_ for a moment, whether you
| agree with it or not, that this story was indeed planted by a
| foreign nation for the specific purpose of manipulating our
| election. Do you then believe that it is responsible to
| willfully help spread it and blast it all over every social
| media site? Aren 't you doing the foreign nation's bidding
| then?
|
| If you do agree there, then where would you draw the line for
| blocking such information being spread? Is the fact that the
| reporter at the singular publication in all the the US
| willing to report on it didn't want their name on it worry
| you? The fact that the only evidence comes from some random
| Trump supporting repairman in some random state not worry
| you? The fact that unreliable (self-exposing to 15yo) people
| such as Giuliani are attached to the story not worry you?
| What about our own intelligence services saying that foreign
| nations have been trying to use said person to manipulate our
| election?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't agree with the premise of the discussion. Consider
| for a less controversial example the iPhone 12. It seems
| obvious that:
|
| * Much of the discussion about the iPhone 12 is part of
| Apple's deliberate strategy to sell phones.
|
| * The media is in some sense being exploited; Apple
| wouldn't sell so many iPhone 12s if not for media
| discussion of it.
|
| * An outlet that refused as a blanket policy to discuss the
| iPhone 12 would present its readers with an inaccurate view
| of the world.
| jtdev wrote:
| This argument can be made for nearly every piece of
| political journalism... you're only supporting this
| suppression because it helps your preferred candidate.
| uzakov wrote:
| Do you personally believe people should be able to decide
| for themselves things in their life, make opinions based on
| different information provided?
| pfortuny wrote:
| Wow: what a standard hace you just raised dor just ine of
| the sides of the equation!
| zo1 wrote:
| There is no easy answer here, and I think the best is to
| allow things to play out with all the information out there
| for people to make an informed decision on. We _need_ the
| entire collective effort of the media industry and
| journalists to poke, prod, piece together and corroborate
| the details being presented. Leak the data dump to 4chan
| even, see what they find. Who knows what holes everyone
| might find, or what _additional_ pieces of the puzzle they
| might unravel with such a collective effort. Right now it
| just kinda seems like they 're trying to discredit rather
| than investigate, which is why it's a huge story and why
| it's being picked up on by the right so much.
| colordrops wrote:
| Is there any evidence that it was planted by a foreign
| national? We don't _censor_ based on gut feelings that
| something was planted by a foreign national.
| int_19h wrote:
| What matters is whether the story is true or not, not who
| planted it. If China digs out more on Trump taxes or
| business dealings, I'd want to see that, as well.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Right, and it's still not clear whether it is true or
| not.
| daveevad wrote:
| The authenticity of the underlying evidence matters at
| least as much as the source.
|
| No one has denied the underlying documents' authenticity to
| my knowledge.
| gfodor wrote:
| There was a time when journalists cared about the truth,
| and what the truth requires is the disclosure of facts and
| objectivity. The proper way to publish this is to describe
| the evidence, and the reasons as to why the evidence may be
| falsified, and do continual reporting as the story develops
| to keep the public informed how likely or not the
| information is false.
|
| The alternative of suppressing it based upon supposition
| and a "gut check" says very, very clearly: we don't trust
| the public to make up their minds, or, worse, we think this
| might be true but it would run counter to our interests if
| people knew about it. Saying something like this is
| "misinformation by the Russians" when it is not denied nor
| has evidence been presented as such is what we used to call
| "believing in conspiracy theories." Sometimes conspiracy
| theories are true, and the facts prove them. But
| journalists shouldn't make publishing decisions based upon
| conspiracy theories without evidence supporting those
| theories.
|
| In any case, both of those behaviors run counter to the
| principles of journalism, which is predicated on the idea
| that preferring to _share_ imperfect information,
| accurately described, is ultimately what leads to an
| informed citizenry, even if some of that information turns
| out to be misleading or wrong in the end.
| ghaff wrote:
| That is not generally how journalism operates. Remember
| "Rathergate"? Would it have made the slightest bit of
| difference if CBS had inserted the disclaimer that "Of
| course we can't be 100% sure these docs are legit but
| we'll keep investigating."?
| gfodor wrote:
| I don't remember the story well but certainly more self-
| skepticism, disclosure of facts, and rigorous
| investigation will always reduce the chance of
| humiliation and harm.
| ghaff wrote:
| To a degree. My point though is that major journalism
| outlets, while they certainly screw up from time to time,
| don't run with major stories and be "We think this is
| true but maybe it isn't. We'll keep you posted."
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > My point though is that major journalism outlets, while
| they certainly screw up from time to time, don't run with
| major stories and be "We think this is true but maybe it
| isn't. We'll keep you posted."
|
| Right; they will run with "Someone else is
| reporting/claiming this, but we have been unable to
| confirm it. We'll keep you posted." And while the
| difference in terms of the impression on the
| reader/viewer may be subtle, there _is_ an important
| distinction between running the unconfirmed story
| directly as news (or the thing Greenwald apparently
| suggested of an outlet running dueling news stories on
| the same issue from different journalists as news.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Fair enough. If another credible outlet is reporting it,
| they'll probably run it with the disclaimer that the NYT
| (or whoever) is reporting something but we haven't
| ourselves been able to verify A, B, and C claims. If it's
| a claim on a conspiracy site? Or someone has just come to
| them with an accusation they're unable to verify?
| Unlikely.
| gfodor wrote:
| Not to mention the use of the term "confirmed" has
| completely changed in modern times. Now, the press puts
| out a story that an anonymous source said X, and then
| another press outlet "confirms" it - and in this sense,
| the use of the word "confirm" means "we also asked the
| anonymous source and they told us the same thing." This
| is a trick: "confirming" a story _used_ to mean that
| actual journalism was practiced, where the liklihood of
| the claims were vetted and determined to be likely true,
| given multiple independent sources or other evidence. It
| used to take time and effort to "confirm" stories, that
| was the job of a journalist, now the term is just used to
| artificially bolster anonymous claims by having a second
| talking head talk to the same person as a way to
| "confirm" the other media source wasn't lying that they
| existed, or something.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There was a time when journalists cared about the truth
|
| There have always been journalists who cared about the
| truth, but there has never been a time when that was
| generally dominant over the business, political, etc.,
| interests of publishers, who have always been, for the
| entire history of journalism (which has been entirely
| embedded within the capitalist age), very deeply
| intertwined with those of the capitalist ruling class, of
| whom publishers, especially of major, highly-visible
| media outlets, are generally a part.
| ehsankia wrote:
| > There was a time when journalists cared about the truth
|
| Which is exactly why no other publication has yet backed
| up this claim, because they cannot verify the truthiness
| of it. If anything, it's NYP that did not care about the
| truth and only about the fact that it would be a "win"
| for their side.
|
| Caring about the truth and not spreading misinformation
| from foreign nation is one and the same.
| gfodor wrote:
| OK, so that would mean it was fair to delay reporting on
| it until it was investigated. Has any investigation
| happened? Are the media reporting on how they chased down
| leads to confirm or deny the report? What about the
| claims of "misinformation from a foreign nation", have
| journalists gotten to the bottom of that beyond just
| repeating what the "intelligence services" have said?
|
| So far, the "investigation" by the media sources who
| suppressed the story literally seems to be to not even
| ask if the evidence is real from those who it's
| targeting, and to just run with the idea that there's
| plausible deniability so it must be false. As if there'd
| be anything other than plausible deniability in a real
| corruption scandal.
|
| Your world makes sense, but only if "cannot verify" means
| "tried and failed" not "didn't try and suppressed based
| upon the assumption it was invalid", as is the _publicly
| stated_ methodology taken by the Washington Post.
| ehsankia wrote:
| > Has any investigation happened?
|
| Yes, the FBI has looked into it and have yet to find any
| credible source. I also assume every reporter from every
| publication is investigating it too.
|
| > Are the media reporting on how they chased down leads
| to confirm or deny the report?
|
| The media never reports on the process of chasing leads
| and inconclusive stories (which is exactly what NYP did).
| They only post once they have the actual facts.
|
| > by the media sources who suppressed the story
|
| First off, it's the social media site that suppressed the
| story, not other publications. Secondly, not reporting
| something until you have it confirmed is not
| "suppressing" a story, it's actual journalism.
|
| > as is the publicly stated methodology taken by the
| Washington Post.
|
| Source?
| RspecMAuthortah wrote:
| who defines what is misinformation and by what standard? it
| seems any opinion that doesn't conform to mainstream ideologies
| are now labeled as misinformation.
|
| the whole point of his article he published is you don't shut
| down opinions and works of other journalists just because you
| don't agree with it as an editor.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| By way of example, his description of PRISM was factually
| incorrect to the point of making the people who read his
| articles more misinformed than people who hadn't. There is
| nothing ideological in what is a statement of fact and what
| is not, and Greenwald gets in trouble on that basic point.
| RspecMAuthortah wrote:
| OK so if journalists have to get 100% of what they say
| accurate then 99% of what we see reported today are
| "factually incorrect" and there won't be anyone left in the
| profession. Same goes with your point saying more opinion
| leads to more misinformation.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Greenwald's description wasn't 99% accurate. It was
| barely 5% accurate. The only thing accurate in it was
| that some program called PRISM exists. Every statement he
| made about what it does was wrong, which he could have
| avoided if he merely talked to someone computer literate
| or used his status as a journalist to call the people
| involved. The NY Times, CNET, and pretty much the rest of
| mainstream media got it correct and correctly identified
| PRISM as a non-story while focusing on phone metadata,
| which was questionably legal post-Carpenter.
|
| > Same goes with your point saying more opinion leads to
| more misinformation.
|
| I didn't say that more opinion leads to misinformation. I
| said nothing about opinion at all.
| dylan604 wrote:
| if that meant that we had to force the slate clean and
| start over with proper journalistic standards, i'd kind
| of be okay with that. if it also means that we could
| eliminate network talking heads opinion shows from being
| listed under a News banner, i'd be even more okay with
| it.
| SamBam wrote:
| Misinformation is factually-incorrect information that is
| spread to push an agenda.
|
| That's no so hard.
|
| A news organization has a responsibility to find out if the
| news they are reporting is factually correct, and if it's
| important.
|
| If they can't verify the facts, then they may just publish
| the people's claims, but again, the matter of importance
| comes in -- is the fact that someone is making the claim
| important? If someone in power says a lie about COVID, that
| may still be worth reporting, because the fact that a person
| in power misled is, itself, important. But if some rando
| political operatives push an unverifiable story, the _fact
| that they are claiming it_ isn 't itself a story, unless the
| facts are true.
| blumomo wrote:
| I do think it _is_ hard as in: it is very hard to find out
| the truth. "Misinformation is factually-incorrect
| information that is spread to push an agenda. That's no so
| hard."
|
| Given enough power you can make look any "fact" as the
| truth. This has been accomplished a couple of times in the
| past. I.e. the war against Iraq started with the "fact"
| that there are mass destruction weapons. All mainstream
| media supported this "fact" when the war began. Turns out
| later there was no mass destruction weapon. Publicly
| admitted by the US government. So a "fact" for one person
| isn't a "fact" for the other because both have a different
| perception of truth. But again, given enough power, you can
| manufacture consent and thus manufacture a "wrong truth".
| dsugarman wrote:
| I'm just going to state the obvious and I don't see it anywhere
| else here. There are a lot of posts here saying you have to trust
| his integrity over the editors due to all of his accolades.
|
| All of Glenn's accolades are from the reporting around Edward
| Snowden. I'm a big fan of that reporting and I think that story
| needed to be told but it was most strategically beneficial to
| Russia where Snowden eventually took sanctuary. This was also
| during Obama's presidency.
|
| Now, he seems to be very biased to the point of being a hack,
| pulls a stunt like this on the eve of an election, has
| continuously made an effort to discredit the Russian interference
| in our elections and comes to Trump's aid fairly frequently when
| it matters (as well as sometimes critiques him and his admin when
| it doesn't i.e. "he lies")
|
| I don't know what his motives are but it sure doesn't seem like
| it's about getting out the truth.
| Tomte wrote:
| I'm not surprised an editor wouldn't want to publish
|
| "The Washington Post on Sunday published an op-ed -- by Thomas
| Rid, one of those centrists establishmentarian professors whom
| media outlets routinely use to provide the facade of expert
| approval for deranged conspiracy theories"
|
| That's childish at best, and more importantly, it's ineffective.
| With paragraphs like those you lose any reader who isn't an
| hyper-partisan social-media warrior.
| content_sesh wrote:
| I'd like to take a moment to remember my favorite Greenwald
| story, where he was skeptical of Russian interference in the 2016
| election. A whistleblower then provided The Intercept with a
| document from the NSA proving otherwise.
|
| The Intercept then turned around _sent the NSA the letter_ ,
| asking them to verify it and clumsily burning their source in the
| dumbest possible way.
|
| It's unfortunate that Glenn's tactic of screaming "DEBATE ME!" at
| his editors didn't work, and wish Glenn well as he joins the
| ranks of the other accursed shills, banished from their homelands
| and forced haunt Twitter whining about cancel culture or
| whatever.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Media mastheads seem to have shorter and short shelf lives before
| they are consumed by editorial censorship and commercial issues.
| Right now Taibbi on substack is terrific, his Rolling Stone
| articles a lot more constrained. I look forward to Greenwald
| being less restricted and to his Biden commentary and thoughts
| sxyuan wrote:
| Rather than focusing too much on the he-said she-said of this
| post and the response from the Intercept, I think it's more
| interesting to read Glenn's article for yourself, along with the
| email exchange that precipitated the resignation.
|
| Article: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-
| hunter-b...
|
| Emails: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-
| edito...
|
| To me, the article seemed rather light on evidence and heavy on
| speculation. The first email from the editorial staff seemed
| reasonable, if perhaps a little heavy-handed. It certainly did
| not seem to warrant Glenn's immediate escalation - his reply
| reads like an ultimatum:
|
| > But if the Intercept's position is that it won't publish any
| article by me that suggests that there are valid questions about
| whether Joe Biden engaged in wrongdoing, then I think we should
| agree that the Intercept's position is that it is unwilling to
| publish the article I want to publish about the Democratic front-
| runner. Under my contract, if TI decides it does not want to
| publish something I want to publish, then I have the right to
| publish it elsewhere, which is a right I would exercise with this
| article.
|
| Another excerpt that stood out, this one from Glenn's follow-up
| email (the 3rd in the chain):
|
| > ...this is the first time in fifteen years of my writing about
| politics that I've been censored... and it's happening less than
| a week before a presidential election.
|
| So, he first equates the editorial request to censorship, then
| emphasizes the closeness of the election in order to justify why
| that editorial concern should be bypassed.
|
| His entire attitude seems to be that since he doesn't write
| anything factually incorrect, any attempt to influence or
| challenge the things his writing tries to imply is equivalent to
| censorship. A misguided attitude, if not downright disingenuous,
| IMO. But you can read and decide for yourself.
| babesh wrote:
| I put more initial weight into someone who published the Snowden
| disclosures than those who oppose him. But go read what he has to
| say and examine his sources. If what he says is true, then weigh
| less those opposing what he said else weigh them more.
|
| Don't listen to all the voices here seeking to discredit him.
| They are playing defense. Just go to original sources and make up
| your own mind.
| captain_price7 wrote:
| > Just go to original sources and make up your own mind.
|
| But that's not an easy thing to do, is it? Even if we can do
| this one time, that's not sustainable. We need to trust
| somebody, and that's unfortunately getting lot harder.
|
| Usually, I would put more trust on an established media
| organization like The Intercept over an individual, even though
| he's a co-founder. But after seeing (what I perceive to be)
| media's blatant disregard for journalistic standards, specially
| in last 4 years, I'm not so sure anymore.
| babesh wrote:
| I put more trust in him. He has shown more reason to trust
| him given the Snowden disclosures.
| gojomo wrote:
| A bit reminiscent of when Vox co-founder Matt Yglesias was
| pressured to avoid expressing certain contentious positions by
| other Voxxers:
|
| https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1280937324340281346
| dwd wrote:
| Joe Rogan strikes again...
|
| Glenn was on his podcast yesterday and looks like that discussion
| was the tipping point to convince him that yes, he can do this
| alone, and he doesn't need the backing of a media organisation to
| do his work and put his ideas out there.
|
| For anyone who hasn't listened to it yet, he was quite scathing
| of the rest of the mainstream media and the unfiltered aspect of
| Joe's podcasts gives a bit of insight as to where his thinking
| was at.
| DevKoala wrote:
| We are witnessing the biggest concerted censorship effort in the
| history of the USA.
|
| One for the history books, depending on who gets to write it in
| the future.
|
| Regardless of whether or not you believe on Tony Bubolinsky, you
| should at the very least have the opportunity to hear him and
| make up your own mind.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zLfBRgeFFo
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I just Googled his name. I'm in the UK so this probably isn't
| perfectly representative of the US, but I'm struggling to see a
| historic censorship effort. I'm seeing articles from WSJ, The
| Times (UK), Fox News, Spectator, Politifact, NYPost, Washington
| Post, Yahoo News, MSN, Real Clear Politics - in addition to
| loads of YouTube videos like the one you linked.
| TxProgrammer wrote:
| No its not..the amount of Trumpers on Hacker News is surprising
| to me. this Biden scandal is a straight up republican talking
| point, promoted by Russia and trumpers to try and shift eyes
| from a collapsing, insane, administration. The lengths of
| corruption involved in even pursuing this story by trump and
| Giuliani has already caused Trump to be impeached a short while
| back.
|
| It's not just 'pot calling kettle black'..both sides are bad
| logic here. Let assume the biden scandal is true: Complaining
| about Biden's son getting a lucrative contract because of his
| last name, is like complaining about the splash from a puddle
| during a tsunami, ie, It's small potatoes of the worst sort,
| and the willingness of the right wing to use it as a counter
| scandal does not bode well for Greenwald's points when he is
| used a pawn for right wing interests (Tucker Carlson really..)
| A more nuanced consideration of Greenwald's actions and
| willingness to speak against Biden in context of Trump can be
| found here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/19/lesser-of-
| two-evils-chomsky-vs-greenwald-and-the-ignored-factor/
| Greenwald is an Idealist and more power to him, But Is idealism
| better than a pragmatism in 2020 of all years? We are in the
| middle of a raging pandemic and society torn apart by ethnic
| strife. In this case between Trump a racist, ignorant failed
| casino owner, and overt con man (trump u) who directly caused
| the deaths of thousands of people because he ignored basic
| scientific truths, or Biden, a lukewarm status quo (and
| somewhat corrupt career politician) the answer is clear for
| survival: Biden.
| csours wrote:
| Um. World War 1, 2, the Korean conflict, and the Vietnamese
| conflict all had a LOT of censorship, not to mention a lot of
| stuff that got hushed up with buddy buddy relationships.
|
| Also, we're all talking about it, so it's not very censored,
| now is it?
| pfisch wrote:
| In what sense? The media has always censored information that
| can't be verified.
|
| Nytimes doesn't publish articles about flat earth theory.
|
| Even Fox News actual News division refuses to run these Hunter
| Biden stories. Same thing with Seth Rich, or ideas about crisis
| actors. How is this different?
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| This is information that is trivially verifiable and has been
| verified by numerous sources.
|
| There's already been leaks such as a video of Hunter Biden
| smoking crack while receiving a footjob (edit: if this seems
| crude, I'm mentioning it as something that makes it very
| clear that the info is real) so unless you think it's a
| deepfake - or that they hacked it from his iCloud account and
| made up the story about the laptop repair shop - then you
| cannot deny the veracity of the story.
|
| It's also been corroborated by people like the aforementioned
| Bobulinski. If this were truly a false story it would be
| trivial for the Biden campaign to deny the allegations.
|
| The reason this story is not being reported is not because
| it's not "verifiable"; even ignoring that it is verifiable,
| the media had no trouble publishing the unverified story of
| Trump's tax returns, the unverified and now completely
| debunked Russia collusion hoax (if you're not read up on it,
| please don't reflexively downvote - with what we know today
| it is now certain that it was actually a manufactured hoax
| and not just an innocent misunderstanding), etc. So there is
| absolutely a double standard at play and it's very plain to
| see if you go look for it, but if you just stick to CNN and
| other mainstream media you will literally _never_ see the
| full story (or even a fraction of it).
| pfisch wrote:
| I didn't think the story was about Hunter Biden smoking
| crack and having sex with girls. That doesn't seem like it
| qualifies as a story to me that needs to be on national
| news because who cares? I also do think there is like an
| 80% chance they hacked his iCloud account though.
|
| I think that there is no source for this information, which
| is required for hard journalism. Like who is standing by
| this information and saying it is genuine? I think it bears
| all the hallmarks of Russian intelligence, and they even
| did this exact same thing in France.
|
| The entire "story" here is unclear. How is Joe Biden
| involved? Can you even prove these business deals are real?
| You can't even verify the contents of these emails are
| real. Journalists aren't even being allowed to verify the
| hard drive.
|
| The tax returns did have a real source that the journalists
| themselves verified. That isn't possible here because the
| story of the laptop is wildly unbelievable.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/wsj-newsroom-found-no-joe-biden-
| rol...
|
| The media isn't ignoring this, but it is incredibly
| sketchy.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| You've got a hard full of emails, texts, and nasty pictures,
| people on the receiving end of the emails that have verified
| some of them, the head of one of these companies Hunter Biden
| set up to do business with China coming forward on the
| record, and the Bidens haven't even denied that the emails
| are real. This is mountains more evidence than ever existed
| for Russia or Ukraine or all the other nonsense that has
| passed for news during the past four years. This bizarre
| dodge of saying "it can't be verified" is nonsense. There's
| plenty here for a journalist to do some journalism on to try
| and verify.
|
| Its not that it can't be verified, it's that mainstream news
| doesn't want to verify it and be blacklisted by their peers
| for taking out Biden. They value their standing in their
| fancy social circle more than doing their job with integrity.
| It's pure corruption.
| boc wrote:
| This is false. The people making the claims are refusing to
| turn over the hard drive or original emails to the
| journalists who are trying to verify the story.[1]
|
| I can also claim that I have a hard drive with
| incriminating information on it. Nobody should run a news
| story on it unless they too can see the evidence for
| themselves. This is journalism 101.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rudy-
| giuliani-giv...
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > Even Fox News actual News division refuses to run these
| Hunter Biden stories.
|
| Where do you find fox news's news division? Every part of fox
| news I see is running it.
| disown wrote:
| > In what sense? The media has always censored information
| that can't be verified.
|
| If that was the case, we wouldn't have been involved in any
| wars in the past few decades.
|
| > Nytimes doesn't publish articles about flat earth theory.
|
| Of course not because lies about "flat earth" doesn't serve
| their interests. But lies/propaganda about "incubator
| babies"/nayirah testimony and yellowcake to start wars serves
| their interests.
|
| Tons of unverified nonsense gets published. And tons of truth
| gets censored. Media, like the nytimes, are in the business
| of propaganda. They exist to sell wars and benefit the elite,
| not to peddle nonsense like "flat earth theory".
|
| If a topic is important (nationally/geopolitically) and it's
| in a newspaper, you can be sure it's pretty much nonsense.
| The more respected the news agency, the more likely it is a
| lie.
| pfisch wrote:
| Either that, or there are specific sourcing rules for
| journalists based on the credibility of the sources.
|
| Giuliani has burned his credibility, and the entire laptop
| story is on its face unbelievable.
|
| These other stories like Yellow Cake came from legit
| sources that were credible at the time.
|
| You are comparing apples and oranges.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/wsj-newsroom-found-no-joe-biden-
| rol...
| disown wrote:
| > Either that, or there are specific sourcing rules for
| journalists based on the credibility of the sources.
|
| A kuwaiti diplomat's daughter or intelligence officers
| are not credible sources. And neither is the nytimes, wsj
| or any major news company at this point.
|
| > Giuliani has burned his credibility, and the entire
| laptop story is on its face unbelievable.
|
| It's far more credible than incubator babies or
| yellowcake.
|
| > These other stories like Yellow Cake came from legit
| sources that were credible at the time.
|
| No they weren't. It was intentionally manufactured lies.
| The nayirah testimony was a PR generated propaganda. And
| yellow cake was propaganda conjured up by the nytimes and
| pro-war intelligence groups.
|
| > You are comparing apples and oranges.
|
| You are right, I am comparing actual lies that led to
| millions of people's deaths and a possible lie. You are
| right, we don't know the truth of the hunter story yet.
| But we know for sure that nayirah and yellow cake were
| intentionally manufactured lies to start wars.
| pfisch wrote:
| Colin Powell(Sec of State) and the Head of the CIA(Tenet)
| were on the record as sources for yellow cake stories.
|
| At that time they had credibility.
|
| You are misrepresenting history. It is not similar to
| this sketchy laptop with no legitimate source verifying
| it belonged to Hunter Biden.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| And you link to Tucker Carlson? Seriously?
| wnevets wrote:
| I surprised this post did not include the term sheeple in it.
| drchopchop wrote:
| "Censorship"? Fox News has been pushing it non-stop, every
| night, on 3+ hours of evening programming. Just because every
| media outlet in the world isn't pushing this (highly
| questionable) story doesn't mean it's being "censored". You are
| even free to post about it on Hacker News.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > We are witnessing the biggest concerted censorship effort in
| the history of the USA.
|
| Bigger than the Office of Censorship, deployed during WW2 to
| help propaganda efforts?
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship)
|
| I seriously doubt that. The Office of Censorship was regularly
| opening private mail from USPS and purposefully destroying
| private mail that was unsavory to the war effort.
|
| -------
|
| Historically, the practice of postal censorship extended back
| to the Civil War: with both Confederates and Union governments
| censoring the mail within their control.
| SamBam wrote:
| How is not publishing an unverifiable story "censorship"?
| That's what we trust real news organizations to do.
|
| And saying that they should at least publish the controversy is
| absurd -- first of all, the Times _did_ publish the controversy
| days ago [1], and second of all, it basically allows the
| peddlers of these unverifiable stories to dictate the news.
|
| 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/hunter-
| bid...
| pageandrew wrote:
| Real news organizations breathlessly reported unverified
| Trump Russia allegations.
| pwned1 wrote:
| _Unverifiable_? Plenty of documentary evidence has been
| produced that could easily be verified. _Simply ask the
| Bidens if it 's true._
| burtmacklin wrote:
| Sure. By the way, when did you stop beating your wife?
| pwned1 wrote:
| The cognitive dissonance in this thread is melting my
| brain.
| umvi wrote:
| Perhaps the argument here is that the censorship is not being
| applied equally to both sides of the political spectrum.
|
| It's more than just this one example. It's basically all of
| the censorship efforts over the past few months aimed to slow
| or stop the spread of information (true or not) that might be
| damaging to Biden. Twitter and Facebook actively flag posts
| that "fact-checkers" deem to be misinformation. There was the
| recent high profile case of Hunter Biden stories being
| actively suppressed.
|
| Can you point to recent examples of misinformed anti-Trump
| articles being fact-checked by Twitter/Facebook/major news
| sources? As far as I can tell, those "bombshells" always
| spread unimpeded like wildfire.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| > it basically allows the peddlers of these unverifiable
| stories to dictate the news.
|
| The allegation itself is news, but it's important to label it
| as such when reporting it. The next step is to investigate
| it.
|
| If Trump says there are extraterrestrials living in Area 51
| that's news regardless if you can verify it.
| SamBam wrote:
| That would be news because _the President_ said that.
|
| If I, random nobody, show up with an allegation against
| Trump, using unverifiable "evidence," then that allegation
| is not newsworthy.
|
| And doubly-so if my whole job is to be a partisan hack
| trying to delver an October surprise.
| jjeaff wrote:
| That's some pretty weak censorship if there are public YouTube
| links to it.
|
| The only way this will make history is if it pans out to
| anything besides what everyone already knows, which is that
| Hunter Biden is an addict and has been profiting off his family
| name.
|
| Any evidence connecting that to Joe is very weak so far.
| hnmullany wrote:
| He definitely needs a copy editor. Some of those sentences are
| clumsy af.
| kev_da_dev wrote:
| Go look at all the comments being downvoted. It's insane how many
| reasonable, common-sense arguments are being downvoted into
| oblivion.
|
| HN has a serious astroturfing problem and I can only imagine
| who's behind it.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| I see a lot of boilerplate handwringing about how this is the
| end of free speech and a reliable media, that kind of stuff
| gets posted over and over again in every article of this
| nature.
|
| Its not particularly interesting, or relevant, especially after
| being repeated ad nauseum.
| disown wrote:
| Really, most of the top comments are those defending
| censorship and those sneakily trying to undermine free speech
| and support the censorship of a journalist.
|
| > Its not particularly interesting, or relevant, especially
| after being repeated ad nauseum.
|
| Fighting for free speech is that offense to you huh? You
| wouldn't happen to be a journalist?
| anoonmoose wrote:
| It's mostly that I think your definition of "free speech"
| is absurd and so are your claims of censorship.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| "Go look at all the comments being downvoted." this is what
| I was referring to.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I agree that there's a problem, though I'm giving you the
| benefit of the doubt, and assuming you aren't referring only to
| the comments on one "side" of this discussion. However, either
| way, there is also a lot of irrational political side-taking
| being downvoted, and frankly the state of things looks much
| better than the vast majority of communities.
| secondcoming wrote:
| They click on your username and downvote any other comments
| you've made too. It's a real shame. I was hoping HN was more
| adult than reddit.
| troughway wrote:
| It isn't, and in due time enough people will get tired of
| this and form some kind of an HN-meets-lobste.rs-thing that
| is more oriented towards diversity of opinions, with less of
| a fuck-you to everyone who disagrees with the groupthink of
| HN.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Sounds like his major problem was having basically no involvement
| in the company because he's been in Brazil. The Intercept is only
| 6 years old and all the editors have been there since basically
| the beginning...
| ykevinator wrote:
| I'm enjoying the fox newsies clutching their pearls. As if
| refusing to publish gossip is the end of the world
| henriquez wrote:
| The response on HN to this is a disgrace.
| syndacks wrote:
| HN is largely a disgraceful place these days, except for
| content explicitly related to technology.
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| People are in a frenzy and they have social networks/living
| situations that reinforce their biases.
|
| It's sad but the elites of society (lots of the software
| community) think the rest are a scourge and incorrigible.
| gfodor wrote:
| The media has fallen into the well-known trap of optimizing the
| wrong KPI. You want to maximize trust with the public, not
| engagement, if you want your media company to survive if its
| value proposition is providing journalism and the usual benefits
| that come with a free press.
|
| Unfortunately, not only is engagement the wrong metric, but it's
| also one which incentivizes the undermining of the actual metric
| you need to be optimizing. This results in a negative feedback
| loop, and the logical outcome is that all media companies who
| focus on the engagement KPI will, in the limit, become tabloids -
| pure entertainment, no trust. Since most outlets were already on
| their way to becoming politics-focused, what we're going to get
| are "tabloids for politics" - and that is what we see. It's just
| a matter of when the public accepts this transition has occurred,
| not if it is happening.
|
| Getting the public to accept this has proven challenging -
| despite the fact that many clearly see the "opposite side" media
| as tabloid-like, it's been hard for the same people to accept
| that their own chosen media sources, who tell them things they
| agree with, are no different in this regard. The resistance of
| course is due to all the usual human biases, but it's still
| strange when people can see it so obviously in the media they
| disagree with and not apply Occam's Razor to their own.
|
| This does mean that there's a huge opportunity if you assume
| trust is something people will pay for. Substack seems to provide
| early evidence that this is the case. Fortunately, I think the
| market will correct this error - and it's critical it does,
| because a free press is essential to ensuring our society
| continues without increasing oppression or war.
| drchopchop wrote:
| Why would Substack solve this? It's just a more refined Medium
| with better monetization opportunities. Being on Substack
| doesn't mean the author is trustworthy, only that they have
| content that people will engage with (and potentially pay for),
| which is still the same KPI you're referring to.
| gfodor wrote:
| Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say.
| It may turn out that the "V" in MVP here necessarily required
| monetization, for those who see journalism as the search for
| truth, not the search for clicks, to take the leap of going
| indie. Certainly if that trend continues we ought to expect
| larger organization - where solo-indies merge into mini-
| guilds, and so on, hopefully to the point where these become
| large organizations comparable to the 'old' media companies
| before they shifted away from journalism. Certainly Taibbi
| and Greenwald could be the first "dyad" to collaborate within
| this alternative media universe, so that might give us a clue
| of what organizing principles this new world may operate
| under, with these new incentives.
| dash2 wrote:
| Substack allows you to subscribe (paid) to an individual
| journalist or publication. They can then post long-form
| stories to your inbox. That gives them the opportunity to
| develop a long-term relationship with you where credibility
| matters.
|
| At any rate, that is the argument. I don't think it will
| work, because buying journalism one journalist at a time is
| too expensive. Hell, buying it one _paper_ at a time is too
| expensive. The better approach is the Apple News Plus or
| Google News one, where you pay a single subscription for a
| very wide range of outlets.... But, their idea isn 't crazy.
| zpeti wrote:
| What amazing comment.
| zarkov99 wrote:
| I agree there is a huge opportunity for a trusted institution
| to do journalism. But who would anyone trust? The incentives in
| the media point towards pandering and outraging. Left to the
| shareholders a news organization is mandated to maximize short
| term profit in whatever way it can. So capitalism is out.
| Perhaps a benevolent billionaire could support such an effort?
| But again, who would trust him? Its a pikle.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _there is a huge opportunity for a trusted institution to do
| journalism_
|
| There are new media organizations that do very good work,
| independently. But you have to look for them, and most people
| are too lazy to bother seeking out quality journalism when
| the garbage is forced in front of them every waking second by
| social media.
|
| The other problem is that most of the good work is regional.
| WTTW in Chicago, The Texas Tribune in Texas, various public
| radio stations around the country. There's plenty of good
| journalism. But it's an effort to piece it all together.
| zarkov99 wrote:
| I have looked, many times, and I have not been able to find
| a single institution I would trust to keep me broadly
| informed. I do not think the problem is lazyness. What
| would you recommend for US coverage?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _US coverage_
|
| ...and there lies the problem /laziness.
|
| The United States is far to large, populous, and diverse
| to expect a single entity to do a good job covering the
| entire country.
|
| It's like reading an encyclopedia entry about wine and
| expecting to get insights into how 1,000 different
| varieties taste.
|
| Or closer to the point, I don't expect to understand
| what's happening in Bangkok by reading the news in Tokyo.
| It's all Asia, right?
| gfodor wrote:
| I think you just need to find a way to align incentives.
| Capitalism can work just fine. The reason we're in this
| situation in part is because the skills and resources you
| garner for delivering journalism happen to overlap with those
| needed to deliver political tabloids. We don't worry about
| air conditioner manufacturers magically becoming insurance
| companies, because its hard to do so. So ultimately if you
| align incentives enough I think you can make it increasingly
| unlikely a specific 'truth seeking' organization will slide
| into tabloids. But I don't know the formula. It might boil
| down to re-baking the culture which awards good journalism
| and bootstraps itself off of valid credentialism.
| HNthrow22 wrote:
| > The media has fallen into the well-known trap of optimizing
| the wrong KPI. You want to maximize trust with the public, not
| engagement
|
| KPI for whose benefit? Shareholders or the 'public good'? Why
| would a for-profit entity optimize for the public good over
| profits?
|
| Fox news is crushing all their competitors optimizing for
| engagement.
|
| Who is winning optimizing for trust?
| gfodor wrote:
| It goes back to what a company's value proposition is. Media
| companies certainly benefit from optimizing this KPI, but it
| means they are now going to become entertainment companies.
| This isn't necessarily "bad" from the standpoint of the media
| companies or their shareholders, but insofar as the people
| who make up those organizations still want the company's
| value proposition to their customers to be providing
| journalism, the company has failed. Given the culture of
| journalism being a mission-oriented pursuit, it's fair to
| assume that many people will feel remorse at these changes
| occurring within these organizations, even if those
| organizations become very valuable entertainment companies.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| > The media has fallen into the well-known trap of optimizing
| the wrong KPI. You want to maximize trust with the public, not
| engagement, if you want your media company to survive _if its
| value proposition is providing journalism and the usual
| benefits that come with a free press._
|
| That's a big 'if'. The 'media's value prop is not to promote a
| free press. Those that believe that to be the case are quickly
| going extinct.
|
| > This does mean that there's a huge opportunity if you assume
| trust is something people will pay for. [...] I think the
| market will correct this error
|
| If it's true (I don't think it is), and to the degree that you
| can sustain a business over many years. I don't think it's even
| possible to be true, because the money itself is corrupting.
| The market cannot correct what doesn't require correction.
|
| I think where your analysis fails is that you presume that the
| media has shifted their position on their own. They haven't;
| they've reacted to the public. It's actually a positive
| feedback loop, not negative -- it's just that it's positive in
| the direction you dislike. We cannot depend on or hope for
| market correction. A free press in modern times requires public
| funding.
| lordnacho wrote:
| This is why the Economist, FT and the WSJ still have a somewhat
| positive reputation. They're expensive and tend to write about
| things that are important, not sensational.
|
| All other publications are slowly falling victim to the
| parametdynamicser of the entertainment game, including ones
| that were also in that bracket not long ago. Mind you I'm not
| saying WaPo and NYT are trash now, they did start with a high
| rep and try to square the circle by staying there and getting
| people to pay for it.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| The Economist is quickly losing that reputation. I cancelled
| my subscription. The FT is still pretty good, though they shy
| away from anything critical of powerful
| corporations/individuals.
| clairity wrote:
| note that the economist, ft and wsj are neither impartial nor
| a well-rounded balance of daily record. but yes, wapo and nyt
| --and i'll add npr--have largely turned into partisan
| opinionating (which i'd coin covidizing, if i had any such
| clout), save a few longer-form investigative pieces (which
| have a leaning via editorial discretion, but aren't typically
| editorialized).
| dmix wrote:
| > Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now
|
| WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. Which
| sucks because NYT easily has one of the best web design teams
| on the internet IMO and I used to look forward to reading it
| daily for over a decade.
|
| I'm still angry that they chose to go all Buzzfeed and hammer
| it everywhere politicially on their website.
|
| WSJ has been a fine replacement, but it's not as extensive or
| big as NYT. I just hope things return to a bit more normal
| after the US election.
| mikestew wrote:
| Now that WSJ is included in Apple News+, the NYT has a
| month after the election to clean their shit up, or I dump
| a decade-long subscription. And by "clean their shit up", I
| want news on my front page, not political discussion. And
| by news I mean "Hurricane FooBar Hits FL Coast", not
| "Hurricane FooBar Hits FL Coast While Trump Plays Golf".
|
| Though I shall stay far, far away from that crazy train WSJ
| calls an "opinion page".
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > Economist, FT and the WSJ
|
| I have print subscriptions to the first 2 but I disagree
| because what I recall from working in blue collar jobs is
| that people who would benefit from that world view will not
| bother. they spend their days thinking about basic survival
| and when they pick up a paper (on the bog) just want to be
| entertained. Sadly the typical reader of the Economist never
| had to deal with anyone from the "lower" classes. They
| consider them as something they need protection from. A
| minimum wage, social safety net and working health care
| system usually goes a long way in preventing this divide from
| growing into a normal (like in the US - or very poor
| countries that share that class divide as a common property
| with the US).
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| What do you make of the idea that independent journalists on
| the web being the future?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| They are an alternative, but not a substitute for
| institutional journalism.
|
| News exists to give you an approximate representation of what
| is happening without having to invest too much effort in
| actual investigation. It is built on trust. If you have to
| build trust with each individual journalist you follow a la
| carte, then that makes the entry barrier to following the
| news much higher.
| TheKarateKid wrote:
| > _It is built on trust. If you have to build trust with
| each individual journalist you follow a la carte, then that
| makes the entry barrier to following the news much higher._
|
| While this may be true theoretically, it's already been
| disproven in practice. People believe almost anything
| posted on the Internet, whether it is a no-name website or
| a random tweet that goes viral.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > People believe almost anything posted on the Internet,
|
| Some people certainly do. Whether the majority of voters
| as a whole do has not been proven to me.
|
| There are still millions of loyal subscribers to the big
| institutions like NYT, WSJ, WaPo, etc.
| pm90 wrote:
| It isn't reasonable to expect independent journalists to take
| over the work that news media currently engages in. While
| there are legitimate criticisms of media companies becoming
| too large and being driven by outrage based engagements, they
| also provide the resources for some of the best journalists
| to spend a large part of their lives dedicated to digging
| into a story rather than worrying about how to make ends
| meet.
|
| The press is a pillar of American democracy. Independent
| journalists are great but they just won't have the same power
| or credibility as they do when they're organized.
| ghaff wrote:
| And, to the degree that they're actually doing
| investigative journalism, it's really hard to see how the
| finances work out. I guess there's patronage of various
| sorts but that tends not to work very well and certainly
| isn't very scalable.
| [deleted]
| scottlocklin wrote:
| Same is it ever was; IF Stone was one of the greats of his
| era, and he basically fed himself with a private newsletter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._F._Stone
| zarkov99 wrote:
| It won't work, we will simply just have a collection of
| disparate, narrowly focused and financially limited sources,
| from which anyone can draw to reinforce whatever view of the
| world they already have. You need an instution with the
| resources to look deep and wide and enough of a reputation
| that people will listen when it reports something they do not
| like.
| [deleted]
| albertop wrote:
| Anyone who believes that the media is interested in the TRUTH
| should read the old classic:
| https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691134802/li...
|
| The media exists primarily for its own purposes and agendas and
| only incidentally to promote the honest interplay of facts and
| ideas.
| green_rooster wrote:
| The e-mail exchange that Greenwald just published is very
| damaging to his case. His editors make some reasonable editorial
| suggestions about the focus of his piece and he immediately
| screams censorship, impugns their integrity and threatens to
| resign. I think it's extremely likely that he has been planning
| to move to an independent venture for a while and was just
| looking for the most attention-grabbing means of doing so.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| I missed this. Do you have a link?
| raverbashing wrote:
| 2c he'll be in a Trump/Republican aligned newspaper/media corp
| next week
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Very sad to read this. Glenn Greenwald is one of the few
| journalists well known for his integrity. He's famous for the
| Snowden revelations of course. I don't doubt his story.
|
| I hope he will manage to start another organisation soon.
| csa wrote:
| Whether he realizes it or not, Greenwald is a foreign
| intelligence officer's dream.
|
| Regardless of the actual authenticity of the Hunter emails, stuff
| like this is fairly easy to plant. So even if Greenwald got it
| right this time (maybe, maybe not), I can assure you that he will
| get it very wrong at least once in the future by the hands of a
| foreign intelligence officer (assuming he still has an audience).
|
| Folks who aggressively advocate for the verification of
| authenticity of documents, especially digital documents, have a
| very good reason for taking the stance that they do.
| Udik wrote:
| > Folks who aggressively advocate for the verification of
| authenticity of documents [..] have a very good reason for
| taking the stance that they do.
|
| This is for me the key quote of his reply to the editors:
|
| "Repeatedly over the past several months, I've brought to
| Betsy's attention false claims that were published by The
| Intercept [..] This rigorous editorial process emerges only
| when an article deviates from rather than recites the political
| preferences of The Intercept and/or the standard liberal view
| on political controversies."
|
| In other words, verification is obsessive when the story
| doesn't support the political side of the newspaper. When it
| does, any amount of sloppiness is fine.
| captain_price7 wrote:
| > Folks who aggressively advocate for the verification of
| authenticity of documents, especially digital documents, have a
| very good reason for taking the stance that they do.
|
| And who are those folks? Liberal media? Didn't they publish
| that embarrassingly fake accusation against Brett Kavanaugh
| that he gang-raped Julie Swetnick? Didn't they claim mutliple
| times to find "decisive proof" that Trump (himself) colluded
| with Russians, only to be humiliated again by Mueller report?
|
| It seems that the media's standard for "verification of
| authenticity" depends a lot on who, or what party is getting
| accused.
| ciarannolan wrote:
| It sounds like they wouldn't let him publish an article about the
| Hunter Biden situation.
|
| Why not share details of what he wanted to publish and what they
| barred and let people make up their own minds?
|
| He says in this letter that he will publish it soon on Substack,
| but that sort of takes the wind out of the sails of his "liberals
| are censoring me" argument.
| woeirua wrote:
| It's published: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-
| joe-and-hunter-b...
|
| My take: it's a garbage opinion piece that's peddling his own
| political views a little too hard. I think the Intercept is
| totally 100% justified in refusing to run it.
| doonesbury wrote:
| I read the article and in and of itself it's adequate. However,
| as an editor here are some of changed I'd implement esp. in
| context:
|
| - no more headlines like "what nobody (read power structure) will
| tell you .. the real story behind..." which sours information by
| building mistrust. People are wrong, don't know, sometimes right
| but the entire msm is not people lying to you and you (readers)
| are not chumps. Let's do better.
|
| - the constant bitching, whining, sniveling by media group 1
| about media groups 2, 3, 4... Look you gotta something to say,
| say it. You can argue the other side got it wrong. Say it. And
| leave it there. What I don't want to read is third grader stuff:
| Biden wears a hair piece and. NPR and CNN know it but but wont
| say anything. Whining about claimed tribes and tribe favoritism
| isn't a journalist's task. It has the side effect seen in article
| of making the writer small, powerless, and unequal to the task.
|
| The last issue I believe has its roots (maybe not chronological
| firs but in impact) to rush Limbaugh who successfully got am into
| politics by claiming mainstream media plays favorites. Fox later
| did the same on TV.
| [deleted]
| a_band wrote:
| Amazing the amount of people who are essentially reacting with
| "Greenwald was spreading foxnews disinfo" without even having
| read his article.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| How many people have asserted that they personally believe
| Greenwald was spreading disinformation and have also stated
| that they did not read his article?
| a_band wrote:
| Further context as to why the editors of the intercept seem
| to have been acting in an unprecedentedly partisan way here,
| from Greenwald:
|
| "...under my contract, and the practice of The Intercept over
| the last seven years, none of my articles is edited unless it
| presents the possibility of legal liability or complex
| original reporting, and not one of my articles in the last
| fifteen years -- published with dozens of major media outlets
| around the world -- has ever been retracted or even had
| appended to it a serious correction."
| a_band wrote:
| His article hasn't been published. Unless they've somehow got
| access to it, there's no way to verify it.
| joemaller1 wrote:
| > These are the raging battles over free expression and the right
| of dissent raging within every major cultural, political and
| journalistic institution. That's the crisis that journalism, and
| more broadly values of liberalism, faces. Our discourse is
| becoming increasingly intolerant of dissenting views, and our
| culture is demanding more and more submission to prevailing
| orthodoxies imposed by self-anointed monopolists of Truth and
| Righteousness, backed up by armies of online enforcement mobs.
| moultano wrote:
| Here's the response from the Intercept.
| https://static.theintercept.com/amp/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
|
| > The narrative Glenn presents about his departure is teeming
| with distortions and inaccuracies -- all of them designed to make
| him appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a
| tantrum. It would take too long to point them all out here, but
| we intend to correct the record in time. For now, it is important
| to make clear that our goal in editing his work was to ensure
| that it would be accurate and fair. While he accuses us of
| political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle the
| dubious claims of a political campaign -- the Trump campaign --
| and launder them as journalism.
|
| > We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald
| used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with
| him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his
| original journalistic roots, not The Intercept.
| cma wrote:
| > These are the viruses that have contaminated virtually every
| mainstream center-left political organization, academic
| institution, and newsroom.
|
| Whew, the Fox News editorial board can breathe a sigh of relief.
| tgerhard60 wrote:
| Greenwald is 2020's last-ditch Assange.
| devy wrote:
| Why as the co-founder of the organization, Glenn Greenwald don't
| have the rights to publish articles and have to yield to The
| Intercept's New York editorial board? This is baffling to me.
| PenisBanana wrote:
| Viva Glen Greenwald
| dpifke wrote:
| One thing I've wondered is at what point this becomes a campaign
| finance issue.
|
| Publications (and social networks) are free to only host speech
| they agree with. However, advertising in the same forum
| supposedly has value. If a company is promoting stories _for_ a
| certain candidate or issue, and banning all stories
| /posts/accounts _against_ , why does that not count as an in-kind
| donation, worth as much as the equivalent ads would cost?
|
| (Not arguing that this practice is illegal per se, but it seems
| like it should be acknowledged/reported.)
| modeless wrote:
| There are lots of opinions about his censored story in this
| thread. But no actual links to it. Is it published yet? Or are we
| all just speculating here?
| dx87 wrote:
| According to the post, his contract allows him to publish any
| story that The Intercept doesn't want to, but they are making
| threats preventing him from publishing it.
|
| > are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats to coerce
| me not to do so (proclaiming it would be "detrimental" to The
| Intercept if I published it elsewhere).
| roody15 wrote:
| We live in dark times..
|
| We rapidly racing to become Chine 2.0
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Hey Glen, less drama, more mamma. Good luck.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| This breaks my heart for the world, but it increases my respect
| of Glenn.
|
| Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi are my only two journalists I really
| seek out and follow. Glenn especially.
|
| I was of the belief that The Intercept was a valid source solely
| because of Glenn.
|
| I believe Glenn. I will follow Glenn.
| rat87 wrote:
| I don't know why
|
| Both of them seem to have bought into insane conspiracy
| theories about the actual Russian collision with the Trump
| campaign
| xster wrote:
| I'm surprised this didn't happen 5 years ago when the original
| group with Lee Fang and Glenn Greenwald were having open feuds on
| Twitter with the later corporate hires from NYT and WP who
| clearly held different views on journalism on just about every
| topic than Greenwald.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Has Greenwald done much journalism since Snowden's revelations? I
| stopped following him a long time ago as he was using his
| platform to advocate his own social justice agenda.
| padseeker wrote:
| Glenn is complaining that he can't discuss a story that the Wall
| Street Journal also looked into and was unwilling to risk their
| reputation on a story lacking verifiable evidence. The Wall
| Street Journal is generally a credible but also right leaning
| news source. GG's politics are to the left on most of the
| democratic party, and was unhappy with Clinton and now also
| unhappy with Biden.
| m52go wrote:
| What happens when Glenn fails to conform to Substack's standards?
|
| To my knowledge Substack hasn't censored yet, but it's
| inevitable. Glenn should just start his own site, in my opinion.
| umvi wrote:
| Hosted with whom? Some private company no doubt that could be
| pressured to censor if a big enough twitterstorm came along.
| darkerside wrote:
| You seriously think AWS or Google is going to shut down a
| private independent journalism website because of a Twitter
| storm? When has that happened in the past that makes it
| remotely possible?
| umvi wrote:
| If Cloudflare can be pressured to withdraw hosting for
| Daily Stormer, it's not hard to imagine AWS withdrawing
| hosting for Daily Stormer as well.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Ultimately you just need to own a domain. You have to get
| pretty damn extreme before domains are confiscated.
| luckylion wrote:
| Without Cloudflare & co, your domain will exist but your
| site won't be usable.
| dkarl wrote:
| Greenwald posted some emails he says are from his editor at the
| Intercept. [0]
|
| Reading the emails, his editor sounds pretty reasonable. And I
| think it's ironic that a journalist would cite ethics as his
| reason for being so hell-bent on publishing an article that does
| nothing but repeat and amplify unsubstantiated suspicions about a
| candidate a few days before the election. Greenwald's point-by-
| point attempt at rebutting his editor supports the editor's
| perspective, in my opinion. He describes the lack of evidence in
| a way that conspiratorially suggests that the evidence exists,
| and his takedown of the bigger media outlets consists of noting
| that they investigated and ran articles that failed to produce
| any damning evidence... which is exactly what his article would
| do, except his article would frame the lack of evidence as
| evidence of a bigger conspiracy.
|
| I think his faith that there's a story there is exactly what you
| need in an investigative journalist, and I think stopping him
| from publishing anyway when he doesn't find it is exactly what he
| needs in an editor.
|
| [0] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-
| edito...
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| I find it fascinating that we would never be talking about
| allegations against the Bidens family on the hacker news if not
| for the heavy handed censorship from newspaper editors and tech.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Can i put another dimension without trying to be judgmental: it
| seems to me that the younger generations of journalists (and
| audiences) are a lot more censorious by nature. I don't know the
| causes of it but it's certainly very prevalent, and it seems all
| the 'dissenters' are a few decades older. There was for a while a
| prevalent narrative of "safety" or "safe spaces", but that has
| passed, and it seems that it has been replaced by a general
| tendency to hide ucomfortable problems "under the rug".
| luckylion wrote:
| Young people are usually more radical, especially when they are
| inexperienced and believe in some ideology. Maybe we're just
| witnessing a generational shift in power in media where it's
| not a 50 year old person taking over for somebody that retires,
| but a 35 year old person (because more digital skills?).
| bachmeier wrote:
| "as a last-ditch attempt to avoid being censored, I encouraged
| them to air their disagreements with me by writing their own
| articles that critique my perspectives and letting readers decide
| who is right"
|
| That's not how this works. If the editor concludes that it's a
| garbage story dropped a few days before the election in an
| attempt to influence the election, you don't run it and then "let
| the readers decide who is right". As he well knows, all that
| matters is that the story runs, not whether it's shown to be
| false months after the election is over. Strange that he thinks
| his readers are that gullible.
|
| I want to be clear that I'm not claiming to know the truth as it
| relates to this story, only that this is the position of the
| editors, and that his argument is nonsense.
| loceng wrote:
| I'd like to see all of the critical statements and related
| content of Joe Biden that he wanted to include.
| ncal wrote:
| here's the article:
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-
| hunter-b...
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| I would withhold any opinion that it is a "garbage story" until
| actually reading it...
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| I read that "garbage story" was meant as the decision of the
| editors who would have just finished reading the story to
| decide if the story was worthy to run and not the poster's
| personal labeling of the story.
| ivalm wrote:
| It is about emails which have no headers, that are impossible
| to verify, that were "known to fbi" for a long time but
| didn't produce any action (because likely fake), and that are
| specifically being pushed to change outcome of election
| despite, again, no real evidence of their veracity.
| pwned1 wrote:
| One could simply ask the people in the email if they are
| real. "Impossible to verify" is just lazy excuse-making.
|
| This is basic journalism.
| ivalm wrote:
| So there is one shady person who says he is real but who
| can't prove anything and other people in the emails deny
| them. Of course if the emails are fake then the forgers
| would include a confederate as one of the people in the
| chain.
| JeremyHoward wrote:
| > and other people in the emails deny them.
|
| No they haven't. Neither Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, James
| Gilliar or Rob Walker, have denied that the emails and
| text messages sent to Tony Bobulinski are real.
| nwienert wrote:
| Is the shady person you're referring to Tony Bobulinski?
|
| If so, he is the documented primary business partner in
| the suspected deals who has provided verified emails,
| he's a US citizen with a history of military service who
| put his real name on the line.
|
| It doesn't get less shady than that. Unless you're
| referring to someone else.
| rebelos wrote:
| This is among the most naive comments in this thread. You
| clearly know very little about the about the history of
| military personnel, their credibility, and their
| political affiliations. You should look into Seal Team
| Six as an example. Some of them have turned out to be
| rabid crackpots.
|
| Being associated with the military confers absolutely
| zero marginal credibility over any other citizen. If
| anything, it's the opposite since there's a known
| conservative bias in military and law enforcement -
| dovish liberalism threatens their values and their power.
| starkd wrote:
| Bobulinski has audio recording talking to one of Biden
| family partners saying "if you go public with this story,
| you will bury us all".
| JeremyHoward wrote:
| Here's an audio source[1] for the people downvoting this.
|
| [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxE2nlDjYt8
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| "evidence" presented by Tucker Carlosn on Fox. you've
| already lost me there.
| nailer wrote:
| That's not how truth works. If something is not correct,
| state why it is not correct. You may not like Fox or The
| Guardian or the NYT or Daily Wire or Vox but that doesn't
| affect whether their content is true.
| zbyte64 wrote:
| Ahh yes, Tucker Carlson "I have the evidence but it was
| lost in the mail" totally wouldn't allow another to
| present a one-sided account without challenge and would
| certainly present evidence in context.
| googthrowaway42 wrote:
| Tucker Carlson has said they made copies anyway.
| scottlocklin wrote:
| FWIIW it appears that UPS located the mail.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| I will not engage with arguments presented by Tucker
| Carlson for the same reason that I wouldn't engage when
| Ted Kaczinsky presents the merits of "The Industrial
| Society and it's Future". Maybe it's my fault as a
| European that these people to me seem absolutely insane.
| (literally and in some cases even criminally insane)
| nailer wrote:
| Also European, but again: that's not how truth works.
| jeegsy wrote:
| You are wasting your time. People have arrived at the
| conclusion and are just trying to reverse engineer a
| "rational" reason for the conclusion. I mean it shouldn't
| be that hard to convince ppl what in Biden's long career
| and the millions resulting from it aren't tied up in some
| corrupt or at the very least shady activity.
| starkd wrote:
| True. But it still needs to be said.
| ivalm wrote:
| Ah yes, a literal 7 second fakeable audio involving a
| non-Biden without any context.
| googthrowaway42 wrote:
| > "It's fake"
|
| This is a cult-like millenarianist reaction.
| youtube-dl2 wrote:
| It's better than the boomers cult-like lack of critical
| thought.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| That's not how basic fact checking works. You don't just
| single source a story on the basis of that sources "trust
| me."
| remarkEon wrote:
| That's literally been the last 4 years of journalism
| surrounding this administration. Not only that, but the
| sources almost never are actually named.
| rat87 wrote:
| It hasn't but people like to pretend it has
|
| Good journalists tend to not rely on on one anonymous
| source, they check with other sources and available
| evidence. The thing is this white house is extremely
| dishonest and corrupt and leaks like a seive hence a lot
| of anonymous sources
| naiveprogrammer wrote:
| You are nto following the story, cleary. Not only some
| texts have been verified, they have a former business
| partner going on record, verifying the messages along the
| way. What else do you want? People involved in the threads
| are claiming the messages to be true. What else do you
| want?
|
| And, by the way, I could care less for the video and
| photographic content of that laptop, to me that content is
| irrelevant --actually, I feel sorry for Joe Biden and I
| can't imagine how hard it must be to have a son who is a
| drug addict and a man child. But shouldn't that also
| corroborate the validity of the laptop content? Why isn't
| the media all over it?
|
| And, please, let's not pretend that several Trump stories
| came from anonymous sources with no audio or text evidence.
| And the mainstream media danced all over it. For instance,
| the (supposedly) anonymous senior administration who was
| part of the resistance. Not only did the NYT run stories on
| his unverified accounts (no audio/text/video to back it
| up), they also wrote a book with his accounts. And we just
| learned that this senior admin wasn't senior after all. How
| can you really read thsoe stories and not come way
| perplexed by the blatant bias? I understand why people hate
| Trump, but is it worth to abandon journalism standards?
| Where do we go from here?
| Karunamon wrote:
| At this point I'm forced to conclude that there is more
| evidence pointing towards the authenticity of this
| information than pointing away from it.
|
| Consider:
|
| - The FBI came out and said there's no evidence of foreign
| disinformation.
|
| - As has the DOJ.
|
| - As has the director of national intelligence.
|
| - Hunter's lawyer contacting the shop owner to ask for the
| return of the hardware
|
| - The FBI's grand jury subpoena for the laptop
|
| - The Biden campaign's weak (those meetings weren't in our
| schedule), later walked back to non (they might have
| happened anyways), repudiation of authenticity
|
| - Travel mentioned in the emails matches up with Secret
| Service travel records
|
| - The absurd volume of pictures of Hunter Biden in
| compromising positions
|
| The argument _against_ authenticity, at this point, falls
| deeper and deeper into conspiracy theorist territory. At
| the very least, it fails Occam 's razor. The best argument
| I know of against authenticity is the lack of release of
| any raw messages with headers, but even that is pretty low-
| impact in the face of FBI/DOJ/DNI confirmation.
|
| I've collected what I found so far here, both arguments for
| and against, with sources where possible:
| https://www.kialo.com/are-the-hunter-biden-emails-as-
| release...
|
| If the raw messages are later released in whole, and the
| DKIM is validated, that's the smoking gun. A number of
| media organizations are then going to have some very
| uncomfortable questions to answer. The same later applies
| to some of our three-letter agencies if they turn out to be
| bogus. That would mean our investigative and intelligence
| agencies are both tainted.
| hailwren wrote:
| This argument is specifically, and repeatedly, addressed by
| Greenwald in his article. [1]
|
| > The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much
| verification as those other archives that were widely
| reported. There are sources in the email chains who have
| verified that the published emails are accurate. The
| archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose
| authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of
| Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that
| not only are the emails authentic but they describe events
| accurately, including proposed participation by the former
| Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden
| were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all,
| neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even
| suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text
| is fake.
|
| 1 - https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-
| hunter-b...
| nightowl_games wrote:
| We need to have faith in the general public that if this
| story comes out, along with the set of doubts that you just
| mentioned, that the public will be able to interpret it
| accurately.
|
| Keep in mind that _you_ are a member of the public.
|
| Your statement is counter to fundamental thesis of
| democracy. We must believe in the intelligence of the
| public to make an educated decision.
|
| Your statement is also counter to the fundamental thesis of
| capitalism. We must believe in the intelligence of the
| consumer to make an educated decision.
|
| If you don't believe in the sanctity of the public to make
| educated decisions, than what do you suggest we do to
| restore the fallen pillars of our society? You no longer
| believe in the capability of the public to perform
| capitalism and democracy. Rather, you believe that some
| subset of society should wield the power to influence the
| lower masses. Like rats in a maze.
|
| Now, that I have characterized this harsh dichotomy for
| you, you must face the question are you a rat in a cage or
| are you one of the puppet masters?
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| The emails have literally been verified by people on the
| emails and further their authenticity has never been denied
| by the Biden campaign. To claim that they are fake or
| disinformation at this point is either an act of extreme
| ignorance or duplicitous intent.
| Wistar wrote:
| No denial other than Joe Biden saying, "I have not taken
| a penny from any foreign source ever in my life," during
| the 3rd Presidential debate.
|
| It's not Biden's to deny, it's Giuliani's to prove.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| To be fair, the implication in the emails isn't that he
| took money directly, but that his son held it for him. So
| the answer given above doesn't actually answer the
| question on enrichment of office.
|
| It's not only Biden's to deny, it's His brothers, His
| Sons, and the others named. Further, if the information
| wasn't true or not believe to be true, why is it being
| blacklisted / treated as it's true? Why was distribution
| banned?
|
| That's the questions being asked that are being shut
| down.
| Wistar wrote:
| Generally, unverifiable information is not given much
| airplay. Not even Fox News or the WSJ would touch this
| one.
|
| Making an outrageous accusation and then demanding that
| the accused defend themselves against it is an old Glenn
| Beck technique. Sort of like the question, "Are you still
| beating your wife?"
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| Responding to sibling comment.
|
| Fox News's most popular show is Tucker Carlson's.
|
| Note that Fox lawyers recently argued in court that
| Carlson has no obligation to tell the truth.
|
| Fox News Argues Viewers Don't Assume Tucker Carlson
| Reports Facts
|
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/fox-news-
| defends-t...
| blhack wrote:
| >Not even Fox News or the WSJ would touch this one.
|
| Fox New's most popular show, and as far as I know the
| most popular cable news show there is, dedicated their
| entire hour to an interview with one of the people
| involved in this story, and has been covering the story
| extensively for the last week. What you are saying here
| is absolutely wrong.
|
| And I mean, just a quick google search also shows that
| WSJ was writing stories about this a couple of weeks ago:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hunter-biden-
| business-11602...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Fox New's most popular show, and as far as I know the
| most popular cable news show there is
|
| Carlson's show doesn't even pretend to be a news show, in
| the sense of something that communicates what is even
| purportedly actual facts about the subjects it discusses,
| it is a vehicle for presenting hyperbole and non-literal
| commentary which is recognized as such by any reasonable
| viewer.
|
| That's not just me, that's Fox News's own _successful_
| argument defending the show against defamation claims.
| Seam0nkey wrote:
| To clarify the WSJ opinion section wrote articles
| including the one you linked that treat the allegations
| credibly. The newsroom wasn't as generous:
| https://variety.com/2020/politics/news/wall-street-
| journal-h...
| ufo wrote:
| I think what they were talking about is that before Rudy
| Giuliani approached the NY Post he tried to get Fox News
| to publish the story but they refused it.
| Wistar wrote:
| I should have been clearer. The news departments of those
| two Murdoch entities would not touch the story. Anything
| goes in the oped department.
| sandwichest wrote:
| The New York Post is a 200 year old publication started
| by Alexander Hamilton, it's not some fringe media source.
| [deleted]
| fiblye wrote:
| A few elections back, there was a the "swift boat"
| controversy with John Kerry. Out of nowhere a bunch of
| people who worked with Kerry claimed his military
| experience was fraudulent in some way and the media ate
| it up, being one of the major factors that costed him the
| election.
|
| Later on, and with more digging, people who were near him
| at the time confirmed that the controversy was all a
| sham. The people who previously claimed Kerry lied all
| suddenly claimed they misremembered, or gently admitted
| that they lied. There were just enough bits and pieces of
| facts to build a story, and BS was used to glue it all
| together.
|
| I think people are seeing a repeat of that. Some things
| may be true, but a lot of overly convenient information
| is coming out to bind it together that's hard to
| absolutely verify and will likely collapse under
| scrutiny.
| meowface wrote:
| They should be treated with caution and skepticism, but you
| seem to be using motivated reasoning without an impartial
| look of the actual probabilities. There's no hard proof
| they're real and no hard proof they're doctored. This
| requires a rigorous analysis, not dismissal.
| drewrv wrote:
| > There's no hard proof they're real
|
| Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without
| evidence.
| meowface wrote:
| "Hard proof" is different from "evidence". In my opinion,
| there is some evidence:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24934971
|
| Of course it's not proof, but there's currently some
| evidence indicating it's real, and currently no evidence
| indicating it's doctored. Given the circumstances, it'd
| be extremely irresponsible for any media outlet to assume
| they're definitely true, but it's almost as irresponsible
| to assume they can't possibly be true and to not even
| raise the possibility they could be real.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > This requires a rigorous analysis, not dismissal.
|
| a distraction so to speak. This is exactly why they're
| doing it.
| ivalm wrote:
| "Facts" conveniently dropped right before election whose
| veracity cannot be proven and which were clearly placed
| to affect the election outcome should be treated as fake
| and not promulgated in public discourse. Otherwise it
| encourages release of outrageous lies right before
| election and degrades the whole process.
| meowface wrote:
| Will you change your stance on this, in a general sense,
| if it's all later confirmed to be real? And isn't it true
| that someone wishing to affect an election, and in
| possession of real information, would take the exact same
| action? You can't judge truth solely based on motive.
| That motive and action is consistent with the carefully
| timed release of either fake or real information.
|
| The same was probably true of the person who leaked
| Trump's tax returns before the election. Of course they
| were initially treated with caution, but the media worked
| to confirm their veracity. Here they won't even ask the
| question.
|
| I don't think the emails contain anything very damaging
| to Biden, as far as I can tell. I think the cover-up,
| lack of care about truth, and blind zealotry is way worse
| than anything in the emails. I do happen to think the
| emails are > 50% likely real, but the absolute refusal to
| consider them impartially is the actual problem, not the
| emails. It just shows neither pro-Trump nor anti-Trump
| give a single shit about truth. They just care about
| winning. Ideology trumps epistemology.
| teclordphrack2 wrote:
| Do you think Obama was told that Hilary was going to
| claim russia was helping trump?
| ivalm wrote:
| I want to discourage anyone trying to "time dropping
| facts", real or not. If you have real evidence then
| publish it when you get it. I disliked the NYT Trump
| taxes expose timing as well, although at least they put a
| bigger lead time to election.
|
| The problem with these timed attacks is that they
| fundamentally encourage lying to affect elections.
| rat87 wrote:
| Trump probably illegally cheated on his taxes what's
| wrong with Nytimes reporting that
|
| Oh you meant the more recent taxes expose.
| kolanos wrote:
| The FBI, according to reports, received this laptop at
| the same time Trump was being impeached for asking
| Ukraine to investigate the matter. It appears the FBI sat
| on this evidence for 9 months.
|
| > Meanwhile, additional documents obtained by Fox News
| include FBI paperwork that details the bureau's
| interactions with John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of "The
| Mac Shop" who reported the laptop's contents to
| authorities, as first reported by the New York Post. >
| Isaac received a subpoena to testify before U.S. District
| Court in Delaware on Dec. 9, 2019, the documents show.
| One page shows what appears to be serial numbers for a
| laptop and hard drive taken into possession.
|
| [0]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-purported-
| hunter-biden-...
| meowface wrote:
| I don't agree that they encourage lying. "October
| Surprises" have been a thing for a very long time. It's
| just politics; the whole point of politics is to try to
| get your person to win and the other person to lose.
|
| I think the NYT with the tax returns and the NY Post with
| the emails both acted properly, personally. (Though I
| strongly distrust both of them in general. NY Post much
| more so, but NYT gets worse and worse by the month, in my
| eyes.)
|
| It's also unclear if either of them hoarded anything;
| they both may have published their pieces as quickly as
| they could, given the circumstances and when they
| received the information. I might be missing some
| evidence of hoarding; apologies if so.
| tzs wrote:
| > I don't think the emails contain anything very damaging
| to Biden, as far as I can tell.
|
| This is the weirdest part about Republican attacks on
| Biden's ethics or integrity. All that I have seen have
| been accusing Biden or his family of things that Trump
| and his family do much more often than the Biden's are
| alleged to have done them.
|
| In a rational world, that kind of attack would totally
| backfire.
|
| But it's pretty clear people aren't rational. I've had
| people tell me that Trump must be trustworthy because
| he's a billionaire, and had the _same_ people tell me
| that Gates, Soros, Buffett, and Bezos cannot be trusted
| because they are billionaires. Huh!?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > All that I have seen have been accusing Biden or his
| family of things that Trump and his family do much more
| often than the Biden's are alleged to have done them.
|
| Attack your enemy (especially falsely!) for the things
| you are guilty of so the people who are outside of the
| bubble that uncritically listens to propaganda (yours or
| your opponents) have been primed to dismiss that line of
| attack as just the kind of thing that propagandists
| invent about their enemies isn't a novel technique.
| meowface wrote:
| I fully agree with you. That's why I think the cover-up
| is way, way worse than the actual original thing. It was
| a nothingburger, and now the media's unintentionally
| turned it into one of the biggest controversies of the
| year, by refusing to treat it in a reasonable and
| balanced way. It's the epitome of the Streisand effect.
|
| This is why I keep posting about this. It's all just
| unwittingly helping Trump, all because they somehow think
| being journalists is the thing that'd actually help him
| or will cause accusations of helping him if he wins.
|
| There's a middleground here. Of course the media having a
| front page headline about the emails every day would be
| irresponsible. But refusing to talk about it or look at
| it inquisitively, at all, ever, is just as irresponsible.
| As is Twitter censoring links to it.
| zzleeper wrote:
| > the media's unintentionally turned it into one if the
| biggest controversies of the year
|
| Maybe in the Republican bubble. Outside of it, no one
| really cares and sees it as a weird and poorly executed
| complot
| meowface wrote:
| I think you're very wrong. I'm the opposite of a
| Republican, and I think this scandal (the media's and
| Twitter's behavior, not the emails) is big. Matt Taibbi,
| a very definitely not-Republican journalist, agrees:
| https://taibbi.substack.com/p/with-the-hunter-biden-
| expose-s...
|
| I think the main reason it's not a big controversy
| elsewhere is due to exactly what you mention - both
| bubbles absolutely reject anything negative about their
| side and absolutely accept anything negative about the
| opposing side. So of course one bubble won't care, or
| even be aware of what's going on.
| rat87 wrote:
| Taibbi like Greenwald has gone gaga against the
| establishment/evidence of Trump's collusion with Russia.
|
| I don't think many people care what he has to say
|
| More relevant is
| https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/28/trump-
| conspiracy-th...
|
| Basically a bunch of Republican operatives admitting that
| virtually no one is buying the BS and that's it's not a
| useful line of attack
| meowface wrote:
| There wasn't any evidence of Trump colluding with Russia,
| though, as explained in Mueller's report. Greenwald has
| in the past gone so far as to even doubt interference,
| but he seems to have changed his stance and on JRE the
| other day he did say they interfered. Also, as you can
| tell from my post history, I strongly dislike Trump and
| everything he stands for, to be absolutely clear. I just
| want to accuse him of the thousands of things he's
| actually guilty of and not the things he's not guilty of.
|
| If you read Taibbi's article, he's not at all claiming
| that the emails are damaging to Biden. The headline is
| "With the Hunter Biden Expose, Suppression is a Bigger
| Scandal Than The Actual Story".
|
| Like in my posts, he's talking about the media's and
| Twitter's behavior in censoring the story - not the
| emails themselves. Everything he says is perfectly
| consistent with what's said in the Politico article you
| linked.
|
| Taibbi is one of the most reputable, high-integrity,
| rational, and truth-seeking journalists working today, in
| my opinion. Reality often sits between a gray area of
| poles.
| nailer wrote:
| Russiagate has been investigated with insufficient
| evidence to charge anyone in the Trump campaign. You can
| easily verify this for yourself. Please stop promoting
| conspiracy theories.
| starkd wrote:
| Biden could have addressed this months ago. the fact that
| he hasn't is very telling. Before he got the nomination,
| major publications were running stories about it, like
| Politico and Bloomberg, etc.
| meowface wrote:
| Absolutely, and there're several other indicators as
| well. I think it's still unclear if all of it's real, and
| the acquisition story seems sketchy (and very unethical
| if true), but it seems more likely than not to be legit.
|
| I think staying silent about it is absolutely the
| smartest move on Joe's part. Trying to defend the
| contents will only draw more attention to them. It's the
| media's refusal to be actual journalists that's the dumb
| thing.
| starkd wrote:
| The fact that he's not addressing this properly is the
| scandalous part. Don't we deserve answers. Even if he's
| elected, this is not going away and will only hobble his
| administration. He needs to clear it up and get it out of
| the way. There's a troubling trend among democrat
| nominees to suppress. Like him or hate him, you have to
| admit Trump holds press conferences and answers
| questions.
| meowface wrote:
| Eh, any politician would probably do the same.
|
| I strongly disagree about Trump. That's basically been
| Trump's exact MO since forever; any real story concerning
| him just gets instantly dismissed. "It's locker room
| talk", "it's fake news", etc. Trump and his White House
| have held far fewer press conferences than past
| presidents. And at his press conferences, he refuses many
| questions and dismisses others with either non-answers or
| just his typical bullshit salesman-speak.
|
| I do think this is probably the "Trumpiest" Biden has
| acted so far, but I think I'd probably do the same thing
| if I were in his position, honestly. At least until the
| election is over. It's politics. He doesn't want to throw
| too much gasoline on the fire. It's just the media's and
| Twitter's behavior that I just mind-boggling and gross,
| and the irrational way so much of the left is treating
| it.
| starkd wrote:
| My point is that we can survive a Biden or Trump. But
| once you start suppressing points of view, in the end,
| the election outcome won't matter. And if they think they
| are doing it "just this once" to save the country, they
| will do it again, as soon as its convenient for them.
| These are not the signs of a healthy free press.
| ivalm wrote:
| What do you mean he knew about it months ago? The point
| is that this is all just a fabrication, there is no story
| to address. That's why they are pushing it now and not
| months ago.
| meowface wrote:
| I'd be willing to take a bet with you that they're not a
| fabrication, if you want.
|
| If they were a fabrication, the smartest thing to do
| would be a vehement pronouncement that it's all doctored,
| fake bullshit. It'd make sense to do that once and then
| never talk about it again and refuse questions, but the
| fact that there's not a single denial is telling. It's
| definitely not proof, but it's a sign.
|
| Also, at least one email thread was corroborated by
| someone else on the thread as being real. That doesn't
| prove the rest of the emails are real, but it increases
| the likelihood.
|
| Again, I don't even think there's anything damaging in
| there. But the absolute kneejerk insistence that they're
| fabricated, and that even trying to be impartial about it
| is giving into propaganda, by so many people, is pretty
| bizarre to me. There's a reasonable, rational, balanced
| middle ground here that very few people (besides some
| actual journalists like Matt Taibbi, Ross Douthat, and
| perhaps Glenn Greenwald - pending exactly what he says in
| this forthcoming article) seem to be taking.
| nneonneo wrote:
| If Biden came out and said it was false, he'd (a) be
| giving this garbage more air time than it deserved, and
| (b) embolden people who think it's a cover-up. There's no
| reason to believe that making such a statement would
| actually improve things; rather, it would probably make
| things much worse.
|
| You say there's nothing damaging in there. If that's the
| case then the Biden campaign has even less reason to
| respond.
| meowface wrote:
| At this late stage, yeah, you'd probably be right. But
| when the story first broke - before a cover-up, before
| most of the air time - if someone completely forged some
| emails, it would be the reasonable thing to do.
|
| There's _probably_ nothing really damaging. But some
| things in it could still potentially be interpreted that
| way, to the point that if someone had completely
| fabricated the emails, I think it 'd be worth coming out
| and saying "to be clear, these are blatantly made up, my
| son never sent this email/these emails" even just once.
| Even in just an off-hand comment in an interview.
|
| For example, here's a screenshot of a few of the emails
| in question: https://i.imgur.com/XNQarwF.png
|
| Is this a smoking gun of corruption of any sort?
| Obviously not. But could it raise some questions, before
| an important election? It could. If someone had
| completely fabricated this email, in my opinion almost
| any rational person would, at least once, somewhere, say
| or write that it was absolutely completely fabricated.
| Additionally, someone on this exact email thread
| corroborates that the email thread is all real, and
| claims that "H" is Hunter Biden and "the big guy" is Joe
| Biden, which seems plausible given the email context.
|
| I think it definitely is a cover-up. Not because of some
| collusion between Biden and the media; I think it's all
| social forces and incentives.
|
| Optically, the media doesn't want accusations of having
| helped Trump win if he wins.
|
| At the object level, a large percentage of people in the
| media lean left and strongly dislike Trump and don't want
| to do anything that might help him win.
|
| And, probably, some percentage may also be so biased that
| they really think there's no possible way the emails
| could be real.
|
| In the last case it wouldn't be called a cover-up, but
| it's being awful at one's job. In all of the cases, it's
| not a cover-up in the sense of a nefarious conspiracy,
| but it's journalists not being journalists due to strong
| political bias.
|
| I think if this were leaked emails about Trump, the
| right-leaning media would've done exactly the same thing
| and not reported on it, or only reported that "the left-
| wing media is spewing conspiracy theories again!", as the
| inverse of what's happening here. I think the lesson
| that's reinforced here for me is just that all media
| organizations of any kind once again can't be trusted
| when it comes to actually caring about truth and
| epistemology.
| teclordphrack2 wrote:
| "before a cover-up" Its been talked about and has as many
| holes in it as the other dozen attempted smears.
| meowface wrote:
| It's not about the holes, it's about if it's newsworthy
| to even discuss, and in my opinion it is newsworthy to
| discuss. There's a difference between holes and bullshit.
| The emails are real; the extrapolations and Bobulinski's
| claims are what's unclear. Some of his claims are
| objectively true, and some may not be.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| >If they were a fabrication, the smartest thing to do
| would be a vehement pronouncement that it's all doctored,
| fake bullshit
|
| This is false, and rather laughable. If he addresses them
| directly, then that gives legitimate news organizations
| license to report on his denial, including reporting on
| the accusations. By not denying them he puts the onus on
| those pushing the story to demonstrate its legitimacy
| first.
| meowface wrote:
| I don't agree at all. Quoting another comment I made:
|
| >For example, here's a screenshot of a few of the emails
| in question: https://i.imgur.com/XNQarwF.png
|
| >Is this a smoking gun of corruption of any sort?
| Obviously not. But could it raise some questions, before
| an important election? It could. If someone had
| completely fabricated this email, in my opinion almost
| any rational person would, at least once, somewhere, say
| or write that it was absolutely completely fabricated.
|
| >Additionally, someone on this exact email thread
| corroborates that the email thread is all real, and
| claims that "H" is Hunter Biden and "the big guy" is Joe
| Biden, which seems plausible given the email context.
|
| The smartest move, if they're true, is to be silent. The
| smartest move, if even a single email is doctored, is to
| protest that it's fake.
|
| There's already been tons of reporting in non-left-
| aligned media about the emails and the fact that his
| silence is suggestive of them being real. If he were to
| deny it, the very little bit of reporting that NYT etc.
| did about it, suggesting it's likely disinformation,
| likely from Russia, could be even more strong with its
| claims that it's total bullshit.
|
| Combined with the corroboration of the person in that
| email thread, and the fact there isn't anything that
| interesting in the emails (why doctor something so
| boring? like with the DNC emails hacked and leaked by
| Russian intelligence), I'm happy to bet money with you
| that they'll be proven to be legitimate within a few
| months. I don't think it's proven at all, but I think
| it's more likely than not.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| There was an article I saw recently quoting from a right-
| wing political operative about smears. The takeaway was
| that a smear has little value if it stays contained
| within right-wing echo chambers. The goal is to get the
| mainstream press to talk about it non-stop. That is the
| mark of a successful smear campaign (this is tangential
| to the information's accuracy).
|
| The fact that the mainstream press hasn't talked about
| the controversy much outside of the context of twitter et
| al blocking its dissemination, or it being a suspected
| disinformation campaign is a win for Biden. Denying the
| content of the controversy suddenly allows the story to
| be reported as a he-said, she-said, giving the story a
| life of its own. This does a disservice to Biden because
| now the reporting can be neutral between the parties. The
| battle here is over swing voters, and a he-said/she-said
| controversy is exactly the kind of nebulous "concerns"
| the GOP hope to raise about Biden. It was the specter of
| _something_ going on that defeated Hillary and they 're
| hoping to repeat this with Biden. Not addressing the
| specifics of the controversy allows the story to stay
| where it belongs, as a right-wing media hail mary.
|
| As a comparison, mainstream press didn't report on the
| Trump dossier until Buzzfeed's reporting of the dossier
| became the story. Once the story becomes reified,
| mainstream outlets can then report on the controversy.
| The winning move is to keep the story from becoming its
| own controversy. Not addressing it directly helps to
| accomplish this.
| starkd wrote:
| The drug use and pornography is not relevant and more of
| a distraction. But the indications he may have been paid
| off by the CCP is troubling, and would mean he's a
| compromised candidate. We've spent the last four years of
| dire warnings from the media about Russian information,
| only to see them ignore the vast influence of CCP money
| around the globe.
| meowface wrote:
| I don't think the emails show clear signs of any improper
| behavior with respect to China. It's not necessarily
| unethical for his family to have had businesses or
| business relationships in other countries, and it's not
| necessarily evidence of any relationship with the CCP.
| The CCP technically controls all business, so it could be
| said that any business dealing with any part of China is
| dealing with the CCP, but I think that'd be unfair if
| there's not an actual, concrete governmental
| relationship.
|
| And so far, there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence
| that Joe was profiting from or involved with any of the
| deals himself (though there are some accusations of
| this).
|
| The leaks are worthy of fair assessment and research, but
| people definitely shouldn't jump to conclusions of
| corruption.
| starkd wrote:
| I don't know. Watch Tucker Carlson's Bobulinski
| interview. He's got nothing to gain from this and comes
| off very credible. He accounts messages from the Biden
| family, even Biden himself that are very troubling. Not
| to mention the "plausible deniability" line chortled by
| his brother Jim. It deserves an accounting from the
| candidate. The company they got money, the CFEC was
| controlled by the CCP.
| lhnz wrote:
| > I don't think the emails show clear signs > of
| any improper behavior with respect to China.
|
| Yeah, but there was this recent report
| (https://www.baldingsworld.com/2020/10/22/report-on-
| biden-act...) which does seem to show clear links to the
| Bidens having received CCP money.
| uoaei wrote:
| Observing similar cases throughout history, the lack of
| immediate denial and dismissal is a very strong signal
| that there is some truth to it.
|
| Take for instance the Podesta emails as a recent example.
| No one denied that they were real, just denounced the
| means by which they were made public.
| meowface wrote:
| Exactly. And the acquisition here also has a very sketchy
| story. It kind of sounds made up. If it's true, it's very
| unethical. If it's untrue, it very likely still was. But
| the method of acquisition doesn't say anything about the
| content itself.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| No. Responding to smears gives them more attention than
| they would otherwise get ruminating in the bowels of the
| internet. Those who are calling for Biden to deny them
| really want him to legitimize the content by addressing
| them.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| I would say the most likely reason the FBI did nothing
| because there was no crime.
|
| What Hunter/Joe Biden are accused of doing is a very
| popular scam among politicians in most countries and unless
| you are dumb enough to explicitly put in writing a bribery
| scheme then there is very little legal risk.
|
| The scam comes about because it is fundamentally unfair to
| limit the employment opportunities of a politician's family
| or the politician themselves after they leave office. So
| what happen is that companies will put a politician's
| family members into positions of employment where there is
| a large gap between the value they produce in that position
| and what their reenumeration is. Alternatively, after the
| politician leaves office they will be parachuted into one
| of these scam jobs.
|
| In return for organising these scam positions the company
| gets some alternative value from the politician. There can
| be a whole range of value from impressing (helping to scam)
| third parties to actually getting favourable government
| action or policy changes.
|
| I feel like this is a very common arrangement for
| politicians and this is part of the reason there is a lot
| of pressure by the media to not cover this.
| starkd wrote:
| Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open
| debate. That's the way the first amendment works.
|
| There are reasons to not think its purely garbage storage,
| as many have pointed out. Not to mention a business
| partner, and someone who was sentenced to jail who has
| released their gmail account to the public.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open
| debate.
|
| We learned this doesn't work all that well with the Comey
| letter eleven days before the 2016 election. "We've
| reopened the Hillary investigation" turned into "oops,
| nothing new" a few days _after_ the election.
|
| "A lie can travel half way around the world while the
| truth is putting on its shoes."
| starkd wrote:
| Biden could have addressed this story months ago. He knew
| about it. You'd think the democrats would have learned
| not to nominate a second clinton who refuses questions.
| They still think its easy to stomp on a story than
| address it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Biden could have addressed this story months ago.
|
| _If_ the story is true. If it 's a fabrication - as they
| allege, and given that Fox News passed on it
| (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
| electio...) and the Post's reporter didn't want his
| byline on it
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-
| york-p...), seems reasonably likely - they didn't hear
| about it until last week.
| ivalm wrote:
| What do you mean he knew about it months ago? The point
| is that this is all just a fabrication, there is no story
| to address.
| noxer wrote:
| I get flagged what a surprise. HN once again shows is
| bias. Anyway the evidences are out there. Everyone who
| wants to see them can. The rest should enjoy their bubble
| for now. Its gonna pop sooner or later.
| noxer wrote:
| You really hope it is dont you? I would suggest you to go
| and read some "news pages" from the dark side, the ones
| you dont agree with. The evidences are overwhelming. You
| can literally find Biden Hunter porn by now on the web
| because some stuff has leaked. Ofc its all fabricated by
| the people who fabricated the laptop and phones and 3000
| emails and instant messages and what not. Must be Russia
| or China behind it except none of them have any interest
| in harming the Biden campaign.
| nradov wrote:
| Comey's letter wasn't a lie. The timing was bad but it
| accurately represented what the FBI was doing at the
| time.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm not saying the Comey letter was a lie; I'm saying
| media organizations made mistakes in how they covered it.
| If you prefer:
|
| "A fact that's missing critical context can travel half
| way around the world while the full context is putting on
| its shoes."
|
| The same fundamental concept is at play here.
| rat87 wrote:
| It was against FBI policy to declare that so close to an
| election
|
| Supposedly Comey violated it because some FBI agents were
| already illegally leaking it to Guliani and he was sure
| Clinton would win anyway
| thrill wrote:
| The first amendment has nothing to do with activities
| outside Congress making laws.
| xref wrote:
| You've gotten some downvotes so figure I'd paste the
| actual text of the first amendment here so people know
| exactly what you're referring to:
|
| > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
| of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
| petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
| starkd wrote:
| huh? it's an inalienable right of us all. It either
| applies to all of us or it is meaningless.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| So if the intercept refuses to publish my story, they are
| infringing upon my first amendment rights?
| ghaff wrote:
| You might want to actually read the first amendment:
|
| _Congress shall make no law_ [emphasis added] respecting
| an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
| exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
| of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
| assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
| grievances.
|
| (In various ways that aren't very relevant to the current
| discussion, this generally applies to states as well.)
| watermelonhead wrote:
| Lol, hiding under this rubbish argument to censor
| everything that you dont like. Incredible
| tzs wrote:
| > Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open
| debate.
|
| It's a non-tabloid newspaper. What I want and expect from
| such a publication is to only see stories for which the
| basic underlying facts have already been verified. There
| might still be disagreements over the implications of
| those facts and how to act on them, which I want and
| expect to see covered.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| While I haven't seen Greenwald's piece, there is a _lot_
| more to the "Hunter Biden leaks" than some screenshots of
| emails allegedly recovered from a laptop.
| starkd wrote:
| You can't do that if its censored.
| skybrian wrote:
| You also can't say for sure whether it's true or not if
| it's _not_ censored. At best you can judge plausibility,
| but plausibility isn 't truth.
|
| Most evidence can be faked. The chain of custody for
| evidence is important, and that's not a property of the
| evidence, but of its history.
|
| There's no substitute for trust in the person or
| organization reporting the news.
| starkd wrote:
| They can be cross referenced with the information that's
| in the emails. Many have already done this. A business
| partner, Bobulinski, and a gmail account of one of his
| partners serving in prison. This is a moving story. The
| non-interest in even trying to verify it, as pointed out
| by Greenwald, is very concerning.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| It hasn't been, though. Private citizens of a private
| company opted not to publish it in their paper, and that's
| not the same thing.
| dx87 wrote:
| And he says that they're threatening litigation if he
| publishes it anywhere else because it could make them
| look bad.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Where did he say that? Towards the top of the linked
| substack, he says: "The censored article will be
| published on this page shortly."
|
| Edit: I dunno if I agree that this counts.
|
| "But Intercept editors in New York are demanding I not
| only accept their censorship of my article at The
| Intercept, but also refrain from publishing it with any
| other journalistic outlet, and are using thinly disguised
| lawyer-crafted threats to coerce me not to do so
| (proclaiming it would be "detrimental" to The Intercept
| if I published it elsewhere)."
| RonanTheGrey wrote:
| > are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats
|
| I don't think there's any other way to interpret that
| than "threatening litigation". You don't receive a
| message from a company's lawyers because they're having a
| friendly conversation about not intending to do anything.
| juniper_strong wrote:
| Here's the Merriam-Webster definition of censored:
| "suppressed, altered, or deleted as objectionable :
| subjected to censorship".
|
| Government censorship is a subset of censorship. Private
| citizens of a private company are perfectly capable of
| suppressing, altering, or deleting material they consider
| objectionable, which seems to have been what happened in
| this case.
| nojito wrote:
| If the entire editorial team and his peers rejected it, it
| seems pretty clear.
| tomp wrote:
| Vs someone with the history of journalistic integrity and
| clout as Greenwald, there's no doubt in my mind whom I'd
| trust more on their opinion (btw: it's not the New York
| editorial elite).
| jtbayly wrote:
| Yep. Just like the entire team of conference organizers
| decided that there was a code of conduct violation. No
| doubt about it. He's guilty. I don't need to evaluate any
| evidence to know that. It's obvious.
| ping_pong wrote:
| There was an almost mutiny from the NYT when they published
| Tom Cotton's article in their op-ed, which forced the
| editor to resign. They couldn't bear hearing from the other
| side, and this is just another example of the same
| mentality. This is exactly what Greenwald and Tabbiti have
| been reporting about, the fascist left censoring or wanting
| to censor the news to only those opinions that they want to
| hear.
|
| EDIT: For the record, I'm "center-left". When I say fascist
| left, I mean the extreme left who believe that anyone who
| disagrees with them is the enemy. Unfortunately this belief
| is spreading more and more amongst the left, but I still
| believe there are a lot of moderate, even-headed left but
| the conversation is being dominated by the fascist left.
| ghayes wrote:
| The use of terms like "the fascist left" makes it harder
| to appreciate the merits of statements like this. Also,
| the phrase is a bit oxymoronic as fascism is,
| specifically, a conservative ideology.
| starkd wrote:
| Nobody really knows what fascism is. It's more of an
| excuse to make up the rules as you go along to obtain a
| certain objective. Both left and right are susceptible to
| it. That's why we need transparency and a free and open
| press.
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| > Nobody really knows what fascism is. It's more of an
| excuse to make up the rules as you go along to obtain a
| certain objective. Both left and right are susceptible to
| it.
|
| This really only serves to muddy the waters. There are a
| few clear and well-recognized definitions of fascism: htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#By_scho
| ...
|
| There may be some differences, but they very clearly
| describe the same set of core traits.
| starkd wrote:
| My point was that its not a "left" or "right" phenomenon.
| The political extremes tend to resemble one another as
| they are willing to forego principles such as free speech
| in order to suppress political opponents. Everyone should
| be very weary of this. We can survive Trump, what we
| can't survive is a press that feels the need to censor
| content. If they get away with it, they will use it again
| and again.
| Fellshard wrote:
| A better phrasing of the parent post is that very few
| people use the term fascism based on its actual
| definition; it's a highly-parroted word whose colloquial
| meaning has been entirely diluted, yet still carries
| gargantuan negative weight.
| mizzack wrote:
| Fascism wasn't a strictly conservative ideology until the
| fascist left redefined it to mean that.
|
| /s
|
| /s/s?
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "Fascism " means basically "really bad" the same way
| "Hitler" means "really bad". I really hate it that most
| groups have their favorite bad words, be it "racist",
| "socialist", "fascist" or "neocon" without having even a
| basic understanding of their meaning or history. They all
| just mean "so bad that it can't be even discussed or
| questioned".
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Perhaps the term "the authoritarian left" or "the
| totalitarian left" would fit a bit better. I think in
| context their point is very clear though.
| abecedarius wrote:
| For those on the left who're against free speech and
| such, I've started using "antiliberal left". I'm not even
| sure they'd object to the term. (Consider this a try at
| finding out.)
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| One of Gentile's elements defining fascism is "a police
| apparatus that prevents, controls, and represses
| dissidence and opposition, including through the use of
| organized terror." Sending in the military against
| protesters would be literally a textbook example.
|
| Cotton's OpEd was a prominent member of government
| advocating for fascist actions.
|
| The irony here is palpable.
| ping_pong wrote:
| He specifically said rioters, not protesters. Read the
| actual op-ed.
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| I did, when it came out. Labeling them as rioters did not
| make the piece any less concerning.
|
| Read up on the Reichstag fire and how it was used to
| justify suspension of civil rights. The parallels are
| striking.
| ping_pong wrote:
| You didn't read it properly, because he never said
| protesters. Changing "rioters" to "protesters" completely
| changes the meaning of what Cotton said. I don't agree
| with him, but I am vehemently against people twisting
| others' words to spread lies and misinformation. He said
| "rioters". Don't lie and say he said "protesters" because
| then you are implying he is trying to quash free speech
| with the military.
|
| In this case, you are the one in the wrong. Spreading
| misinformation purposefully to trick people into agreeing
| with you is what is destroying this country right now and
| you are doing this.
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| > You didn't read it properly, because he never said
| protesters. Changing "rioters" to "protesters" completely
| changes the meaning of what Cotton said.
|
| This was a calculated move to paint all the protesters as
| rioters and drum up support for treating them as such.
|
| Even without reading into it, Cotton was advocating for
| bringing US military troops into US cities to put down
| the protests because some of them turned violent. That is
| NOT normal, and NOT something we should see in a healthy
| democracy.
|
| I might add that once the police stopped attacking
| protesters violently, the protests calmed down pretty
| quickly.
|
| > Spreading misinformation purposefully to trick people
| into agreeing with you is what is destroying this country
| right now and you are doing this.
|
| Projection is such an ugly thing to see.
| nkurz wrote:
| > This was a calculated move to paint all the protesters
| as rioters
|
| I don't think this is true. Quoting from his piece:
|
| "Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the
| spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable
| response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those
| excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of
| rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters.
| A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn't be
| confused with bands of miscreants."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-
| protes...
|
| He clearly says in plain words that the majority are law-
| abiding protestors. I suppose you could argue that the
| piece actually means something other than the plain words
| that it uses, and you could certainly argue that he's
| drawing the line between protestors and rioters in the
| wrong place, but at no point does the op-ed make the
| claim that all protestors are rioters.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| In context, many had, and continue to, misconstrue
| protests as riots. As such, a call to send in the
| military against rioters cannot be differentiated from a
| call to send in the military against protestors, unless
| you can get cotton and the protestors to agree on what
| the differences between protest and riot are.
| CogentHedgehog wrote:
| Yes, it was a calculated move to try to paint ALL the
| protests as riots and justify potentially deadly use of
| force.
| ping_pong wrote:
| Every single action taken by the fascist left mimic
| traditional fascism. They have taken the tactics from
| Mussolini and adapted well for their own purposes.
| Suppression of different ideas, censorship, etc. The only
| difference is that it's flown under the banner of the
| left, but their tactics are very much the same.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| This is not a uniquely fascist thing. Every dictatorship
| suppresses different ideas, censors etc.
|
| Otherwise you could argue that giving speeches or writing
| pamphlets and books is a fascist thing.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Every single action taken by the fascist left mimic
| traditional fascism. They have taken the tactics from
| Mussolini and adapted well for their own purposes.
|
| There's no such as even fascist left, even in the kind of
| disputable way in which Leninist and non-Leninist
| Marxists will argue over whether Leninism is a genuinely
| Marxist, Communist, or leftist movement, or a form of
| right-wing state capitalism.
|
| Fascism is an ideology, not a set of tactics. Yes, right
| and left wing groups (both moderate and extreme) often
| learn tactics from each other. No, that doesn't make the
| ideologies the same.
| ping_pong wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_fascism
| monocasa wrote:
| That's a reference to National Bolsheviks, which haven't
| existed since the night of long knives.
|
| "There should be a communist utopia...for aryans as they
| crush all other races under their boot" is not a movement
| with really any members anymore.
| monocasa wrote:
| Here's an actual, in depth definition of fascism from
| Umberto Eco's essay Ur-Fascism. The connections to the
| modern left are tangential at best.
| "The Cult of Tradition", characterized by cultural
| syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction.
| When all truth has already been revealed by Tradition, no
| new learning can occur, only further interpretation and
| refinement. "The Rejection of modernism",
| which views the rationalistic development of Western
| culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into
| depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of
| superficial technological advancement, as many fascist
| regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the
| vitality of their system. "The Cult of
| Action for Action's Sake", which dictates that action is
| of value in itself, and should be taken without
| intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected
| with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often
| manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
| "Disagreement Is Treason" - Fascism devalues intellectual
| discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action,
| as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the
| contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
| "Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and
| exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal
| against foreigners and immigrants. "Appeal
| to a Frustrated Middle Class", fearing economic pressure
| from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
| "Obsession with a Plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy
| threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with
| a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized
| groups living within the society (such as the German
| elite's 'fear' of the 1930s Jewish populace's businesses
| and well-doings; see also anti-Semitism). Eco also cites
| Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent
| example of a plot obsession. Fascist
| societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same
| time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists
| play up the power of certain disfavored elites to
| encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and
| humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to
| the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate
| feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
| "Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy" because "Life is
| Permanent Warfare" - there must always be an enemy to
| fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under
| Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their
| respective countries and then build the war machines that
| they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being
| under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build
| a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental
| contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of
| ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
| "Contempt for the Weak", which is uncomfortably married
| to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member
| of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of
| belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes
| the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally
| hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they
| encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the
| ultimate Leader who holds the whole country in contempt
| for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
| "Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero", which leads to
| the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he
| Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience,
| he more frequently sends other people to death."
| "Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of
| permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere.
| Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and
| intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual
| habits, from chastity to homosexuality."
| "Selective Populism" - The People, conceived
| monolithically, have a Common Will, distinct from and
| superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass
| of people can ever be truly unanimous, the Leader holds
| himself out as the interpreter of the popular will
| (though truly he dictates it). Fascists use this concept
| to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of
| "no longer represent[ing] the Voice of the People."
| "Newspeak" - Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished
| vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
| [deleted]
| rat87 wrote:
| Not publishing an editorial calling for an authoritarian
| crackdown is facism now?
| starkd wrote:
| Greenwald was the founder of the outfit. I would think
| weight would be given to senior editors judgment.
| albroland wrote:
| The same editorial team and peers that tried to get Lee
| Fang fired for having the audacity to interview actual
| residents in areas where rioting was happening?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I will reserve judgement until reading the article.
| Greenwald has certainly had his share of garbage takes, but
| also can have a quite refreshingly honest perspective.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Now that his actual article has been published it is super
| clear Greenwald's story is pretty garbage. He has no evidence
| of anything and even states so plainly. It is purely
| conjecture that Hunter Biden's big mouth statements _might_
| be connected to impropriety, with utterly no proof.
|
| Then it turns into a comically bad diatribe about bias in the
| press.
|
| Greenwald over the past 4 years has become an insufferable
| troll. This article adds nothing new in any way, and given
| the wildly unjustified harm it could do to an impending
| election, it is beyond doubt that the Intercept editorial
| decision not to run this was the right decision.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| The poster makes no claims that the story is garbage, only
| that the editor though so.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Exactly. This looks much more like Greenwald trying to
| capitalize on hype. The entire spectrum of details around the
| Biden emails has been roundly debunked and there is tons of
| evidence to suggest it's illegitimately sourced by agents
| directly directed by Trump, from sources with active incentives
| to try to damage Biden.
|
| It is _responsible_ to decline to run this story. It only
| serves to feed conspiracy theories and drive disinformation
| opportunities right at the time of an election.
|
| I am really disappointed with Greenwald here.
| jMyles wrote:
| > The entire spectrum of details around the Biden emails has
| been roundly debunked
|
| Although I've been following this story, I am not familiar
| with this round debunking. I realize that the email headers
| are not available, but have the emails decisively been shown
| to be illegitimate? Or just difficult to verify?
| dkural wrote:
| If I produce a random TXT file saying jMyles is doing BIG
| BAD THING X, is it on you to show it is illegitimate? No,
| it is on whomever is producing this to show it is in fact a
| real email, from a real source, and not just something they
| made up on MS Word to win an election, especially if they
| make up things a mile a minute.
| jMyles wrote:
| If you are in a position to know such a thing, and you
| assert its veracity, then I don't think I can properly
| say that I have "debunked" it without actually
| investigating your role and showing that your assertion
| is false.
|
| There is a difference between a claim being unproven -
| and properly erring on the side of caution and skepticism
| - and claiming that the story has been investigated and
| debunked (when, to my knowledge, it has not).
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > If I produce a random TXT file saying jMyles is doing
| BIG BAD THING X, is it on you to show it is illegitimate?
|
| It's on him to deny it, yes. He doesn't have to prove
| that it's illegitimate, but if he doesn't even say so,
| then that's reason enough to assume it's true.
| cure wrote:
| Seems like there would be a bit of a risk for a personal
| DDOS attack by that logic?
|
| This attitude doesn't seem reasonable. Anyone can make up
| random nonsense about someone else (no federal libel laws
| in the US...). Acknowledging the nonsense will only
| legitimize it. Why should the subject of the nonsense
| have to invest time and energy in debunking/denying it?
| jMyles wrote:
| I'm simply looking for a more thorough explanation of the
| claim that "the entire spectrum of claims regarding
| Hunter Biden has been roundly debunked".
|
| Bubolinski, a recipient on the emails recovered from the
| laptop, has confirmed that those sent to him are genuine.
| Has _that_ claim been debunked?
|
| If you are simply saying that the evidence isn't strong
| enough to say one way or another, fine. But "roundly
| debunked" means, at least to me, that there has been an
| investigation and that the factual claims have in some
| way been shown to be false. That, to my knowledge, hasn't
| actually happened.
|
| And sure, "anyone can make up random nonsense", but these
| claims aren't being made by "anyone", but by people with
| closeness to the situation that not just anyone can
| claim. And they aren't random nonsense; they are part of
| a pattern of explaining how a family has become
| fabulously rich on a 176k salary.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| This summarizes it fairly well
|
| https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/oct/29/tony-
| bobulins...
| nkurz wrote:
| Thanks for backing your opinion with a good summary like
| this. It provides a good framework for discussion. People
| should read it. That said, although it outlines the
| issues well, I disagree with many of their conclusions. I
| think in parallel, people should watch the 17 minute
| version of Carlson's interview with Bobulinksi and
| determine for themselves how well the details match:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zLfBRgeFFo. Or if video
| averse, read the transcript here: https://www.realclearpo
| litics.com/video/2020/10/27/tucker_ca....
|
| Just to pick one example, here's Politifact on the
| question of who "the chairman" referred to: "Bobulinski
| has also claimed that Joe Biden was the person described
| in another message days later as "the Chairman." Whereas
| the interview goes much further than just a "claim".
| Instead, it directly shows a text message sent to
| Bobulinski by Rob Walker (the "Biden family
| representative") clarifying that "the Chairman" does in
| fact refer to Joe Biden:
| https://youtu.be/2zLfBRgeFFo?t=906 (or search the
| transcript for "the chairman").
|
| Now certainly, the text message might be faked, or Rob
| Walker might not actually know what was meant. Hopefully,
| if allowed to happen, future research will be able to
| determine this. But this is something that can and
| (probably) should be verified. To reduce this to
| "Bobulinksi has also claimed" doesn't give adequate
| weight to fact that Bobulinski did a surprisingly good
| job of providing verifiable evidence for his
| interpretation. So yes, read the Politifact article, but
| also listen to the interview before deciding to trust its
| conclusions!
| jMyles wrote:
| Right - there is no evidence yet showing that Joe Biden
| had direct awareness of his son's corrupt dealings.
|
| That's leagues away from saying that Hunter's involvement
| in these things has been "debunked."
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| There's also no evidence yet that Donald Trump wore a
| full body costume and pretended to be Hunter Biden while
| typing these emails.
|
| Guess that can't be called debunked either.
|
| "No evidence yet disproving..." is not a standard of
| evidence for an extreme assertion. It's ridiculous to act
| like it is.
|
| The number of logical fallacies in your reply is alarming
| - and most regular citizens are susceptible to these same
| fallacies, especially when spammed out in high production
| infotainment.
| jMyles wrote:
| I don't think your analogy fits. If someone who was known
| to be in Trump's presence produced a journal entry from a
| third party, also known to be in Trump's presence,
| saying, "Dear Diary, Trump wore a full body costume
| today...", and you then said that the sourcing of the
| journal had been "debunked", I'd expect something more
| than just the naked assertion that the journal was not
| legitimately sourced, with no serious investigation of
| the claims of the party producing it.
|
| At least two recipients of emails from the laptop have
| confirmed their authenticity. Now, maybe there's still
| some forgery happening here, I don't know. But the idea
| that it's made up from whole cloth is no longer
| plausible.
|
| Can you point me to a specific sentence in the Greenwald
| piece that you think is "debunked"?
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Your extended analogy likewise doesn't fit either. It
| would be more like if John Bolton sent an email that
| said, "we should get the big guy to wear a Hunter Biden
| costume ha ha" and then everyone starts demanding, based
| on nothing but extrapolating from this email, that Trump
| in fact has to deny it all and some investigation should
| be launched.
|
| I think you're wrong in your last sentence because there
| is nothing for Biden to deny or refute. The emails are
| real, probably sourced in a scammy way by Giuliani, but
| still real. They just do not contain any content that
| suggests or corroborates any wrongdoing or questionable
| behavior in any sense other than Hunter Biden has a big
| mouth and is a bit immature, that's it.
|
| What aspect of it would you expect needs to be denied or
| investigated? No part proves or suggests Joe Biden had
| anything to do with it or had any meetings or any
| business dealings related to it. No part suggests or
| proves Hunter Biden leveraged any political promises or
| power of his father for any profit.
|
| I cannot see what aspect of it you believe is open to
| investigation. One person ran their mouth about their
| political figure father and .... nothing. That's all.
|
| We cannot pretend like that requires journalists to
| devote attention to it - in any other situation they
| utterly would not. That's a nothing story 8 days a week.
| It's only being inflamed this time because it is
| politicized to subvert an election.
| jMyles wrote:
| > The emails are real, probably sourced in a scammy way
| by Giuliani, but still real.
|
| Agreed - and to be clear, I count Giuliani as the scum of
| the damn earth (and I say this as a New Yorker).
|
| But do you think that you can say, on one hand, that the
| emails are real, but that "The entire spectrum of details
| around the Biden emails has been roundly debunked"?
|
| > They just do not contain any content that suggests or
| corroborates any wrongdoing or questionable behavior in
| any sense other than Hunter Biden has a big mouth and is
| a bit immature, that's it.
|
| It shows that convincingly, yes. But, we also know that
| he received a $600k salary as a result. Isn't it worth
| investigating why? What did he do to be worth this
| salary?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Exactly. This looks much more like Greenwald trying to
| capitalize on hype. The entire spectrum of details around the
| Biden emails has been roundly debunked
|
| Oh please. Let's try to keep the "post-truth" ethos on the
| Right, rather than adopting it ourselves, mmkay?
| jtbayly wrote:
| Is it your presumption that only people not "on the Right"
| are allowed on HN?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| My presumption is that someone on the Right would not be
| making these specific misleading claims.
|
| Don't worry, I am well aware that there are quite a few
| right-wingers here.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Absolutely not. Your comment is absolutely not describing
| the world.
|
| This story has been completely debunked. I welcome real
| facts suggesting otherwise, but there truly aren't any.
| This story is not being cut because of Evil Democrat
| Socialites. It's cut because it truly, really, actually is
| debunked by well-regarded professional journalists at many
| other trusted outlets.
|
| Greenwald has spent the last four years on a bizarre war
| path against the Democratic establishment. This is just
| more of the same.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > This story has been completely debunked.
|
| The "story" (at least that I am referring to) is that
| Hunter Biden had these emails and they were released. Is
| your claim that the emails were forgeries? If not, the
| NYPost story had relevant, true, information of public
| interest.
|
| If you're discussing the broader context of the Ukraine
| prosecutor firing, I agree that there is strong evidence
| that Biden was not pushing for his firing in response to
| circumstantial evidence of pressure from his son or
| anything. Not, to me, strong enough to consider the claim
| "completely debunked."
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| The pushed story is that those emails implicate Joe Biden
| or otherwise call into question his involvement with
| foreign interests.
|
| It has been completely debunked - the emails do not
| contain any suggestion, evidence or information that in
| any way implicates Joe Biden in activity that even
| _might_ have impropriety, let alone actual impropriety.
|
| Nobody's saying the emails don't exist. They appear to
| have been up for sale in Ukraine for at least a year,
| suggesting that the Giuliani "found it in Delaware" story
| is possibly a lie, but the emails exist nonetheless.
|
| Their content has no bearing or connection to Joe Biden.
| Drawing that line would be deliberate misinformation
| purely for election destabilization.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Their content has no bearing or connection to Joe
| Biden. Drawing that line would be deliberate
| misinformation purely for election destabilization.
|
| The emails mention his father, a meeting, etc. There's
| obviously some connection, but claiming that the emails
| are referencing a meeting with Joe is not "deliberate
| misinformation."
|
| I'm sorry, but it's just pretty clear that your threshold
| for what constitutes a "debunking" is much lower than
| mine.
|
| It's a stupid reason to not vote for Biden anyways, but I
| think it is better to be honest.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Emphatically no. A son possibly mentioning his dad and
| alluding to things you are wildly speculating about is
| not "some connection."
|
| Every credible journalist would laugh you out of the room
| if you try to frame that as if it's legitimate in any way
| or counts as evidence of anything besides Hunter Biden
| having a big mouth.
|
| Just as they are shutting down even Greenwald if he is
| going to try to pull that same disingenuous crap just to
| keep pushing his crusade against the Democratic party
| leaders.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Every credible journalist
|
| My parents are both retired journalists in DC, one a
| former editor-in-chief of a publication with millions of
| paid subscriptions. Both voted for Biden.
|
| They have also expressed their concern with the response
| to the Hunter Biden story, but I won't name them for
| obvious reasons.
|
| I understand that you have a vested interest in
| presenting this as open-and-shut, but in no way are you
| speaking for "every credible journalist" unless you mean
| in a tautological no-true-scotsman way.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| It's very scary that disinformation conspiracy theories
| affected them like that.
|
| And I mean this absolutely sincerely, from the POV of
| open journalism, high priority for inquiry into our
| democratic process, freedom of the press.
|
| The way the Hunter Biden email story has morphed into
| basically a manipulative, disinformation campaign to
| overwhelm citizens and undercut basic trust in
| journalistic integrity and election procedures is
| staggering and frightening - as this anecdote about your
| parents being swindled by it highlights.
|
| It could be a no true scotsman issue on my part, or it
| could be that really, actually the story is completely
| debunked and belief in it indicates departure from
| credible journalism to instead embrace partisan
| conspiracy theories.
|
| The evidence really, actually suggests the latter in this
| case.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > It's very scary that disinformation conspiracy theories
| affected them like that.
|
| The existence of the emails is not disinformation, nor
| has it been discredited. You're attaching all of these
| claims to what "the story" is and using it to make
| extremely condescending remarks about reputable
| journalists (and my parents).
|
| Good day, can't wait for after Nov. 3rd for people to
| return to normal.
| mizzack wrote:
| Nothing has been debunked. The politifact link you shared
| above says "not corroborated". Those are not the same
| thing.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| You are incorrect.
|
| The standing claim is that Hunter Biden's emails do
| affirmatively show Joe Biden's involvement in
| questionable or illegal activity.
|
| The emails do not show that. This has been established by
| all major news outlets, even Fox News.
|
| Therefore it is debunked.
|
| Now, some totally separate other evidence may show
| something different. That is irrelevant. The claim is
| about what _these_ emails affirmatively prove or
| corroborate. If someone were to say these emails suggest
| impropriety by Joe Biden, that claim is totally debunked.
| kev_da_dev wrote:
| You are far too late on this one, sir. It's been thoroughly
| adopted by both sides of the aisle.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Most of those adopting it on the "Democrat" side of the
| aisle, I wouldn't call on the Left.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >If the editor concludes that it's a garbage story dropped a
| few days before the election in an attempt to influence the
| election
|
| Nobody disputes why this story was dropped at the time it was
| dropped. It's a common tactic that has been practiced for
| decades by political campaigns and even media outlets. Heck,
| there is a reason why the Kavanaugh story broke when it did.
| There is a reason why the NY Times published Trump taxes when
| they did.
|
| What's different is that all of center-left/left news
| establishment decided that they are going to get Biden elected
| and protect him from any negative news.
| rat87 wrote:
| Kavanaugh story broke when it did because it leaked
| addicted wrote:
| Except it wasn't news.
| macspoofing wrote:
| It isn't news that the son of a presidential candidate is
| and has been using his name to enrich himself, raising AT
| BEST questions about conflict of interest?
|
| Are you for real?
| ping_pong wrote:
| To me, it's the fact that Joe Biden didn't put a stop to
| this immediately. Regardless of the emails, Hunter Biden
| is/was a drug addict with no skills, being paid upwards
| of $50,000/month to be on a Board of Directors of a known
| corrupt company.
|
| What skill does he possess that is worth $600,000? The
| only thing that makes sense is his connection to Joe
| Biden. It's obvious they were paying him money to be on
| the board because of his connection to Joe Biden, and Joe
| Biden should have put a stop to it. That's the crux of
| the issue to me. The fact that the media is forming a
| wall of silence around this issue really does show the
| vast biases they have.
|
| This doesn't mean Trump isn't corrupt, by the way, which
| he is and I believe he is unfit to be president and
| nothing about the laptop or these emails stopped me from
| voting for Biden. But every tiny issue with Trump is
| magnified and overanalyzed by the media, but this rather
| big issue on Biden is swept under the rug. The media is
| just as corrupt and biased but the only losers are we the
| people.
| epistasis wrote:
| We elected George W Bush to President, whose history
| isn't so far away from Hunter Biden's except that the
| Biden family isn't insanely wealthy.
|
| This wasn't that long ago. Everybody should remember
| Bush's coke problems.
|
| You are right that there's a double standard, but I don't
| think that double standard is where you assert it is.
|
| I mean, has there been _any_ investigation of the
| intelligence response to Russia having bounties on US
| soldiers ' heads? And you think that "any small thing" by
| Trump gets investigated?
|
| Four years ago we were obsessing over emails from the
| Clintons, which Trump would have us believe were worthy
| of jailing Clinton. Yet here we are four years later with
| absolutely no wrongdoing exposed, no grand jury
| indictments, etc.
|
| The lack of awareness and short memories are astounding.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >has there been any investigation of the intelligence
| response to Russia having bounties on US soldiers' heads?
|
| Yeah. It turned out to be speculative bullshit. There is
| no link between American solider deaths in Afghanistan to
| any bounty program from Russia (or even that such a
| bounty program has ever existed).
|
| Why do you think the story just disappeared?
| epistasis wrote:
| Might want to update Wikipedia if you can substantiate
| "bullshit" in some way:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_bounty_program
|
| And we still don't have a President that can keep up with
| intelligence briefings, apparently.
| macspoofing wrote:
| You may want to actually read the article. Pretty much
| everybody, from the Taliban, to Russians, to DoD and
| American intelligence, dismisses the story.
|
| The choice lines from YOUR source: - "On July 9, 2020,
| Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that Marine Gen.
| Kenneth McKenzie Jr. and DOD intelligence agencies have
| not found a link between alleged Russian bounties and
| that specific attack."
|
| - "On September 14, 2020, Gen. McKenzie stated, "It just
| has not been proved to a level of certainty that
| satisfies me," reflecting a growing consensus among the
| U.S. military leaders that the anonymous sources
| initially presented in the media were either exaggerated
| or false."
|
| Give me a break. If there was even an inkling that this
| story was true, it would be front-page news from now
| until election day.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Give me a break. If there was even an inkling that this
| story was true, it would be front-page news from now
| until election day.
|
| Clearly not. Circular arguments aren't a good look.
| [deleted]
| acoard wrote:
| This also seems relevant:
|
| >According to the New York Times, on 1 July, the National
| Intelligence Council, which reports to the director of
| national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, produced a two-
| and-a-half page document in which various intelligence
| agencies assessed the credibility of the existence of a
| bounty program based on the available evidence. Anonymous
| officials who had seen the memo said that the "C.I.A. and
| the National Counterterrorism Center had assessed with
| medium confidence--meaning credibly sourced and
| plausible, but falling short of near certainty"--that the
| GRU had offered bounties.
|
| It takes evidence to get to a medium confidence
| assessment, it is not purely "speculative bullshit."
| ping_pong wrote:
| This is whataboutism.
|
| I'm someone who believes that Bush should be in jail for
| crimes against humanity. But nothing you said doesn't
| take away from the fact that the media is corrupt right
| now and avoiding a real story on Biden.
| epistasis wrote:
| No it's not, at all, it's a response to the accusations
| of a double standard based on political party.
| ping_pong wrote:
| "The media is ignoring Joe Biden stories and nitpicking
| Trump stories."
|
| "What about George W. Bush?"
|
| Yes, it's whataboutism. Answer the question about Joe
| Biden vs Trump.
| nostromo wrote:
| If hiding behind the election of George W Bush is your
| defense... you need a new lawyer.
|
| Clinton did destroy tens of thousands of emails that were
| under subpoena by the FBI. If you or I did that, we'd be
| jail for eternity. And yet...
|
| I think this is the spirit behind "lock her up" -- the
| fact that there are two sets of rules for the powerful
| and for the rest of us. This is true for them all: Trump,
| Clinton, Bush and Biden.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| I have no idea about the veracity of the story, but
| Hunter Biden went to Georgetown and Yale Law and was EVP
| at a massive bank holding company and founded a lobbying
| firm.. That resume is every bit as impressive as most
| people in the 'business world'.
|
| Describing him as a "drug addict with no skills" is very
| misleading.
| SamBam wrote:
| I can't reply directly to macspoofing above, so to explain
| it clearly: the story wasn't Biden's son enriching himself
| with his name -- that story has been covered by every news
| organization for over a year, and didn't need a new article
| on the eve of the election. The new story specifically
| relates to Joe Biden being a part of it, and enriching
| himself, and that's the part that no news organization has
| been able to verify.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >and didn't need a new article on the eve of the
| election.
|
| What the heck does that mean??!??! What do you mean it
| "didn't need a new article on the even of the election".
| WHY NOT?! Because you're voting for Biden?
|
| And by the way, Biden has denied all wrongdoing by
| Hunter. It is certainly relevant when you have concrete
| proof that his denial was wrong.
| SamBam wrote:
| For the same reason that the NY Times suddenly publishing
| a front-page article on the 26 women who have accused
| Trump of rape [1] the week before the election would be a
| blatant partisan hack move.
|
| It's well-trodden ground, it's been covered (some might
| say not enough, but regardless), there's no significant
| new news, and it would be a blatant attempt to influence
| the election.
|
| In this case, the Times has written numerous stories on
| Hunter's use of his name to try and make money. That
| story isn't new. The _new_ part of the story is the
| insinuation that he did this with Joe Biden 's
| permission, and that Joe himself may have been making
| money. That part hasn't been verified by anyone.
|
| 1. https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-
| sexual-m...
| nojito wrote:
| Why would they waste time verifying it when Joe was
| cleared by two administrations and the intelligence
| community?
|
| Seems like you're searching for proof of guilt rather
| assuming innocence.
| Swizec wrote:
| > What's different is that all of center-left/left news
| establishment decided that they are going to get Biden
| elected and protect him from any negative news.
|
| That's what we all wanted right? That's the point of all the
| tech folks talking about no bystanders and corporations being
| forced to take a political stance was about wasn't it?
|
| It worked. They're taking a stance.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > That's what we all wanted right
|
| What are you talking about? I'm unsure if you're describing
| the tenor of comments here, but there was a clear amount of
| uneasiness with how these platforms are using their reach,
| whether with the Biden story or Uber on Prop 22.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >That's what we all wanted right?
|
| I never wanted that. But yes, this sentiment is out there.
| And yes, this is the logical end result.
| SamBam wrote:
| There are two errors with this.
|
| First of all, was it "censorship" when Fox News had not a
| single article on Trump's taxes for many days after the NY
| Times pice? No, tat's not censorship, it's an editorial
| decision.
|
| Second, you're missing the "garbage" part of "garbage story"
| in the line you quoted. A news organization has a
| responsibility to vet stories, and avoid publishing stories
| that can't be vetted.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >when Fox News had not a single article on Trump's taxes
| for many days after the NY Times pice
|
| Are you saying that all the news outlets that refuse to
| mention this story are acting like partisan hacks??!? I
| AGREE!
|
| >Second, you're missing the "garbage" part of "garbage
| story" in the line you quoted.
|
| What's the 'garbage' part of this 'garbage story'?
|
| >and avoid publishing stories that can't be vetted.
|
| Who vetted the NY Times story? Did NY Times release the
| documents or their sources? Or did everyone just report it?
| How about the Kavanaugh allegations? Did anyone have issues
| putting out prosperous, unverified, and clearly false
| accusations just to get him and by extension Trump? How
| about the Steele dossier, initially an unverified, and
| later found to be a fabricated document, put out by the
| Russians and paid for by the Hillary campaign ... it served
| as a basis for YEARS of reporting. The last 4 years, we've
| seen the mainstream media throw out all semblance of
| journalistic integrity just to get Trump.
| int_19h wrote:
| Of course it was censorship. Censorship can be narrowly
| scoped - in this case, to Fox.
| captainill wrote:
| When the center-left tries to over index on fairness and
| balance it loses. We don't yet know how to combat the
| disinformation campaign the president and fox news are
| waging. Greenwald was just on Joe Rogan yesterday and they
| each are either ignorant or unmoved by the effects this
| disinformation is having on our public discourse. Greenwald
| purports to be the ultimate protector of free speech and want
| us to be free to question all our the most sacred ideas but
| what does it mean when what's published is not a good faith
| critique of our institutions but is instead just lies. How do
| we fight back because it is a fight.
|
| I can't help but also add that Joe Rogan is leaning heavily
| Right in this election because he's pissed it's not the old
| days where he could hop on the mic with your everyday
| misogyny, sexism, and dull thinking without repercussion --
| this is the Left's doing in his mind. Their conversation was
| striking for its lack of critique of Trump on any matter
| while they lay into Biden. This entire episode is interesting
| and nuanced.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| This isn't any just negative news, it's a PR campaign of epic
| proportions. I see plenty of legit coverage of Biden gaffes
| and corporate influence. Media outlets are wising up to
| publicists' tactics about getting them to cover things and
| are making risky editorial decisions about what to run. We'll
| see how it plays out.
| lanevorockz wrote:
| lol ... The editor though that the truth is less important than
| the election. It's the same as what happened in Social Media.
| Sadly, it means they can never be trusted ever again.
| vanattab wrote:
| His argument is not nonsense. Even assuming you buy the line
| that the media is not covering the story because it has "has
| all the hallmarks" of a Russian disinformation campaign as was
| argued by all the media outlets it makes no sense why they
| wouldn't cover it (unless your assume they are worried about
| how it might effect the election). Just months before the idea
| that a trump administration offical (or close personal
| adviser/lawyer) was working with a foreign power to effect the
| election was a impeachable offense! Now it's not even worth
| informing the public about?
| starkd wrote:
| And Biden could/should have addressed this issue. Before he
| got the nomination, a number of outfits - Politico, Bloomberg
| - were running stories about his deals. Back when they wanted
| someone different nominated. You thnk the democrats would
| have learned not to nominate another clinton.
| richardARPANET wrote:
| You're clearly brainwashed.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| While true, in relation to the stories about Russian collusion
| without any credible evidence, I think this criticism of
| editorial decisions is very, very one-sided. Especially
| considering publicly available evidence.
|
| It is true that it might not be the right thing to publish, in
| context of current smears in politics not exceptional, aside
| maybe violation of privacy which also didn't get much focus as
| of late.
|
| He also seem to have contractual rights to publish it, so the
| editors aren't responsible. The effectiveness of this
| censorship is a large concern aside from the story.
| jeegsy wrote:
| > That's not how this works. If the editor concludes that it's
| a garbage story dropped a few days before the election in an
| attempt to influence the election
|
| I doubt that a journalist of greenwald's caliber is going to
| write "garbage". I take your point about the editorial function
| in general but we can't lose sight of the context.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Are you of the opinion that all story publication should stop
| in the days before the election? If not, how do you reconcile
| that with this?
|
| Your argument seems to be based on an assumption that the story
| was garbage, with the evidence being that the editor pulled it,
| which begs the question.
| ivalm wrote:
| This story is specifically being released now to influence
| the election. Presumably the people who got the email had it
| for a year, they could have released it earlier. The fact
| that these emails have no headers and are impossible to
| verify strengthens the possibility that this is literal
| disinformation aimed to affect the election.
|
| There are things that are legitimately news now (as in were
| discovered recently, are now published), this isn't it.
| nostromo wrote:
| I seriously doubt if it was Don Jr in question and not
| Hunter Biden the media would be so restrained.
| ivalm wrote:
| So maybe MSM would act poorly in that case, and? That's
| not justification for acting poorly now.
| nostromo wrote:
| It would be an improvement if it'd at least be a level
| playing field with a consistent set of rules.
|
| Being principled only when it suits your favored cause
| isn't being principled at all.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Donald Trump Jr, unlike Hunter Biden, participates
| regularly in his father's political campaigns. He spoke
| at the RNC in 2020. He is regularly on Fox news. This
| makes him part of the political news in a way that Mr
| Biden's son simply is not.
| nostromo wrote:
| Maybe... But Hunter traveled with his father, then VP, on
| Air Force Two to China in 2013 and met with senior
| bankers to establish a Chinese private equity fund. So at
| least there was a bit of commingling between his father's
| political affairs and his son's business ambitions. Not
| to mention his questionable connections in Ukraine. Or
| his prior work as a lobbyist.
|
| And while I don't think the sex videos on the laptop
| should have been published or covered in the news, the
| emails about Hunter's dealings with China probably should
| be. But the inconsistency of the media and the social
| networks on this issue should be pointed out. And if Don
| Jr had a laptop stolen with questionable emails about
| deals with Russia, I can guarantee that the media would
| have a field day with it (much like they did with the
| largely fraudulent Steele Dossier) -- not to mention the
| more lurid content.
| morelisp wrote:
| > But Hunter traveled with his father, then VP, on Air
| Force Two to China in 2013 and met with senior bankers to
| establish a Chinese private equity fund.
|
| This is exactly the kind of sentence which is technically
| true but worded in a way to make it sound like it says
| more than "Hunter took a plane trip with his dad in
| 2013."
|
| - Biden was VP for 8 years. Is he not supposed to travel
| with his kids during that time?
|
| - "Air Force Two" is the term used for any plane the VP
| is on. Anyone flying with the VP is on Air Force Two.
|
| - Hunter Biden, and only Hunter Biden, met with the
| Chinese bankers. Joe Biden had no contact with the
| bankers, involvement in the meeting, or financial
| involvement with the fund before or after.
|
| - The emails in question were from 2017, after Joe Biden
| was no longer VP.
|
| - While the emails may be questionable, there is no
| evidence of Joe Biden's involvement in any part of the
| deal during or after his time as VP.
| nostromo wrote:
| > Hunter took a plane trip with his dad in 2013
|
| Flying with your dad, Vice President of the United State,
| to raise a billion dollars from senior party members from
| an adversarial country isn't a good look.
|
| Taking a well-paid board seat on a Ukrainian gas
| company... despite knowing nothing about energy and while
| dad, the VP, is managing affairs with the Ukrainian
| government also isn't a good look.
|
| "Just taking a trip with dad" indeed. This is clearly
| graft -- and condemning it should be bipartisan.
|
| I don't expect everyone to be as pure as Obama -- but,
| "C'mon, Man."
| dguaraglia wrote:
| Can we all agree that - sure - all those things look
| dodgy and most likely Hunter Biden benefited from his
| dad's position, but:
|
| 1) That doesn't prove Joe Biden himself benefited
| directly from it (that's implication all these last-
| minute 'stories' are trying to make)
|
| 2) So far nobody has presented a single shred of proof of
| anything other than hearsay and the testimony of people
| who seem to have a really big chip on their shoulders. In
| fact, the only 'recording' that has been presented is of
| a third party warning Bobulinski that him making a
| scandal out of that would affect them all (it's not
| Hunter Biden in the recording)
|
| 3) Tucker Carlson's dog conveniently ate his homework
| last night
|
| 4) The source of the story - Rudy Giuliani - seems to be
| severely detached from reality, to the point that he
| somehow fell for the simplest prank in the book and got
| himself into a Sacha Baron Cohen film
|
| 5) There's been so many contortions to this story - from
| accusations of child pornography, to all kinds of
| evidence that would be 'presented' but never materialized
| - that it's very hard to believe anything these
| messengers are saying anymore
|
| This story stinks to high heaven. Did Hunter Biden
| benefit from his dad's position? Possibly, but the people
| trying to push the narrative have shat the bed so many
| times already I find it very hard to believe they are
| motivated by anything other than politics.
| morelisp wrote:
| None of these are good looks... _for Hunter Biden_.
|
| I'm 100% down with condemning failson grift! Let's start
| by instituting 100% tax rates for inheritance or gifts
| over idk, 100k, and making legacy university admissions
| illegal. For me it's a "nonpartisan" question not because
| it spans R vs. D but because the largest fundamental
| faults that cause it are so divorced from any one
| candidate or party it can _only_ be seen as a partisan
| campaign tactic if someone tries to make it about a
| specific person.
|
| So, to you and Greenwald - don't fucking do it.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Don't many countries (such as France) actually have such a
| mandate? From my understanding it does work fairly well. That
| being said, even if you don't entirely stop, there should at
| the very least be a higher bar for fact checking, not a lower
| one. This story doesn't even pass the normal level of fact
| checking done by almost every single publication in the US.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Are you of the opinion that all story publication should
| stop in the days before the election? If not, how do you
| reconcile that with this?
|
| You could stop story publication unless you have a
| preponderance of very strong evidence for your claims.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| his track record is good enough proof for any editor to know
| that story is NOT a garbage. I guess this is WHY they actually
| censored it.
| lordnacho wrote:
| You can't just waive it through on the strength of his
| reputation, you have to check the sources.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| you have to apply the _same_ standard to other stories
| then. If you wait until everything is 100% verified you 'll
| publish nothing
| meowface wrote:
| You're assuming it's a garbage story and that it's intended to
| influence the election based on absolutely nothing. Why not
| make counter-arguments to the actual piece, when it comes out?
|
| I'd argue that all of the rampant censorship about any
| conceivable questioning or criticism of Biden is the thing that
| history is likely going to look back on in a few months, and
| perhaps years, as unethical and irresponsible journalistic
| conduct.
|
| I disagree with some of Greenwald's stances, but he and Matt
| Taibbi seem to be the only actual journalists left in the
| country, that I'm aware of. It's mind-boggling.
|
| I strongly dislike Trump as president and as a person, I think
| he's probably the worst president we've had from a domestic
| perspective, and I couldn't disagree more with him and his
| party's agenda, but as of the past few days I almost want to
| see him win due to all of this recent censorship tipping the
| scales. Almost like an Oedipus-style prophecy ironically
| fulfilled by the attempt to prevent it. I don't actually want
| him to win, but I want these people to have this blow up in
| their face.
|
| The cover-up is probably a lot worse than the allegations
| (which don't seem that damaging, going by the leaked emails,
| but I'm curious to see Greenwald's analysis), and I bet this is
| turning many more people further from media outlets and closer
| to Trump or at least further from the left. Even if he loses
| the election, I think the past few weeks have shown he might
| have already won. Not due to anything he did, but solely due to
| an entirely avoidable shooting of oneself in the foot. This
| could have ripple effects that last longer than the next 4
| years.
| Rudism wrote:
| It's not based on nothing. It's based on a pattern of the
| current administration and the media that supports it
| propping up nonsense and blowing stories that are critical of
| their opposition out of proportion specifically in order to
| rile people up and influence elections. Pizzagate, Hillary's
| emails, Q-Anon, these things all take a toll on people who
| actually care about what is true and real.
|
| Is it really surprising that after all the overblown
| conspiracy nonsense we've been battered with from the White
| House and Trump that people have grown suspicious and weary
| of new stories that smell even remotely similar? It's gotten
| to the point where if Trump supports a story I assume it's
| probably untrue by default just because of the sheer volume
| of lies and nonsense he retweets on a daily basis. I don't
| know anything about the Hunter Biden story. Maybe it's loaded
| with true, damning information against Biden. If so, it's too
| bad, because we are neck deep in a boy-who-cried-wolf
| situation here and I'm not going to learn about it until it's
| been verified and reported by media outlets that I can
| actually trust.
| meowface wrote:
| I fucking _hate_ conspiracy theories. I spend (or waste)
| way too much time online arguing with conspiracy theorists
| and debunking conspiracy theories. Trump is definitely the
| conspiracy theorist in chief. It 's beyond insanity.
|
| But just like conspiracy theories are irrational, kneejerk
| dismissing all negative stories as conspiracy theories is
| also irrational. There's a much more reasonable way of
| handling this. Things always have to be taken on a case-by-
| case basis.
|
| You mention boy-who-cried-wolf, and NY Post is definitely a
| shitty and extremely biased outlet, but probably about as
| biased as modern day CNN. Both have peddled a lot of
| hyperbole and unjustified shit, and both have also reported
| on real things. As far as I know, the NY Post never
| supported absurd conspiracy theories like Pizzagate or
| QAnon.
|
| NY Post certainly hyped up Hillary's private email server
| well beyond the point of reason and fairness, but this
| scenario would exactly be like if every non-right-biased
| news outlet all decided to never publish any story even
| mentioning that she had a private email server that she may
| have used for non-personal affairs. Of course it'd be
| extremely irresponsible to have headlines about her email
| server every day, but it's just as irresponsible to
| consider the mere existence of the topic an unspeakable
| matter, as it would be if Twitter were to have censored
| every link to an article mentioning that she had a private
| email server she's alleged to have used for non-personal
| things. This is the Streisand effect in action, here.
|
| It's simply not rational to assume that any story Trump
| supports is probably untrue. He lies an unbelievable
| amount, but if you assume 60% of everything that ever comes
| out of his mouth is a lie, that 40% could still have some
| real things worth trying to look at objectively. And in
| this case, this isn't some thing he just peddled entirely
| himself out of the blue; a newspaper reported on it, even
| if they're a very biased newspaper. He's going to support
| anything that he thinks helps his campaign, and not
| everything that helps his campaign is necessarily bullshit,
| even if a lot is.
|
| This absolutist stance is part of the thing that only
| bolsters his constant accusations of fake news - "fake
| news" has in some sense become a self-fulfilling prophecy
| in some cases, like here. The left never followed Hillary's
| proclamation of "when they go low, we go high". Every year,
| the opposition sinks lower and lower, gradually trending
| towards the level of the other side. And that's probably
| exactly what Trump wants and has been trying to trigger.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| They had the hard drive for over a year. Plenty of time
| to try and do a proper investigation. But instead they
| sat on it. If they were willing to sit on it for over 12
| months, I see no reason why mainstream media can't insist
| that they continue to sit on it until they verify their
| sources.
|
| And it is worth mentioning that both Fox New (the news
| side, not the opinion side) and the Wall Street Journal
| turned the story down. And the journalists at NY Post
| refused to put their name in the byline. If I worked at
| CNN, and saw that right leaning orgs were staying away
| from it, maybe skepticism is warranted. And keep in mind,
| they are refusing to release copies of the source
| material to other journalists. So no one other than the
| NY Post has the ability to authenticate (even fox
| business can't get access[1]).
|
| [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/media/523087-giuliani-
| goes-off-...
| dkural wrote:
| You're already buying into the propaganda - there is nothing
| to "cover-up" per se, there can't be a cover-up, because
| there is nothing to cover up, there is no story.
|
| Imagine multiple media outlets simultaneously get an email
| saying "Meowface denies being Dogface during the night". If
| someone refuses to print this, due lack of evidence and lack
| of truth - that is not called a cover-up. There is no reason
| to dignify it with airtime in the first place.
|
| After all one can publish this sort of stuff on blogs,
| internet forums, tabloids etc. Curation is the true news
| product - sifting of truth from untruth is one way to do it.
| meowface wrote:
| I may very well turn out to be wrong, but I think the
| emails are more likely than not all real. But even if they
| all turn out to be completely doctored, there's a much more
| responsible way of handling the information. Of course it'd
| be absurd to assume the emails are real, but it's almost as
| absurd to assume they can't be real and that to even
| attempt to objectively assess the claim is falling for
| propaganda.
|
| This is a true Shiri's scissor, here. The left-leaning
| journalists who recognize, in my opinion, how ridiculous
| this behavior is vs. the rest are basically living on
| different planets.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| I'd give him the benefit of the doubt over your incredibly
| arrogant assumption that he just wrote a 'garbage story' and is
| being legitimately dropped. WTF.
| vr46 wrote:
| The response from The Intercept:
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
| haberman wrote:
| In this thread I am seeing both "this story is already running
| non-stop on Fox, there's no censorship", and "if the editors
| didn't censor this, it would poison the election, and that's
| too big of a risk."
| disown wrote:
| Not only do they justify censorship, there is a suspicious
| amount of comments trying to minimize or delegitimize
| greenwald in a sneaky boilerplate response: "I used to think
| he was a good journalist", "I used to respect his journalism
| 5 years ago", etc. And of course trying to tie greenwald to
| russia. The exact same thing you see on assange related post.
|
| The sad thing is a lot of these commenters are journalists or
| work in the news industry. Sad thing to see.
|
| Not to mention the downvote brigading.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Ignoring the mischaracterization of the two points, what are
| you trying to say? That those two thoughts are not allowed to
| exist in the same "group" of people, for some definition of
| "group"?
| haberman wrote:
| The rationale for censorship of Greenwald's article is
| unconvincing, as that rationale is contradicted even by
| other people who agree with the censorship.
|
| As the story is already running elsewhere, it is
| unconvincing that there is a pressing need for this
| particular outlet to suppress it.
| bikezen wrote:
| If other outlets want to put their reputations on the
| line for something you can't vet, do you want to jump
| into the mud with them? The intercept decided no, seems
| pretty simple.
| mjlawson wrote:
| That isn't the rationale that the editors used to make
| copy suggestions - that's the rationale that Greenwald is
| projecting onto them. I suggest reading the email thread
| he posted on his blog - it does not make him look very
| good.
| otikik wrote:
| "Letting readers decide who is right" is always good thing. But
| they rarely do that. Most take the spicy title (or out-of-
| context incorrect quote from Twitter) which reaffirms their
| opinion and run with it. They share, like and subscribe. And
| the article keeps being shared, liked and subscribed for
| months, even if it was disproven minutes after it was
| published. So instead of being a way to find the truth the
| article ends up being a way to validate missinformation.
|
| I don't know what the solution to this problem is. Just wanted
| to point out that "letting them decide" has a lot of problems.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| The problem is the selectivity with which the MSM acts. The MSM
| spent weeks pouring over Kavanaugh's yearbooks and attempting
| to ruin the lices of the Covington high school kids but they
| can't do some basic investigation on a story that has been
| corroborated multiple times?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If the editor concludes that it's a garbage story dropped a
| few days before the election in an attempt to influence the
| election, you don't run it and then "let the readers decide who
| is right".
|
| On the other hand, if Greenwald actually does have, or believe
| he has, a contract which guarantees him immunity to outside
| editing as he seems to claim ("The Intercept's editors, in
| violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom,
| censored an article I wrote this week") -- which seems somewhat
| implausible as presented, but that's the story presented --
| then the offer he presents also makes sense as what amounts to
| an attempt to essential settle the dispute over rights and
| obligations out of court with a compromise which arguably could
| be better for both his journalistic interests and the
| Intercept's financial interests than a public, after-the-fact
| breach of contract dispute in the courts.
| shalmanese wrote:
| A right is only useful if you assert that right. If you look
| at the email chain that Glenn himself published [1], the
| correspondence is essentially the editor giving a bunch of
| suggestions of how to improve the article, then Glenn
| asserting CENSORSHIP and then the EIC telling him to stop
| being so rude to his colleagues and then Glenn quitting in a
| huff.
|
| Maybe it's possible that all of the implied messages were
| exactly as Glenn surmised them to be but ultimately, it
| doesn't matter what's implied. Glenn at no point even brings
| up what his supposed contractual rights are and lays out a
| paper trail forcing them to acknowledge a breach of contract.
|
| It's entirely possible that if he had just pushed a little
| harder, they would have simply been like "Well, it's your
| grave but it does state it in the contract so we'll put it up
| without edits" but him not even trying makes it seem like he
| is engineering the situation to resolve to this particular
| outcome.
|
| [1] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-
| edito...
| greenyoda wrote:
| > the correspondence is essentially the editor giving a
| bunch of suggestions of how to improve the article
|
| From the beginning of the first letter: "Overall I think
| this piece can work best if it is significantly narrowed
| down to what you first discussed with Betsy -- media
| criticism about liberal journalists not asking Biden the
| questions he should be asked more forcefully, and why they
| are failing to do that."
|
| In other words, the editor is asking Greenwald to keep only
| the part about criticism of liberal journalists, and not
| publish the allegations against the Bidens. That's not just
| a suggestion on how to improve the article - it's asking
| him to remove a substantial part of the article.
|
| > Glenn at no point even brings up what his supposed
| contractual rights are
|
| As for his contractual rights, he spells those out in his
| original article: "to publish articles without editorial
| interference except in very narrow circumstances that
| plainly do not apply here". And: "my separate contractual
| right with FLM regarding articles I have written but which
| FLM does not want to publish itself". Presumably, the
| editors would already be well aware that his contract
| allows him to be free of editorial interference - he's one
| of the founders of The Intercept, not some obscure random
| journalist that the editors don't know.
| xnyan wrote:
| all true, but in the end if you are an editor and you think
| the source is garbage, you can't publish it. That's your duty
| regardless of anything else.
| pvg wrote:
| The Intercept's editor-in-chief has put out a statement of
| their own.
|
| https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1321896097099489283
|
| Greenwald himself just confirmed on twitter he could publish
| with no editorial oversight. Eventually, his colleagues balked.
| "A grown person throwing a tantrum", as the editor puts it,
| sounds about right.
| RonanTheGrey wrote:
| That statement reads, to me, as unprofessional and petulant.
| What kind of editor makes a personal attack on a former
| colleague in a public setting in the name of a journalistic
| organization? It simply drives home to me the idea that it
| was the editors, not Greenwald, who are being petty
| dictators.
|
| I guess how this whole debacle is received will probably
| depend on one's life experience.
| pvg wrote:
| Greenwald called them pathological, censorious, illiberal
| and equates editorial oversight with censorship. It's
| hardly petulant and unprofessional to suggest, in response,
| that he's behaving like a grown-ass dude throwing a
| tantrum.
|
| He's also just published their recent correspondence. It
| doesn't make him look great either:
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-
| edito...
| kolanos wrote:
| > ...garbage story...
|
| > I want to be clear that I'm not claiming to know the truth as
| it relates to this story...
|
| Make up your mind.
| glaring wrote:
| You are trying to frame these two quotes as being
| contradictory by leaving out the words preceding the first
| quote. Why would you do that?
|
| It should read: "If the editor concludes that it's a garbage
| story..."
|
| Looks like including the entire sentence makes it pretty
| clear that this isn't a self-contradicting position to take.
| acituan wrote:
| Except the GPs initial framing was not honest to begin
| with: editors' dismissal is not based on the story being
| _garbage_ ; details of this dismissal is contested and
| exactly the issue under discussion here. If GP couldn't
| resist a low effort editorializing of this dismissal
| reason, they don't get to claim neutrality or agnosticism
| two sentences later.
|
| Besides, the rest of their post clearly indicates _they_ do
| think the story is garbage. It looks as if they are giving
| a spin of legitimacy to that angle as if that was also what
| editors thought.
| not_a_moth wrote:
| Why are you assuming the editors think it's garbage and aren't
| acting politically. The fact that greenwald just resigned from
| the org he founded, and the scathing reasons he gave, makes it
| pretty plausble it's about politics not journalistic standards.
| ffggvv wrote:
| lol thank god we have censors like you to determine what
| articles the greatest, most impactful journalist of our
| lifetimes can publish. how would we he know whats newsworthy
| otherwise.
| macinjosh wrote:
| > all that matters is that the story runs, not whether it's
| shown to be false months after the election is over
|
| This mentality is authoritarian, anti-democratic, and anti-free
| speech. It implies that YOU, the editor, or whoever gets to
| decide for the rest of us what is worth knowing about or not.
| This is why non-partisan mainstream news is failing. The
| Internet has shown people the stories (true or not) that were
| being left out. I want raw information from the news not a
| carefully selected set of stories that follow a neat narrative.
| collegecamp293 wrote:
| > That's not how this works. If the editor concludes that it's
| a garbage story dropped a few days before the election in an
| attempt to influence the election, you don't run it
|
| He is/was one of the main editors of The Intercept. He is the
| second person listed on https://theintercept.com/about/. There
| is a wide media censorship on this story. If you think it's
| just this story, they are also squashing reports on the
| Philadelphia riots.
| rat87 wrote:
| And all? most? of his colleagues with fairly similar
| political views and a dedication to good journalism are
| opposed. Glenn seems to have picked his personal grudge over
| journalistic integrity
| dilap wrote:
| It's not like we're talking about some random story that
| appears out of the aether; it's a story from a cofounding
| journalist. Glen wanted this agreement between editors and
| journalists: editors will not censor the journalists they
| employ. The Intercept violated that.
|
| To put it another way, what's more likely?: that Glenn
| Greenwald just suddenly decided he'd like to publish garbage
| articles, or that the Intercept is seeking to filter what
| content it publishes to achieve political aims?
|
| Obviously it's up to each individual to make their own call on
| that, but to me, it's pretty obviously almost the latter.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Maybe ... if this was 1990. This is 2020, they know that their
| actions will cause a streisand effect. I don't think people are
| watching mainstream media narratives with bated breath , as
| most journalists think.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| In this case it may actually be how it works. When Glenn
| Greenwood co-founded The Intercept, he wrote some degree of
| editorial freedom into his contract.
|
| "The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept's
| editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial
| freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to
| publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic
| presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently
| supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in
| this effort at suppression."
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| If the article contains the truth and is about some serious
| misconduct, wouldn't influencing the election be a good thing?
| This is the very role of journalism. It's important that the
| public makes a decision based on all the facts.
|
| I can totally see his point with journalistic bias and the
| money strings. The ideal of independent press has long been
| dropped, and now we have news agencies of every political
| denomination. Sometimes it feels like objectivity isn't even a
| goal anymore.
|
| I'm not a Trump supporter in any way. Still, I do want the
| truth to be known even if it's about a person I support.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If. But if the article contains some outright falsehoods
| about serious misconduct, and it still influences the
| election, is that a good thing?
|
| Mind you, I'm not clearly on the "don't publish" side. But
| that position is not clearly wrong.
| sandwichest wrote:
| > "If the editor concludes that it's a garbage story dropped a
| few days before the election in an attempt to influence the
| election"
|
| This is bordering on hyperbole.
|
| 1. Glenn Greenwald isn't one to produce a "Garbage Story," he's
| a credible journalist with a long history of dropping
| bombshells. He's dropped bombshells about both the right AND
| the left. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald#Awards
|
| 2. It's the job of the media to do exactly what you have
| alluded to within the last half of the statement above. All
| sides do just that every single election I've been alive, all
| the way up to election day. But this time, only one side is
| allowed to do it.
|
| 3. Glenn Greenwald is a co-founder of The Intercept and is
| provided contractual rights to editorial freedom.
|
| The fact that this comment is the top comment on this thread is
| extremely worrying. This is censorship, nothing less.
|
| *edit: removed hints of rudeness.
| Nacdor wrote:
| The most shocking part of this whole fiasco is the way The
| Intercept's editors blatantly play favorites, allowing
| disinformation that helps Biden while censoring a legitimate
| story that hurts him:
|
| > 4) Finally, I have to note what I find to be the incredible
| irony that The Intercept -- which has published more articles
| than I can count that contain factually dubious claims if not
| outright falsehoods that are designed to undermine Trump's
| candidacy or protect Joe Biden -- is now telling me, someone
| who has never had an article retracted or even seriously
| corrected in 15 years, that my journalism doesn't meet the
| editorial requirements to be published at the Intercept.
|
| > It was The Intercept that took the lead in falsely claiming
| that publication by the NY Post was part of a campaign of
| "Russian disinformation" -- and did so by (a) uncritically
| citing the allegations of ex-CIA officials as truth, and (b)
| so much worse: omitting the sentence in the letter from the
| ex-CIA officials admitting they had no evidence for that
| claim. In other words, the Intercept -- in the only article
| that it bothered to publish that makes passing reference to
| these documents -- did so only by mindlessly repeating what
| CIA operatives say. And it turned out to be completely false.
| This -- CIA stenography -- is what meets the Intercept's
| rigorous editorial standards:
|
| > "The U.S. intelligence community had previously warned the
| White House that Giuliani has been the target of a Russian
| intelligence operation to disseminate disinformation about
| Biden, and the FBI has been investigating whether the strange
| story about the Biden laptop is part of a Russian
| disinformation campaign. This week, a group of former
| intelligence officials issued a letter saying that the
| Giuliani laptop story has the classic trademarks of Russian
| disinformation."
|
| > The Intercept deleted from that quotation of the CIA's
| claims this rather significant statement: "we do not have
| evidence of Russian involvement."
|
| > Repeatedly over the past several months, I've brought to
| Betsy's attention false claims that were published by The
| Intercept in articles that were designed to protect Biden and
| malign Trump. Some have been corrected or quietly deleted,
| while others were just left standing.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-
| edito...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The Intercept -- which has published more articles than I
| can count that contain factually dubious claims if not
| outright falsehoods that are designed to undermine Trump's
| candidacy or protect Joe Biden -- is now telling me,
| someone who has never had an article retracted or even
| seriously corrected in 15 years, that my journalism doesn't
| meet the editorial requirements to be published at the
| Intercept.
|
| IMO, this makes Greenwald look bad. "I was willing to be a
| part of a knowingly incorrect news organization until it
| affected me directly."
| dkarl wrote:
| As I wrote in another comment, his faith that the story is
| there, if only he can find it, is what makes a good
| investigative journalist, but in this case he wants to
| publish a story built around that faith and nothing else.
| What his editor wanted him to take out was his insinuation
| that other news outlets' failure to come up with
| corroborating evidence is evidence that they are protecting
| Joe Biden, despite the fact that he, just like them, is a
| high-profile professional journalist that has looked into the
| story and found nothing to corroborate it. On this topic,
| there is nothing that separates him from any other journalist
| except his desire to communicate, through his coverage of the
| same lack of evidence that they already reported, his
| confidence that the evidence exists.
| ritchiea wrote:
| It's not about who Greenwald is, it's about the quality of
| reporting & the evidence they have to support their claims.
| You can't run big stories based on the reputation of the
| journalist rather than the quality of the reporting. You're
| basically suggesting they should get out of the way of
| Greenwald because he's a celebrity journalist.
| sandwichest wrote:
| My focus on character is in response to OP assuming an
| article written by a notable author was "garbage," while
| taking the side of unnamed editors. I focused on a single
| sentence, and fail how to see this is illogical in the
| context presented.
| bravo22 wrote:
| The issue is that we're not privy to the editor and their
| motives or the strength of Greenwald's evidence. It could
| very well be that he has a solid story. In this case you
| have a well known journalist claiming that his editors are
| censoring him on an important story.
|
| The editors can run the story with a disclaimer outlining
| their concerns as Greenwald argues.
| ritchiea wrote:
| The editors have made public statements about this
| conflict as well. Pretty much none of this is hidden from
| public view by now.
| bravo22 wrote:
| They have now that it has come to the forefront. My point
| was they could have run the article along with the note.
|
| GG can publish his article and the readers can be the
| judge.
| ritchiea wrote:
| The job of an editor is literally to make decisions about
| what to publish, not to publish everything or kowtow to
| celebrity journalists or potentially big stories.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Greenwald has also been a prominent supporter of a 19 year
| old rapist running for office, which doesn't help claims to
| be a credible journalist.
| untog wrote:
| edit: never talk politics on HN, how many times must I tell
| this to myself
| sandwichest wrote:
| I applaud your self-awareness untog. A good friend once
| told me
|
| "Never read the comments"
|
| Later expanded to:
|
| "Never respond to the comments"
| sandwichest wrote:
| Edit: Comment removed so removing response, leaving link to
| the censored article.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-
| hunter-b...
| [deleted]
| nimbius wrote:
| >If the editor concludes that it's a garbage story dropped a
| few days before the election in an attempt to influence the
| election, you don't run it and then "let the readers decide who
| is right".
|
| Occhams razor:
|
| Glen Greenwald is one of the most respected journalists on the
| planet. the man is a modern day Cronkite. his character is
| beyond the pale when it comes to accurate journalism so it begs
| the question: What is Glen reporting that an editor finds so
| 'garbage' as to risk their entire future career on censoring
| this man?
| kev_da_dev wrote:
| Someone with half a brain cell actually responds ^
| starkd wrote:
| please, stop with the insults. This is unseemly.
| starkd wrote:
| It's amusing to see people on the left arguing against open
| debate. Don't they realize this is what leads to fascism? You
| can oppose at the front door, but it can easily sneak in the
| backdoor.
| xref wrote:
| From your posts in this thread it's obvious you're not
| commenting in good faith, and again here have made a
| strawman. There's nobody here arguing against open debate.
|
| The Intercept decided an article fell below their
| journalistic standards and chose not to publish it. That
| only leaves ninety-million other places for Glen to publish
| it, and by his own admission he has this right.
| starkd wrote:
| That's a big charge to say someone's not commenting in
| good faith. Kind of insulting. I'm commenting the way I
| see it. Suppressing a story is kind of the very
| antithesis of open debate. And its not just the
| Intercept, this is a pattern across like-minded partisan
| media. I understand you don't like the story - which is
| fine - but, please, just don't say I'm operating in bad
| faith.
| stumblers wrote:
| I think Glen Greenwald was one of the more respected
| journalists but isn't any longer. I think he either has
| crossed over or will soon cross over into Seymour Hersh
| territory (sadly). Mr. Hersh was an amazing investigative
| journalist that made a huge difference in how we can keep
| gov't accountable but has ended up (largely) a discredited
| hack, which is a shame.
| yasp wrote:
| What discredited Sy Hersh?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-
| osama-bi...
|
| > In recent years, however, Hersh has appeared
| increasingly to have gone off the rails. His stories,
| often alleging vast and shadowy conspiracies, have made
| startling -- and often internally inconsistent --
| accusations, based on little or no proof beyond a handful
| of anonymous "officials."
| warkdarrior wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| "Critics have described Hersh as a conspiracy theorist,
| in particular for his rejection of official claims
| regarding the killing of Osama Bin Laden and his
| rejection that the Assad regime used chemical weapons on
| Syrian civilians."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh#Criticism_and
| _co...
| tomp wrote:
| How come that people still take accusations of
| "conspiracy theorist" seriously, when so many have proven
| to be true (e.g. "NSA is spying on everybody" and "elite
| rich people pedophile ring")??
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Glen Greenwald is one of the most respected journalists on
| the planet.
|
| I don't think that's all that true. Glenn Greenwald is
| _extremely_ popular with a particular political faction,
| which is itself particularly _un_ popular.
|
| > his character is beyond the pale
|
| Probably not what you intend:
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale
| brians wrote:
| How come Marcy Wheeler and others have so many criticisms of
| the accuracy and sourcing of his journalism?
| watwut wrote:
| I don't know. I respected him highly after Snowden and I
| still think he handled it greatly. But then, I lost a lot of
| that respect mostly due to reading his tweet feed.
|
| It mostly kind of ceased to be worth following and at times
| he seemed to be in perpetual rage combined with sort of "I
| wish this to be true so it must be".
| happytoexplain wrote:
| >Glen Greenwald is one of the most respected journalists on
| the planet. the man is a modern day Cronkite. his character
| is beyond [reproach]
|
| This isn't my experience at all, at least not for many years
| (speaking both in terms of my own opinion of his writing and
| the apparent opinions of others).
| epistasis wrote:
| After the past few years, I do not share that assessment of
| Greenwald in the least. Following him on Twitter for a while
| caused the scales to fall from my eyes. I think he's done
| some good things in the past, but currently he seems off his
| rocker, honesty. People can change as they age, and I think
| he clearly has.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Can you elaborate?
| SamBam wrote:
| He has stuck by his claim -- despite the findings of
| numerous national and international intelligence
| community investigations and even a Republican senate
| investigations -- that Russia did not interfere in the
| 2016 election.
|
| And despite his founding of the Intercept in part to
| investigate abuses by people in power (and his constant
| criticism that the press never publishes negative
| articles about people on their side) he has never written
| a _single_ article critical of any of the abuses of power
| by the Trump administration. Not a single article
| critical of _anything_ Trump has done in the past four
| years. [1]
|
| 1. All articles: https://muckrack.com/ggreenwald/articles
| Nacdor wrote:
| > He has stuck by his claim -- despite the findings of
| numerous national and international intelligence
| community investigations and even a Republican senate
| investigations -- that Russia did not interfere in the
| 2016 election.
|
| I think you're grossly misrepresenting his opinion on the
| matter. No one denies that Russia made some half-assed
| attempts to influence the election. Every country tries
| to interfere in every election. Hell, we even bragged
| about it at times: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,
| 16641,19960715,00.html
|
| Even Biden himself brags about interfering in the affairs
| of other governments: https://youtu.be/FdHWU5jDQ2w?t=46
|
| But did Russia conspire with the Trump campaign to rig
| the election or provide dirt on Hillary Clinton? No, and
| he's right for standing by that claim despite the immense
| pressure from partisan hacks who have effectively smeared
| him as some kind of Russian puppet. Your post is evidence
| of how effective that smear campaign has been.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| It's just good foreign policy to meddle in the internal
| affairs of your biggest international rivals. Do you
| think the paranoid and allknowing American government
| doesn't do the exact same thing? Greenwald's position has
| ALWAYS been Russiagate was overblown nonsense. And I
| agree.
| skindoe wrote:
| Define "interfere" what specifically did Russia do and
| how did that quantitatively effect the election results.
|
| I'm willing to put serious money down that the vast
| majority of people like yourself can't answer that
| question without linking to an op ed piece.
|
| Come on people we're engineers think about it...
|
| Ask yourself why that is.
| rodgerd wrote:
| His unflagging support for Aaron Coleman doesn't phase
| you?
| some-guy wrote:
| I followed him on Twitter due to my respect of his earlier
| journalism work, and I agree completely. I'm not sure he's
| changed though, and I think that's kind of the problem--all
| of his tweets stem from holding a grudge the old neoliberal
| guard of the 2000s onward, while getting some kind of high
| off of the chaos that the Trump administration introduced
| into the political establishment (not just to Democrats).
| epistasis wrote:
| I think you may be right. People are always a mix, and
| can produce really great things even if they don't always
| have the best judgement. Just got to get it right some of
| the time to make a good contribution.
| ptmcc wrote:
| > his character is beyond the pale
|
| I don't think this means what you think it means. You just
| insulted his character, not praised it.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Probably meant beyond reproach - but yep.
| _pmf_ wrote:
| > That's not how this works. If the editor concludes that it's
| a garbage story dropped a few days before the election in an
| attempt to influence the election, you don't run it and then
| "let the readers decide who is right".
|
| Except if it's about Bad Orange Man, right?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| That's apparently how it was supposed to work at the intercept,
| according to his contract. Strange that he thinks his readers
| ... are actually going to read the article?
| Cullinet wrote:
| Is this the editor who wore down Snowden's patience with
| obstinate ignorance how to use encrypted emails despite being
| written tailored dummies guides, until Snowden wrote in the
| clear and ruined his life?
|
| I'm not asking rhetorically I'm on my phone, and on the bus but
| this seems like it could lead to the incident, "I tried to
| teach GPG to Greenwald but I had the same problem Snowden had
| encountered when he reached out in December, that Greenwald was
| busy and couldn't focus on it. " From :
| https://theintercept.com/2014/10/28/smuggling-snowden-secret...
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I believe that you are talking about Assange and the GPG key,
| right? I believe that that was a former Guardian journalist,
| not Greenwald.
| karl11 wrote:
| You're right that it's not how this works. Media organizations
| are not interested truth or accuracy of their stories, but
| simply how many ads and subscriptions the stories can sell. And
| that's not the say they are motivated by greed - even worse,
| they are often motivated by missionary-like zeal to promote a
| cause. So of course it would follow that they have no interest
| in publishing anything disagreeable to their readership.
|
| However, Greenwald's argument definitely should be how it works
| if a media organization cares about truth and open debate. In
| this case, it seems very hard to believe that a story --
| written by a credible journalist, with a long track record, who
| literally founded the organization -- was garbage.
|
| I think Glenn hoped to create a media entity that regarded
| truth as the measure of merit of a story vs. how well it
| promoted a cause and ads/subscriptions. Now that the experiment
| has failed so obviously, good for him for moving on.
| donohoe wrote:
| >> Media organizations are not interested truth or accuracy
| of their stories
|
| As someone who works in media (not on editorial side but on
| digital), I can assure you thats you are wrong.
|
| Most media orgs have a log of rigor and fact-checking that
| goes into their stories. The editorial side is typically (not
| always in some places) shielded from the business pressures
| (for better and for worse).
|
| Its someone else's problem to worry about clicks etc.
|
| Greenwald stopped being a credible journalist awhile ago.
| Just look at what he was pushing these last few weeks.
|
| I have a lot of respect for his early work but he went on a
| weird tangent.
| syshum wrote:
| >>Greenwald stopped being a credible
|
| hmmm, was that about the same time he came to understand
| that the Authoritarian left that was taking over the
| Democrat party was illiberal, regressive, and not at all
| out to advance individual freedom like the "liberals" used
| to be?
|
| Did he "stop being credible" when is politics separated
| from your own?
|
| Greenwald has always been left-libertarian, it seems today
| the "left" only has room for left-authoritarians
| eric_b wrote:
| He stopped being a credible journalist because he broke
| ranks and deviated from the liberal orthodoxy?
| StreamBright wrote:
| And this is proven by the countless won lawsuits against
| said media organisations.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial
| _...
| Roboprog wrote:
| The mask came off this last year for me.
|
| If you look, there is often a lot of video on the ground
| of these events, so that you can see beyond a single
| narrative.
|
| In the same vein, there is a lot of video of what
| happened in Kenosha leading up to the shootings.
| simonw wrote:
| The fact that this incident was newsworthy is a useful
| indicator that this kind of case is rare. That's a reason
| to trust media organizations, not to distrust them.
|
| Similar: sometimes I see people saying "this publication
| had to retract or correct a story, which is proof that
| you cannot trust them!". The fact that they posted a
| correction is a reason TO trust them. You should be
| suspicious of publications that never post corrections,
| not publications that do.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| They didn't win the lawsuits...most of them were
| dismissed, and in the few that were not they settled for
| each side paying their own costs. (Most of their targets
| were publicly traded companies, so those legal
| settlements would have been disclosed in their SEC
| filings.)
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| "On July 24, 2020, The Washington Post settled the
| lawsuit with Nick Sandmann. The amount of the settlement
| has not been made public." "CNN settled the lawsuit with
| Nick Sandmann. The amount of the settlement has not been
| made public." "a judge rejected NBC's attempt to dismiss
| the lawsuit against it."
|
| How are most of them dismissed if none were actually
| dismissed? Reaching a settlement is also considered
| 'winning' the suit in these kinds of cases.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Reaching a settlement is also considered 'winning' the
| suit in these kinds of cases.
|
| That's in interesting conclusion. If CNN settled for a
| few thousand dollars to make Sandmann go away, did he
| really win? Either way CNN looses, they either have to
| pay for lawyers on appeals or settle out of court and end
| up where we are.
|
| Pretty much every lawyer whose chimed in on the subject
| says that Sandmann is unlikely to have won a significant
| amount. So he "won" in the sense of some PR points with
| people who already thought he was in the right. That's
| probably about it.
| jpadkins wrote:
| > simply how many ads and subscriptions the stories can sell.
|
| I don't think this is actually right. I think owners of news
| media companies want influence more than profit. I don't
| think Bezos is buying news media for the profits... The
| influence helps for their other goals.
| jrs235 wrote:
| >helps for their other goals
|
| To profit?
| luckylion wrote:
| Power. You can profit from power, but you could also
| genuinely believe that the world will be a better place
| if only everyone did what you said. In both cases you
| need power.
| sbilstein wrote:
| Techies, thanks to a bunch of dumb twitter talking heads,
| seem to think journalists are just rolling in bundles of
| cash from clicks. They're not. The vast majority of them,
| even the ones with upwards of 20k twitter followers, barely
| make any money. Influence is definitely more important to
| them than cash.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| _> seem to think journalists are just rolling in bundles
| of cash from clicks. _
|
| in this specific case: he is on a 400K salary living in
| his walled garden in Brazil.
| nostromo wrote:
| This appears to be correct. Most media outlets now are
| activists pretending to be journalists, run by businesspeople
| who care about revenue more than truth.
| rat87 wrote:
| The Intercept has long been an activist paper. That's why
| Glenn joined. That doesn't mean they care about revenue
| over truth though
| rstupek wrote:
| You mean helped found, not joined?
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| This has been true since the advent...I remember reading
| about the wars between Hamilton and Jefferson in the papers
| way back during the young years of the US.
|
| None of this is new. It's way overamplified now, and
| everyone cries censorship and fascism when it suits them.
| alchemism wrote:
| Remember the Maine!
| specialist wrote:
| Our expectations of objectivity (NPOV) is very recent and
| abnormal.
|
| I'd like many many more Clay Shirky style analysis of
| print, broadcast, and social media, followed by a 100 crazy
| notions for novel NPOV organizations.
| pete_aykroyd wrote:
| Which one are they? Activists or business people? Saying
| that they are both doesn't hold water.
| nostromo wrote:
| They aren't the same people.
|
| The journalists are the activists.
|
| The managers and owners are the businesspeople.
|
| Their motivations are very different but their incentives
| are aligned.
| bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote:
| > Media organizations are not interested truth or accuracy of
| their stories, but simply how many ads and subscriptions the
| stories can sell.
|
| Not quite complete. They're also interested in being
| influential:
|
| https://www.revolver.news/2020/10/free-market-vs-
| marketplace...
|
| A story about the former VP in various pay-to-play schemes,
| using his son as a cutout. (Not to mention about his son
| producing copious amounts of kompromat -- including extremely
| illegal activity -- for the CCP) would be great for clicks.
|
| Yet everyone is hiding the story. Why? journalistic
| integrity? No, try again...
| watermelonhead wrote:
| Media is completely sold out in the country. A purge is
| incoming.
| hajile wrote:
| Disagree with the media all you want. Leave your "purge"
| talk in the garbage where it belongs. This is NOT a place
| to promote violence.
| greenyoda wrote:
| You have no way of knowing that they had violence in
| mind. A "purge" of the media could just as easily mean
| millions of subscribers cancelling their subscriptions,
| causing the media companies to collapse.
|
| From the HN Guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest
| plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a
| weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good
| faith."
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What is the "real" media in your view?
| watermelonhead wrote:
| There is no real media anymore. Report facts, report
| views/opinions, that fine.. passing off biased hitjobs as
| "news" isnt media.
| clint wrote:
| Seems like if they only cared about clicks and ads they
| would've ran the article.
|
| From my position, they exercised the bare-minimum duties of
| any good editor to shut down stories they don't believe meet
| the standards they set for themselves.
|
| And for exercising that duty, they are leaving clicks, ad
| impressions, and probably a good amount of money on the
| table.
| hajile wrote:
| They published the Steele dossier with ZERO evidence. It's
| now been completely discredited as a Russian plant the
| Obama administration _knew_ was from a Russian asset.
|
| The US government has officially said there's no Russian
| involvement in the recent Biden leak and it's been vouched
| for by Tony Bobulinski who definitely has close ties to the
| Biden family, yet it's not publishable?
|
| That's as partisan as it gets and deserves to be called
| out.
|
| EDIT: Do the downvoters have a reason other than ideology,
| tribalism, and conspiracy theories?
| iron0013 wrote:
| I believe downvoters are likely responding to the factual
| inaccuracies in your post; not to mention the tone.
| vanattab wrote:
| What are the factual inaccuracies in the parent comment?
| I am new to this topic and it would help me if you
| pointed to what specifically he said that was inaccurate
| and why you believe so.
| archagon wrote:
| Horseshit. Last I checked, most things in that dossier
| turned out to be true.
| Yetanfou wrote:
| Can you share the sources which convinced you of the
| report's veracity? Those sources which I have seen mostly
| or totally debunked it so it would be interesting to see
| what made your sources come to a different conclusion.
|
| [edit] _I must say it is both amazing as well as
| abhorring to see a post asking for sources to a statement
| which goes counter the current narrative to be downvoted
| (currently at -4) as if the question is somehow
| offensive. Wake up, folks, the truth shall set you free.
| Seeking for it is not a crime, at least not yet._ [
| /edit]
| ModernMech wrote:
| Wikpedia has a whole section on this: https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/Steele_dossier#Veracity_and_co...
| nailer wrote:
| Wikipedia also had a section on the russiagate conspiracy
| which states:
|
| > The Special Counsel's report, made public on April 18,
| 2019, examined numerous contacts between the Trump
| campaign and Russian officials but concluded that, though
| the Trump campaign welcomed the Russian activities and
| expected to benefit from them, there was insufficient
| evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges
| against Trump or his associates.
| zbyte64 wrote:
| The dossier is a mixed bag in terms of accuracy and
| rigor, but I find it interesting most people focus on "no
| collusion" but ignore all the rest of the claims. Like:
|
| > The Mueller Report backed "Steele's central claim that
| the Russians ran a 'sweeping and systematic' operation
| ... to help Trump win".[7] James Comey said:
| The bureau began an effort after we got the Steele
| dossier to try and see how much of it we could replicate.
| That work was ongoing when I was fired. Some of it was
| consistent with our other intelligence, the most
| important part. The Steele dossier said the Russians are
| coming for the American election. It's a huge effort. It
| has multiple goals ... And that was true.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Mueller understood his mandate was to investigate before
| the fact conspiracy between Russia and the Trump
| campaign. When people allege "collusion" between Trump
| and Russia, they are not talking about a before the fact
| conspiracy, but rather tacit and sometimes explicit
| coordination between the two groups to benefit one
| another.
|
| Mueller kept his investigation very narrow in that sense,
| and failed to pursue various avenues of investigation,
| including not even looking at any financial ties between
| Trump and Russia (of which there are many, as confessed
| by Eric Trump). In fact the Mueller Report notes that the
| Trump, his campaign, and his associates obstructed the
| investigation by lying and destroying evidence. So a
| finding of insufficient evidence doesn't really put the
| issue to bed. Mueller didn't even interview Trump in
| person, and Trump lied to Mueller in his written
| responses to questions.
|
| In fact, the Republican-chaired Senate Select Committee
| on Intelligence released a later report which expands on
| the Mueller probe, and it more or less confirms what
| those who alleged "collusion" were saying all along.
| Remember, the original position Trump took was that there
| were _zero_ contacts between his campaign and Russia. No
| contacts, no deals.
|
| The Mueller Report and later the SSCI report lay out over
| 100 contacts between Trump and Russian intelligence and
| government officials. In particular:
|
| - Trump's son, son in law, and campaign manager met with
| a convicted Russian Spy in Trump's house on behalf of the
| Russian government. The Trump Campaign was very eager to
| meet with her. The spy laid out specific terms: in
| exchange for dirt on Hillary Clinton, they expected the
| relaxation of sanctions levied by the Magnitsky act.
|
| - Paul Manafort in fact turned over internal campaign
| data to a Russian intelligence officer. From the Senate
| Committee: "The Committee found that Manafort's presence
| on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created
| opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert
| influence over, and acquire confidential information on,
| the Trump campaign," ... "The Committee assesses that
| Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for
| Russian intelligence services, and that those services
| likely sought to exploit Manafort's access to gain
| insight in to the Campaign".
|
| - In the trial of Roger Stone, we learned that Stone
| actually gave Trump advance notice to Trump of hacked DNC
| e-mails, as Stone was in direct communication with Julian
| Assange. Trump had previously been briefed by the FBI
| about foreign interference in the campaign, and he failed
| to alert the FBI of the incoming hacked information. In
| fact he kept quiet about this, and instead not only did
| he trumpet the hacked e-mails at every opportunity, he
| actively encouraged the hackers to try to obtain more
| information.
|
| - From Michael Cohen we learned that Trump's claims of
| having no active deals in Russia was a lie, when in fact
| Trump was attempting to get a tower built in Moscow,
| complete with a penthouse gift for Vladimir Putin. It was
| reported by Buzzfeed that Trump instructed Cohen to lie
| about this, and while Mueller disputed this, we later
| learned that in fact when Cohen lied to Congress about
| the existence of this deal, he was doing so with the
| understanding that it was Trump's wish for him to do so.
| Whatever Cohen's motivation though, we do know Trump
| wanted to keep it a secret from the American people and
| he himself lied to all of us about the existence of a
| deal.
|
| - Fast forward to Trump's actual presidency, and he has
| done everything he can to show deference to Russia, from
| pushing for Russia to rejoin the G8 (from which they were
| expelled for the invasion of Crimea), to making
| blundering strategic decisions in Turkey to Russia's
| benefit, to siding with Putin over the assessment that
| Russia was not responsible for hacking the DNC, to
| pushing the idea that in fact it was Ukraine that was
| responsible for hacking the DNC.
|
| And after all of this, there _still_ has not been a
| rigorous accounting of Trump 's financial ties to Russia,
| of which there are many, and there has not been a
| counterintelligence investigation into the relationship.
| Not by Mueller, not by the House, the Senate, the FBI, or
| any other body. Given all of the above and everything we
| know about how Trump operates.
|
| So was there a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and
| Russia? No, probably not, and this was not alleged by
| most of us who had an issue with the relationship between
| Trump and Russia. Was there collusion? I think the
| Manafort incident alone proves yes. Trump's campaign
| manager hands over internal campaign data to what the
| Senate Select Committee on Intelligence characterizes as
| a "Russian Intelligence Officer", while the GRU is
| hacking the DNC and targeting voters with a psyops
| campaign. Yeah, that's collusion.
| PenisBanana wrote:
| Well, you've made one true statement: The last time you
| "checked" ... ahem ... that was when "most things in that
| dossier turned out to be true."
|
| Dishonesty, and turtles, all the way down.
| ModernMech wrote:
| >The US government has officially said there's no Russian
| involvement in the recent Biden leak
|
| DNI John Ratcliffe, who is a Republican partisan, said
| that on Fox News. He was also just caught lying to the
| FBI director in making a partisan assessment (with zero
| to back it up) in a statement about election interference
| by Iran last week. He's not exactly a credible and
| dispassionate actor in all of this.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| The FBI also concurred with the DNI's claim that the IC
| has no intelligence to suggest the laptop is Russian
| disinformation, by saying "we have nothing to add."
| Additionally, a senate committee has determined and
| announced that they believe the evidence Bobulinski
| presented is authentic.
| ModernMech wrote:
| "We have nothing to add" is not "concurring". You're
| making a leap of logic there. It's the same thing as
| saying "we can neither confirm nor deny".
|
| The "Senate Committee" you speak of is chaired by Ron
| Johnson, who is a staunch Trump ally and again, a rank
| partisan.
|
| In order for the general public to have any degree of
| trust about this, there is going to have to be some
| authority who is at least not a partisan who can speak
| with authority to actual facts. Not vague "assurances"
| with no evidence. This issue is way too political to
| trust Republicans, especially after Benghazi (went
| nowhere after dozens of investigations by partisans) and
| Hillary's e-mails (went nowhere after a whole year of
| hyping it up as the worst crime ever by a politician).
| This entire thing just smells like the next big
| Republican freakout over nothing.
| malandrew wrote:
| > From my position
|
| Your position is the same as everyone here: You haven't
| read the story and have no information whatsoever to claim
| that they are being good editors or not.
|
| Until we have a story to look at, it's anyone's guess if
| he's being a good journalist or they are being a good
| editor.
| meowface wrote:
| They're free to make that choice if that's their true
| assessment of it. But when Greenwald publishes his piece,
| if it actually is not in fact a garbage piece, they're
| going to look extremely bad and biased.
| ciarannolan wrote:
| You would think that if that were the case, he would
| publish it alongside this letter.
|
| Edit; he did: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-
| on-joe-and-hunter-b...
| meowface wrote:
| He said he'll be publishing it on his blog very soon. He
| may have submitted an incomplete draft to The Intercept
| for review, and is still finishing it up.
| ciarannolan wrote:
| That's a good point. I just wish he provided more detail
| to let people decide for themselves.
| trothamel wrote:
| This proved correct, and he just posted the draft.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-
| hunter-b...
| meowface wrote:
| [removed]
| Zafira wrote:
| The draft itself also has a not insignificant amount of
| leaps of faith that are not helpful in the current
| environment:
|
| "Beyond that, the Journal's columnist Kimberly Strassel
| reviewed a stash of documents..."---this is an opinion
| article, why isn't the newsroom covering this explosive
| story?
|
| "All of these new materials, the authenticity of which
| has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden
| campaign"---absence of a denial is not proof of its
| validity.
|
| "Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party
| operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its "fact-
| check," one that has as of yet produced no public
| conclusions."---an unnamed source told me that Facebook
| is really trying to push the election to Biden...
|
| Even if Greenwald is sincere in his attempts to daylight
| the truth, he increasingly seems unaware or unwilling to
| accept that he might be or is being used as a useful
| idiot by foreign agents.
| meowface wrote:
| >"All of these new materials, the authenticity of which
| has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden
| campaign"---absence of a denial is not proof of its
| validity.
|
| He explicitly explains why he thinks it does serve as
| some additional evidence of such, and I agree with it.
| It's not proof, but it's evidence:
|
| >Why is the failure of the Bidens to claim that these
| emails are forged so significant? Because when
| journalists report on a massive archive, they know that
| the most important event in the reporting's
| authentication process comes when the subjects of the
| reporting have an opportunity to deny that the materials
| are genuine. Of course that is what someone would do if
| major media outlets were preparing to publish, or in fact
| were publishing, fabricated or forged materials in their
| names; they would say so in order to sow doubt about the
| materials if not kill the credibility of the reporting.
|
| >The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the
| question of the material's authenticity, but when added
| to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is
| quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication
| evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives.
|
| ----
|
| >Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party
| operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its "fact-
| check," one that has as of yet produced no public
| conclusions."---an unnamed source told me that Facebook
| is really trying to push the election to Biden...
|
| He doesn't name him in this article for some reason, but
| he links another article he wrote, where he explains
| this: https://theintercept.com/2020/10/15/facebook-and-
| twitter-cro...
|
| >Just two hours after the story was online, Facebook
| intervened. The company dispatched a life-long Democratic
| Party operative who now works for Facebook -- Andy Stone,
| previously a communications operative for Democratic Sen.
| Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign
| Committee, among other D.C. Democratic jobs -- to
| announce that Facebook was "reducing [the article's]
| distribution on our platform": in other words, tinkering
| with its own algorithms to suppress the ability of users
| to discuss or share the news article. The long-time
| Democratic Party official did not try to hide his
| contempt for the article, beginning his censorship
| announcement by snidely noting: "I will intentionally not
| link to the New York Post."
| KittenInABox wrote:
| According to the response by the Intercept he's actually
| flipping out against basic edit suggestions as
| censorship. [0]. https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/13
| 21896097099489283/ph...
|
| Seems like a temper tantrum to me, even if the journalism
| is legitimate. It could very well be these claims are
| clickbait for the journalist to strike out on his own
| without the publisher.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > According to the response by the Intercept he's
| actually flipping out against basic edit suggestions as
| censorship
|
| Source? Your link doesn't say anything about basic edit
| suggestions.
|
| Looking at the emails [0], this appears to be strong
| editorializing (much of it far from clearcut) for what (I
| believe) is an opinion piece.
|
| [0]: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-
| intercept-edito...?
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I'm reading the emails and they seem to be perfectly
| reasonable edit suggestions (I'm a person that's familiar
| with the editing process)- it points out that the article
| is attempting to accomplish too much with evidence that
| is actually vague and suggests increased focus to
| critique that liberal media isn't holding Biden's feet to
| the fire. Asking for an article to be narrowed down in
| scope is a perfectly good suggestion as an editorial
| board, especially in news articles where too much stuff
| can make the article ineffective. Furthermore, the editor
| is nothing less than professional/polite, while the
| response is full of wild accusations like "What's
| happening here is obvious: you know that you can't
| explicitly say you don't want to publish the article
| because it raises questions about the candidate you and
| all other TI Editors want very much to win the election
| in 5 days."
|
| It looks like a tantrum to me.
| meowface wrote:
| I think Greenwald is probably right regarding his
| accusations in the email, but I agree that they weren't
| necessary to include, at least so early in the discussion
| process. He did seem to react unnecessarily harshly,
| before his email even received a reply.
|
| As you say, he was the one who first began displaying the
| unprofessional behavior. He probably should have just
| sent like half of his follow-up email (the citations of
| the email compared to the article) and given them a
| chance to reply. But I also understand why he felt he was
| being unduly pressured and why staying there wouldn't
| have been wise for him.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > I'm a person that's familiar with the editing process
|
| I am also very familiar with the editing process. I'm not
| saying that the editing suggestions are beyond what you
| would ever see in an editorial context, but I would never
| characterize them as "basic edit suggestions."
|
| Much of the quibbling in the edits to me suggests
| ulterior motive, like the rejection of the idea that
| there has been "suppression" of the story (there
| obviously has).
|
| And if you're familiar with the editing process, you'd
| know that edits are not always completely apolitical, I
| know people who have been asked to make edits for
| political reasons in major national publications.
|
| I think it is hard to claim this is just equal editorial
| scrutiny, given the publication of multiple false claims
| around the Hunter Biden story (ie. "very likely to be
| Russian disinformation", etc.).
|
| > the editor is nothing less than professional/polite
|
| To me, I don't necessarily always side with the actor who
| appears to be more professional, though I do agree that
| Greenwald comes off as rude in the email.
| [deleted]
| hluska wrote:
| I read the entire draft and I'm going to disagree with
| you. Rather than write a lengthy diatribe, I'll start
| with my main point. This is all very neat and tidy and
| while it may all be true, we live in a political climate
| where foreign governments interfere in elections by
| spreading disinformation. In that case, an editor is
| absolutely correct to push back, make suggestions and
| ensure their otherwise respectable publication is not
| used as a tool to spread more disinformation the week
| before an election.
| monocasa wrote:
| We've lived in a world where foreign governments have
| interfered in elections by spreading disinformation for
| literally as long as there's been elections. That doesn't
| give the media an excuse to ignore corruption across half
| of the aisle.
| hluska wrote:
| You're correct but journalists need to do better. This
| article isn't strong enough for publication, the editor
| made reasonable suggestions and frankly, it sounds like a
| tantrum.
| meowface wrote:
| [removed]
| hluska wrote:
| Thanks for engaging with me friend - I promise to reply
| but this will take a bit of time. Unfortunately, I have
| to step out.
|
| I promise to write a proper reply and don't want you to
| take my silence as a sign of disrespect. It's been fun
| engaging with you and I appreciate your brain - I'll edit
| this comment when I get back.
|
| Seriously thanks, this has been a lot of fun!! :)
|
| Edit - Hey friends, meowface genuinely doesn't deserve
| those downvoted. They are smart - I don't agree with
| them, but they've made some strong points in excellent
| ways.
| meowface wrote:
| Everyone on every side is being downvoted (and then
| upvoted, and then downvoted, and then upvoted, and then
| downvoted some more...), it seems. I don't mind at all;
| it comes with the territory. Anyone entering into a fray
| like this knows what to expect. If someone strongly
| disagrees with me, I actually think they probably should
| downvote me.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| This is voluntary ignorance and a cheap excuse. Which
| foreign intervention? The Russians again?
| hluska wrote:
| The draft is weak. It completely avoids explaining why
| several experts conclude it's disinformation. Instead, it
| uses a very complicated set of coincidences with only one
| actual fact - Biden had something to do with getting one
| prosecutor replaced.
|
| That's flimsy journalism. Expecting better out of a
| journalist is far from voluntary ignorance.
| vokep wrote:
| Is there anywhere I can find a clear explanation of
| expert's reasoning to conclude it's disinformation?
|
| It seems like the information is really up in the air, it
| will take time to determine what conclusions from it are
| legitimate and false. The information itself is quite
| clearly real, at least, I haven't seen any specific piece
| of information in regards to this claimed as false, just
| the whole subject referred to as "disinformation".
| monetus wrote:
| I heard sam seder break what he knew down pretty well a
| few days ago but I am having trouble finding the clip.
| meowface wrote:
| An editor is absolutely right to push back on a writer
| potentially publishing disinformation about a candidate
| before an election, but I disagree that this contains any
| disinformation or acceptance of disinformation. It covers
| a lot of ground, but the media censorship parts seem
| incontrovertible, and the parts specifically critical of
| Biden seem pretty balanced to me. He seems to hedge a lot
| of what he says and provides many perspectives and
| sources.
|
| We should be very careful about disinformation, but
| another form of information warfare and "active measures"
| which I'm sure Russian intelligence is and has been
| deploying is the spread of skepticism of true information
| and belief that any or all information could be
| disinformation. Division, discord, fear, uncertainty, and
| doubt are the goals; not just falsehoods. All of these
| erode a sense of shared reality. Just as any claims about
| a political figure need support, so do claims of
| disinformation.
|
| So, I think it's diatribe time. Could you quote the parts
| of the article (with full context) that seem like
| disinformation?
| hluska wrote:
| You know, we might not agree on this but I like you and
| think you're very cool. :)
|
| I'll write you the reply you deserve but have to step
| out. Again though friend, you're a good person and I
| respect your mind.
|
| Edit - Seriously friend, I'm having a rough day in my
| personal life. I feel really lucky that I found you to
| engage with and get my mind off of things. You're cool.
| Thanks for being cool. I'll pay you back one day for
| this.
| meowface wrote:
| For the record, I read the email exchange Greenwald
| published and I am a little more sympathetic to the
| editors now. I don't totally agree with their criticisms,
| but I think Greenwald unnecessarily escalated into ad
| hominems before even giving them a chance to reply, and I
| think there was a valid discussion to be had there before
| there was no choice but to throw in the towel. He
| should've just kept the part of the email with the editor
| comments vs. article comparisons and left out the rest. I
| understand why he felt like he was being pressured,
| though.
|
| I still don't think there's anything like blind
| acceptance of disinformation in the article, but he
| could've hedged certain parts a bit more.
|
| Also, I kind of regret some of my earlier comments. I
| still think the way the media and Twitter handled this is
| absolutely ridiculous, and I really don't think there's a
| disinformation aspect to this article (bias and
| dis/misinformation are very different), but I kind of
| jumped to the conclusion about the rigor of the article
| after only reading about half of it (mostly the parts
| about the media). I think the truth about the article's
| rigor probably lies in the middle between your and my
| initial opinions of it, and similarly I think proper
| rigor kind of lies between Greenwald's and the editor's
| opinions. I prefer Taibbi's reporting on it (and Taibbi's
| reporting in general).
|
| And to be clear, as I mentioned in my other comments,
| I've never seen very good evidence of corruption on Joe's
| part; my concern is pretty much just with the emails and
| the media's handling of them.
|
| edit: Actually, I just went ahead and removed my very
| initial comment and another one. I was kind of shooting
| from the hip, though I definitely still stand by the
| parts about the media, and probably most of my other
| comments so far. But I might change my mind tomorrow
| about some of the other comments, and this definitely
| isn't the ideal platform for an extremely lengthy and
| careful debate.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > we live in a political climate where foreign
| governments interfere in elections by spreading
| disinformation. In that case, an editor is absolutely
| correct to push back
|
| This is paternalistic to the extreme. Do we get to vote
| on whether we want such a society or is it just imposed
| by editorial fiat?
|
| > spread more disinformation the week before an election.
|
| You read the draft. Could you point out the explicit
| falsehoods to me?
|
| Or are you saying we should stop the spread of
| inconvenient opinion pieces?
| hluska wrote:
| I vaguely understand the paternalistic side of your
| argument, but if you want to abandon editorial rigour, we
| have something already built for that. It's called social
| media.
|
| If social media doesn't turn your crank, start your own
| publication and establish your own editorial fiat.
| HOWEVER, there's a problem - if your editing sucks, you
| won't attract enough readers to maintain high standards.
| That's kind of the shit part of the free market - you
| can't just go push a substandard product and scream about
| "my freedom".
|
| Ultimately, this draft needed some work and if you go
| through this thread, you can read some of the Intercept's
| own comments. Personally, I found the section about
| possible disinformation to need more meat. The connection
| between the Vice President and the company is too
| tenuous. The article needs to cover WHY experts think it
| is disinformation, even just to strengthen the claim that
| it isn't.
|
| It doesn't much matter what you want to read, but an
| editor still had to find balance and appropriate context.
| Otherwise, publications suck...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > I vaguely understand the paternalistic side of your
| argument, but if you want to abandon editorial rigour, we
| have something already built for that. It's called social
| media.
|
| Without getting into the irony of the fact that the
| article we're discussing was blocked on social media, I
| want to make clear: I don't want to abandon editorial
| rigor.
|
| But I do think that electioneering concerns should be
| irrelevant to the context of whether you present
| information in the public interest. Just as reporting on
| Trump's tax returns or the Podesta emails were in the
| public interest, so too are the Hunter Biden emails.
|
| There has _not_ been a historical problem of major
| publications publishing Russian falsehoods. The "fake
| news" epidemic is mostly quickly stood up sites
| propagating on Facebook.
|
| Nor did I see any evidence that Glenn was connected to a
| Russian disinformation effort. If that were to change
| (say, if he were found to be receiving payments from the
| Russian government), then I would support removing him as
| a writer outright.
|
| > an editor still had to find balance and appropriate
| context.
|
| Agreed. My claim here is that the editorial staff of The
| Intercept failed at this goal and their suggestions were
| not balanced.
| dhimes wrote:
| So, Hunter was possibly selling access to Joe, for the
| possibility of influence? If so, did it work? Hunter is a
| troubled man (remember Billy Carter?). I only care about
| what Joe did, if any of this is true.
| hluska wrote:
| That's where I think this article gets weak. It seems to
| hinge on "nobody else is reporting it so it must be
| true." The connection between the Vice President and the
| company isn't strong enough. And excluding the
| possibility this is disinformation just makes the
| connection that much worse.
|
| I feel like I'm missing about 500 words. If Greenwald
| would tighten his prose and strengthen the persuasion,
| this article could rule.
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| >The connection between the Vice President and the
| company isn't strong enough. And excluding the
| possibility this is disinformation just makes the
| connection that much worse.
|
| >If Greenwald would tighten his prose and strengthen the
| persuasion, this article could rule.
|
| Holy non sequitur Batman!
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| This is tabloid level trash. No different than the email-
| gate nothingburger that dogged Hillary or made up the
| Birtherism claims against Obama. Greenwald should be
| ashamed.
| lhorie wrote:
| This doesn't really strike me as a cheap attempt to sway
| elections. Rather, it makes IMHO a pretty reasonable case
| for the idea that media - even independent publications -
| in the US are extremely polarized and biased when it
| comes to politics (albeit that's kinda beating a dead
| horse at this point).
|
| With all this said, IMHO the style of the narrative also
| contributes to the ever increasing aggravation: why are
| people so focused on what can or cannot be construed as
| fodder for character assassination, when ideally an
| election is supposed to be about discussing the merits of
| different platforms. Investigative journalism certainly
| has its place, but in the context of the imminent
| elections and the political landscape, it would do a
| whole lot better to simply publish a down-to-earth for-
| dummies side-by-side comparison of candidate platforms,
| to dissuade pitchfork-induced action and encourage proper
| level-headed consideration by undecided voters.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Yes it's crazy how polarized popular U.S. media is. I'm
| from Germany but regularly check CNN and Foxnews since a
| year. I'm astounded how Foxnews is strictly positive
| about Trump and CNN is so positive about Democrats and
| Biden. (More in-depth magazines are more open though)
|
| But being realistic, at least until the upcoming election
| is over they've reached a point of no return. 4 more
| years of Trump would exclude U.S. from international
| foreign politics.
| darkerside wrote:
| He's not wrong. But, it seems the American public is
| completely obsessed with the October Surprise. Everyone
| is waiting for that last minute piece of information that
| will flip the entire election on its head. And why not?
| Social and mass media have been training us to trawl for
| the "bug scoop" for decades now.
|
| The truth is, news doesn't happen overnight. If anything
| sufficiently important is to be determined true, it needs
| to happen over a course of weeks or months, as people
| process the information, debate with each other, and come
| to a consensus on what it means for the country. Just
| because we can have this conversation with smaller and
| more rapid steps due to technology doesn't mean that we
| can get to the destination any faster.
|
| So, in my opinion, burying this story is wrong.
| Amplifying it is also wrong. If Trump truly believes this
| is corruption, he should open an investigation, one that
| will be widely mocked as a political hit job and will
| still not finish until well into the next term. But, if
| you care about your country, you do it anyway. Not to win
| an election but because it's the right thing to do. I
| guess we'll see what happens.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But, it seems the American public is completely
| obsessed with the October Surprise.
|
| The news media is. The public (especially, given the pace
| of early voting, this year) doesn't seem to be, as much.
| darkerside wrote:
| I'd posit that even if they already voted, people are
| still checking the news to see if there is late breaking
| news that will affect the broader opinion, even if they
| "know" that it won't affect theirs.
|
| Anyway, my broader point is that Greenwald, and likely
| many others, feel immense pressure to get this out before
| the election, so that people have "all the relevant
| information", but the truth is, we never have all the
| relevant information because information exists in a
| continuum not a binary space.
| panarky wrote:
| "While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was
| attempting to recycle a political campaign's -- the Trump
| campaign's -- dubious claims and launder them as
| journalism."
|
| The Intercept said it had no doubt that Greenwald would
| "launch a new media venture where he will face no
| collaboration with editors -- such is the era of Substack
| and Patreon."
|
| "In that context, it makes good business sense for Glenn
| to position himself as the last true guardian of
| investigative journalism and to smear his longtime
| colleagues and friends as partisan hacks," the Intercept
| statement reads.
|
| "We get it. But facts are facts and The Intercept record
| of fearless, rigorous, independent journalism speaks for
| itself."
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/10/29/glenn-
| greenw...
| comex wrote:
| It starts out reasonable enough. When it gets to Burisma,
| though, it falls off a cliff:
|
| > But that claim [that Biden wanted the prosecutor fired
| so his replacement would better fight corruption] does
| not even pass the laugh test. The U.S. and its European
| allies are not opposed to corruption by their puppet
| regimes. They are allies with the most corrupt regimes on
| the planet, from Riyadh to Cairo, and always have been.
| Since when does the U.S. devote itself to ensuring good
| government in the nations it is trying to control? If
| anything, allowing corruption to flourish has been a key
| tool in enabling the U.S. to exert power in other
| countries and to open up their markets to U.S. companies.
|
| I don't even know what to say other than that that's an
| absurd caricature of US foreign policy. Yes, the US
| sometimes allies itself with corrupt regimes. That
| doesn't mean it's not interested in fighting corruption,
| especially in a potential future NATO member.
| m0zg wrote:
| Which, by the way, is almost certain. Greenwald is not
| known for publishing "garbage pieces". He gave up his
| career as a lawyer to do what he does. He was censored
| for the same reason why NYPost, one of the oldest and
| largest US newspapers, has been censored on Twitter for
| the past 2 weeks (still is) - the story is real, and it's
| getting in the way of regime change by the Deep State.
| scrollaway wrote:
| My god. Get your shit together, America. How did you let
| it get so bad that conspiracies like these are believed
| by the mainstream?
|
| Edit: Jesus christ those replies. This is what I'm
| talking about. You're reaching North Korea levels of
| indoctrination.
| p1necone wrote:
| It's bizarre. All these people have fallen hook line and
| sinker for blatantly obvious far right conspiracy
| nonsense, but I guess it's easier to see from the outside
| looking in?
| RonanTheGrey wrote:
| Are you claiming that Glenn Greenwald, one of the most
| respected journalists, is publishing a garbage article?
| scrollaway wrote:
| I wasn't but I gladly will now that you ask.
|
| I used to have a lot of respect for Greenwald, it's been
| disappointing to see his evolution since the Snowden
| revelations.
|
| Anyway here's the intercept's response. Will you read it?
|
| https://static.theintercept.com/amp/glenn-greenwald-
| resigns-...
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Respected by whom? Most of his fellow journalists
| consider him a crank, and his PRISM reporting exposed how
| bad he is at his job.
| pstuart wrote:
| I am. The Burisma affair was genteel corruption and I
| don't care about it at this point, especially since the
| Senate majority didn't give AF about corruption that made
| that look quaint.
|
| Right now it's an existential referendum and if we choose
| survival we can return back to to such matters.
| StreamBright wrote:
| If this is a conspiracy then surely the Biden family
| started a lawsuit against Newyork Post, right? Easy
| money.
| admax88q wrote:
| You say this like its a "gotcha." Surely you've heard of
| the Streisand effect?
|
| Imagine that you are in charge the the Biden campaign,
| and that the story is false. What action would you take?
| It looks like its not gaining traction on its own, would
| you really direct the public's attention back to it?
| skindoe wrote:
| Because they are true
| malandrew wrote:
| Maybe because whistleblowers like Snowden actually
| provided the world with tons of evidence that
| conspiracies like this are sometimes far from fiction.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Or maybe because your company's been complicit in feeding
| high-engagement videos and content to users,
| indiscriminate to whether the type of engagement is toxic
| or the damage the videos do, sending those users into a
| vicious, cult-like rabbit hole and disconnecting them
| from reality.
|
| Or you'll have to remind me where Snowden, possibly the
| most thorough and careful whistleblower of the last
| century, talked about the "deep state" or any of that
| QAnon shit.
| meowface wrote:
| I think everyone's talking past each other. QAnon, "the
| Deep State", Snowden, Hunter Biden's emails, Twitter's
| censorship, and the media's non-reporting are all barely
| related, here. Let's maybe talk about things on a case-
| by-case, factual basis.
| m0zg wrote:
| What "conspiracy theories". When Leslie Stahl [1] on 60
| minutes says it's never been proven that the Trump
| campaign was spied on, that's deliberate journalistic
| malpractice. When Joe Biden is never asked about anything
| that could even remotely stymie his campaign, that's
| deliberate journalistic malpractice. When that
| malpractice covers _every single news outlet_ except
| Greenwald, Taibbi, and Tucker Carlson, that's a
| coordinated disinformation campaign. I'll let you draw
| your own conclusions, if you are able.
|
| [1]. https://www.bitchute.com/video/S55HwMyFjSP3/ - I'm
| not sure what made it into the on-air version. I only
| watched the side by side.
|
| Here's Greenwald's article that The Intercept censored,
| by the way: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-
| joe-and-hunter-b...
|
| FYI, @scrollaway, here's Snowden referring to the Deep
| State, which you said he doesn't do. HN won't let me
| post, so I'll just edit. From Wikipedia: Former NSA
| leaker Edward Snowden has used the term generally to
| refer to the influence of civil servants over elected
| officials: "the deep state is not just the intelligence
| agencies, it is really a way of referring to the career
| bureaucracy of government. These are officials who sit in
| powerful positions, who don't leave when presidents do,
| who watch presidents come and go ... they influence
| policy, they influence presidents."
|
| Let me remind you, he's in Russia because Joe Biden
| personally called half a dozen heads of state and
| threatened them with reprisals.
| [deleted]
| mturmon wrote:
| Tucker Carlson? What a crock. He's now on TV claiming
| some agents of the Deep State are breaking in to his mail
| -- "the Deep State ate my expose!"
| mturmon wrote:
| I agree: this site, despite its many other good
| qualities, is a freaking disaster regarding these
| nonsense "censorship" claims, either regarding the NYPost
| story, or this one.
|
| All these BS stories are coming out right now, with days
| to go in the election, so that they can't be debunked
| and/or placed in context. It's "but what about her
| e-mails" all over again.
| scrollaway wrote:
| I don't think it has anything to do with HN specifically,
| more to do with this bullshit reaching the mainstream.
| And HN is full of mainstream people (much as those same
| people would like to think they aren't).
| [deleted]
| DevKoala wrote:
| I also didn't want to believe, but the amount of evidence
| is staggering and now there is an active FBI
| investigation. At the very least the press should report
| that.
| scrollaway wrote:
| You know who actually has an endless amount of evidence
| of corruption, fraud, and general awfulness, and has had
| it for years, not a mere convenient pre-election period?
|
| Your current administration.
|
| If your country burns, it takes a lot of other countries
| with it. You'll understand that we actually want what's
| good for you.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _NYPost, one of the oldest and largest US newspapers_
|
| The NY Post is a tabloid. One of their headlines this
| week was that Miley Cyrus was once chased down by a
| UFO...
| m0zg wrote:
| That's nothing. One of NYTimes top stories for the past 4
| years was a fake dossier and "Russian collusion" that
| didn't exist. And they got us into a multi-trillion
| dollar war in the Middle East, too.
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-
| commentary/s...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| No, the President of the U.S. at the time got us into a
| multi-trillion dollar war in the Middle East. The NYT
| simply reported on the documents that the administration
| used to justify that war.
|
| The "fake" dossier actually existed, as did its contents.
| What got leaked was an unfinished internal draft that was
| never meant to be released. Buzzfeed was the company that
| published the dossier; the NYT simply reported on the
| dossier _after_ it became a big issue. Given the nature
| of the allegations, multiple agencies in the U.S.
| attempted to verify the allegations. They were able to
| corroborate some but not all of the allegations in the
| dossier, as discussed in the Mueller Report.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| What is wrong with the NYTimes's reporting on the Steele
| dossier?
|
| Shortly after it was published by Buzzfeed: "How a
| Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for
| Donald Trump"
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/politics/donald-
| trump-...
| morelisp wrote:
| > Greenwald is not known for publishing "garbage pieces".
|
| Reputation trails actions. Overall Greenwald seems like a
| remarkably average journalist with strong rhetorical
| chops who lucked into a couple good stories. But he's
| spent the past few years squandering that social capital
| on a mix of conspiracy and irrelevance, and this may be
| his bankruptcy.
|
| > He gave up his career as a lawyer to do what he does.
|
| This means absolutely nothing. If anything lawyers aren't
| especially known as paragons of truth! (And that's fine
| for a lawyer where the adversarial system holds, but can
| make you a bit shit as a journalist.)
| leetcrew wrote:
| I think the point is that a self-interested/amoral person
| would be unlikely to leave a career as a lawyer to become
| a journalist.
|
| I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by this. some people
| value influence more than money.
| Fellshard wrote:
| Not if they expect that they would be effectively cut off
| from most major distribution channels for doing so.
| [deleted]
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> Media organizations are not interested truth or accuracy
| of their stories, but simply how many ads and subscriptions
| the stories can sell. And that 's not the say they are
| motivated by greed - even worse, they are often motivated by
| missionary-like zeal to promote a cause._
|
| Why do you believe Glenn is immune to this interest? The
| entire point of this is to promote his newsletter.
|
| _> I think Glenn hoped to create a media entity that
| regarded truth as the measure of merit of a story vs. how
| well it promoted a cause and ads /subscriptions. Now that the
| experiment has failed so obviously, good for him for moving
| on._
|
| How do you know that "truth" is _not_ the measure of merit
| for this story? You haven 't read it; you're simply taking
| Glenn at his word.
| rat87 wrote:
| Many media organizations care quite a lot about their
| reputation as well as their effect on society.They want to
| report honestly and give an accurate picture of the word.
| Including Glenns paper, that's why he joined it.
|
| Glenn seems to have picked a grudge(against establishment
| Dems) over commitment to solid truthful reporting
| temp8964 wrote:
| If the "golden showers" is not a garbage story, I don't know
| what is.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I was coming here to say the same.
|
| When you have all of the intelligence agencies you trust saying
| "Hey there are nation-state actors who are actively trying to
| sow dis-information in order to affect the outcome of the US
| elections." as an editor your only response can be "We are
| going to be really really choosy about stories we publish with
| respect to either candidate prior to the election."
|
| Maybe it is a big scoop and all legit, and maybe it will like
| the "Hunter files" that Fox News was touting and have now
| mysteriously vanished. The _responsible_ thing to do is publish
| _after_ the election. What ever the story talks about will
| still be true or untrue then, and the risk of it being an
| elaborate hoax are non-zero. Nobody wants to be the person who
| was "duped by a foreign intelligence service into helping them
| move the election their way." That is not a badge of honor.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Greenwald has never operated in a way that concerns itself with
| the consequences of actions. The philosophy is "we report,
| freely, what we believe to be true and fair, and whats comes of
| it does not matter".
|
| I am personally torn on this kind of philosophy. Would that
| everyone was like this, but since they are not, surely there
| are times when too much is on the line to behave this way?
|
| He explicitly talks about this attitude in this interview:
| https://www.vox.com/2016/9/15/12853236/glenn-greenwald-trump...
|
| But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of
| another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's
| aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it.
| gldalmaso wrote:
| It is definitely a two-edged blade. It might serve as a moral
| pillar to Greenwald, but it also makes him easy to
| manipulate. One could feed the leak at the time where it
| would do most damage and know that where other editors would
| think twice Glenn would jump on it.
|
| Sadly I have the feeling that good faith journalism has no
| role to play nowadays. It doesn't have the reach and
| credibility it needs to justify it. People now "inform"
| themselves in a decentralized manner, seldom break their
| bubble and don't care much about facts preferring narratives.
| The hardest facts and science can be presented and it will
| still come out as narrative.
| starkd wrote:
| He is more concerned with upholding the principle of the
| first amendment than supporting the ideology of the moment.
| Supressing information because its not convenient at the
| moment is the very definition of hack journalism. Something
| he wants no part of.
|
| You'd think the democratic party would have learned after
| 2016 by nominating another clinton. The seem to feel that
| supressing negative stories is just easier than answering
| them. Nominating someone like Sanders would have at least
| allowed the issues to be discussed.
| alchemism wrote:
| How does the First Amendment come into play in a situation
| wherein a private corporation making an internal decision
| regarding a corporate asset?
| starkd wrote:
| Fair point. But this is not just the Intercept. This is
| multiple outlets all letting their partisan affiliation
| interfere with their reporting. Greenwald has been
| bothered by this for a long while now, along with a
| growing list: Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, just to name
| a few.
| colordrops wrote:
| There is a concerted effort by the establishment through
| PR campaigns by think tanks, bot networks, and major
| media outlet connections, to push the narrative that free
| speech is dangerous and should be curtailed. They are
| first starting with pressure and leverage on private
| outlets, while simultaneously floating the idea that
| there should be legal limitations on online speech. It's
| all part of the same effort.
|
| Furthermore there are a few private outfits that have
| near a near monopoly on public speech, so they have the
| effect of censorship.
| RonanTheGrey wrote:
| Not upholding the first amendment; upholding the
| _principle_ of the first amendment, that is, the first
| amendment doesn 't create a right, it protects one that
| we all already have. The Bill of Rights are based on
| natural rights, ones we have by benefit of being alive,
| one of which is free speech. The First Amendment concerns
| itself with a very small corner of that universe, but the
| rest of it is ours, and should remain free.
|
| The founders never imagined a situation where a very few
| private citizens would have the power to censor the
| speech of millions of others. Nothing even remotely
| similar to that existed at the time and there was nothing
| to suggest it could ever exist. The US Constitution is
| also a minimalist document so it wasn't concerned with
| enforcing behavior between private citizens.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is where the distinction between "act" and "rule"
| consequentialism becomes important.
|
| Perhaps there is "too much" on the line, but I think that we
| live in a complex world, it is difficult to estimate the
| downstream impacts of your action, and that every time you
| choose to suppress a story due to potential political
| consequences, you are undermining broader "trust."
|
| Better to default to reporting freely since, as a rule,
| suppressing stories generally erodes trust, whereas the
| direct downstream impact of airing a specific story can be
| difficult to estimate in a complex world.
| garden_hermit wrote:
| Both both blocking and running a story are conscious
| actions with political consequences and which have the
| potential to undermine trust. Plenty of people lost trust
| in the media following their focus on the Hillary Clinton
| email scandal, which amounted to nothing but likely swayed
| the election.
|
| There seems to be some sort of paradox of tolerance to
| trust and the news media.
|
| In principle, we should allow all information. However, bad
| faith actors can easily take advantage of this principle,
| and flood the airwaves with dubious and ultimately-
| overblown stories (see Clinton's emails). If bad-faith
| actors are afoot (which seems the case here), then at some
| point an editor needs to step in and refuse to print the
| story--the question though, is when? And is there anyway to
| step in, and have it not look like censorship?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I agree that both actions have consequences. I wasn't
| trying to defend taking action in general, I was trying
| to claim that I think a consequential rule of: "Do not
| block new information due to perceived impact on
| election" might be a good one.
|
| > Plenty of people lost trust in the media following
| their focus on the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which
| amounted to nothing but likely swayed the election.
|
| Hm, let's do a comparison. Do you think trust in the
| media would have been better or worse if media outlets
| had received leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's
| campaign during the summer (some indicating, for
| instance, that some members of Hillary Clinton's campaign
| had conspired to acquire questions ahead of the
| Democratic debates), embargoed them until after the
| election, and then released them?
|
| "bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here)"
| -> I don't see why the 'faith' of the actors really has
| any relevance as to whether the information is in the
| public interest to know.
| garden_hermit wrote:
| > Hm, let's do a comparison. Do you think trust in the
| media would have been better or worse if media outlets
| had received leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's
| campaign during the summer (some indicating, for
| instance, that some members of Hillary Clinton's campaign
| had conspired to acquire questions ahead of the
| Democratic debates), embargoed them until after the
| election, and then released them?
|
| It depends! What is the source of the information? Does
| the source have incentive to fabricate or exaggerate
| their claims? Can other trustworthy sources confirm the
| information? Does the information hold up to critical
| scrutiny? Does the information matter?
|
| If the answer to these questions are all yes, then I
| think the media acted in a trustworthy way. If not, then
| I don't think so.
|
| My argument is not that embarrassing information should
| be withheld because of an an election. Instead, my
| argument is that news media should not publish any and
| all information without the due process of journalism. If
| the claims hold up to scrutiny, then sure, publish it! If
| the claims don't hold up, then don't publish it.
|
| > "bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case
| here)" -> I don't see why the 'faith' of the actors
| really has any relevance as to whether the information is
| in the public interest to know.
|
| No, but bad faith actors have an incentive to inject
| noise into the news cycle, and in turn, have incentive to
| fabricate or exaggerate claims. Journalists and their
| editors, when they believe information is given in bad
| faith, should hold it to a higher level of scrutiny so
| that they avoid mischaracterizing a story.
|
| edit: typo
| FpUser wrote:
| >"But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp
| of another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to
| Trump's aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it.But it is a
| bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of another
| trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's aid,
| again. Not sure how I feel about it."
|
| He does not owe it to anyone to support/be against any
| particular candidate. His task is to report. And if someone
| is inconvenienced by the truth it is their problem.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I completely agree. He notes that _" Everything gets
| interpreted through this lens of, 'Which side are you
| helping, and which side are you on?'"_ It's absolutely true
| that this framework is unhelpful for comprehending the
| situation, that it makes it difficult to forming a coherent
| philosophy, and and that it makes it impedes the process of
| learning about and sharing complex ideas.
|
| But there is an obvious outcome where this gets published,
| people realize that Biden has flaws, and choose to elect
| Trump instead as if he did not have flaws. There is no chance
| of an outcome where people realize that Biden has flaws and
| elect a different candidate without flaws instead. If
| Greenwald was actually concerned about presidential
| emoluments clause violations, nepotism, and corruption, it
| would be unwise to publish a hack job against the candidate
| _less guilty_ of these infractions.
|
| Now, I do think that awareness of progressive causes and
| systemic shortcomings were advanced during Trump's
| presidency; perhaps Greenwald is playing the extremely long
| game, hoping that in 2024 the system is able to make a more
| permanent reform? But it seems more like he's angry that the
| game is rigged and is destructively flipping the game board
| over instead of playing - please don't do that, Glenn, I live
| here.
| mathnovice wrote:
| I'm going to trust Glenn Greenwald's knowledge of journalistic
| ethics over yours.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| What about the editors' opinions? They have a better
| perspective than anyone.
| jojobas wrote:
| He was an editor with contractually guaranteed editorial
| freedom.
| [deleted]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Yes, when two people disagree, one side commonly thinks the
| other side's argument is nonsense. But, as you admit you don't
| know the truth of the story, it is impossible to tell whose
| side is right. Maybe the editors do just think it is garbage
| journalism. Or maybe the editors are just protecting "their
| guy".
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| I am willing to make a bet that 5 years from now every journalist
| I read/follow will end up on substack.
| [deleted]
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Serious question, the laptop story... The quote was data recovery
| from 3 laptops for 85$ ( Apple).
|
| Is that even possible? The quote for 1 laptop for data restore is
| at minimum 300$/laptop from everywhere I can see.
|
| It's one of the reasons I consider it misinformation by default.
|
| Another reason would be that the FBI already warned for Russian
| disinformation about the Hunter Biden emails since Burisma got
| hacked way back in January 2020 ( and they warned the White House
| in 2019)
| secondcoming wrote:
| Greenwald was on Joe Rogan recently. It was very interesting.
| Dude has 25 dogs.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA
|
| (I assume that even linking to a JRE podcast is cause for mass
| downvoting on here)
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| Worth pointing out that The Intercept has posted a scathing
| rebuttal.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
| analogdreams wrote:
| It is amazing how the left manages to continually cannibalize
| themselves like this.
|
| But hey, keep yelling about fascism from the other side of the
| aisle....
| [deleted]
| blhack wrote:
| Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago
| where he laid out the problem really well:
|
| Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want
| to publish articles that will rock the boat, because the people
| they are friends with are the ones that own that boat, invite
| them to parties, and are a part of their friend groups.
|
| The reporting around this story has been absolutely
| _unbelievable_ to me. This story seems like the type of thing
| that would normally make peoples ' entire journalistic career,
| and yet the journalists, the people who are supposed to be a part
| of our protection and sense-making system are actively trying to
| suppress it.
|
| It's actually surreal to see this happening.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Trump for years has attacked the media - what do you expect?
|
| And now I'm supposed to suddenly accept this "scandal"
| conveniently placed right before the election in a literal
| tabloid with a huge conservative bent?
|
| I mean how can anyone who doesn't support Trump already buy in?
| And then it's "oh my god censorship!!!". Give me a break.
| bofenbref wrote:
| Aformentioned podcast link:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't
| want to publish articles that will rock the boat, because the
| people they are friends with are the ones that own that boat,
| invite them to parties, and are a part of their friend groups.
|
| To the extent this is arguably true of etablishment journalist,
| the mirror image seems to be true of anti-establishment
| journalists. Instead of being unreasonably _resistant_ to
| publishing stories that rock the boat, they are unreasonable
| _eager_ to do so, taking sources that validate this pre-
| established bias uncritically, opening themselves up for
| manipulation and as agents of propaganda, because the people
| _they_ are friends with, and that invite _them_ to parties are
| more interested in capsizing the boat than the truth.
| r-w wrote:
| Extremely relevant reading: _Purity_, by Jonathan Franzen
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374239215
| agentdrtran wrote:
| "Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't
| want to publish articles that will rock the boat,"
|
| There have been a virtually uncountable number of high-profile
| investigative pieces that criticise people in power published
| in the last 6 months! This argument is nonsense.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| It's not nonsense, because you're missing that if you
| criticize someone who you are allowed to criticize, there is
| no risk to yourself. It's going against the herd and
| criticizing someone like Joe Biden that will get you thrown
| out of the club.
|
| So, if it's a high-profile investigative piece on a senior
| trump admin official, everyone will applaud you. But as soon
| as you start investigating the Biden family or, on the other
| hand, write something positive about Trump & Co, then you'll
| quickly find yourself out of the club.
| Veen wrote:
| You are right, but it goes both ways. If a writer at the
| Federalist or Breibart tried to publish a piece arguing
| AOC's economics actually had some merit, they would not be
| met with an enthusiastic response from their professional
| and social circles.
|
| Polarization and factionalism on both sides of the media is
| the problem.
| koolba wrote:
| Can you say with a straight face that the NY Times or WaPo
| has done that with liberals or Democratic candidates? Outside
| of tearing down Bernie Sanders I'd say it's a firm no.
|
| Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz say they're being
| socially blacklisted for not taking part in a pile on against
| Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-
| martha...
|
| Even being "neutral" is apparently not enough. It's easy to
| see why journalists and editors would succumb to that social
| pressure.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz
|
| While at least notionally a Democrat (and one who claims to
| be a liberal one) Dershowitz is to the right of even the
| mainstream of the dominant corporatist neoliberal faction
| of the Democratic Party. And sometimes quite far to the
| Right, such as his eager advocacy for (not defense of
| something already being done, but advocacy for a new and
| novel policy) a systematic and public policy of specific
| collective punishment by Israel against the Palestinian
| population in violation of international humanitarian law,
| or his proposal for "torture warrants" in the early 2000s.
|
| > say they're being socially blacklisted for not taking
| part in a pile on against Trump
|
| Dershowitz has been one of the right-wing's favorite
| "liberal Democrats" for a lot longer than the Trump
| Administration, and has been marginalized by the left of
| center and increasingly the Democratic mainstream for that
| from the early 2000s, even before the accusations that he
| wasn't just Epstein's lawyer, but also a significant
| client, and his recent campaign against the ACLU.
|
| He's not been marginalized just because he hasn't taken
| part is a "pile on" against Trump.
| ModernMech wrote:
| NYT consistently reported on Hillary Clinton's e-mails all
| throughout the 2016 campaign.
| telotortium wrote:
| That was 4 years ago. The polarization of NYT has
| significantly advanced since then, culminating in the Tom
| Cotton op-ed, which set off an internal revolt at the
| Times, with staffers coordinating pushback across
| Twitter. This led to the resignation of James Bennet, the
| editor of the op-ed section, the reassignment of Jim Dao,
| the deputy editor, and the resignation of Bari Weiss.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Unsurprising though after the duel crises of their
| deficiencies reporting on the Bush administration and
| then Trump. People often attempt to correct the wrong
| problem, like having a kid to save a marriage.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I recall the editorial team publishing a statement
| suggesting their neutralist approach (including
| publishing news that hurt Hillary's campaign) was
| providing Trump too much of an advantage and commuting
| themselves to a more or less activist angle.
| Pils wrote:
| > Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz say they're being
| socially blacklisted for not taking part in a pile on
| against Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-
| dershowitz-martha...
|
| Not going to directly engage with your argument, but this
| framing is frankly absurd. Alan Dershowitz is not "neutral"
| with regards to Trump, he was literally part of his legal
| defense team!
| koolba wrote:
| > Not going to directly engage with your argument, but
| this framing is frankly absurd. Alan Dershowitz is not
| "neutral" with regards to Trump, he was literally part of
| his legal defense team!
|
| That article is dated a year and half prior to Trump's
| impeachment. Dershowitz disagrees with Trump on policy
| matters on just about everything. What he doesn't do is
| let his political disagreements pervert his legal
| opinions on constitutional matters. And hence he gets
| blacklisted for not joining the hate.
| mturmon wrote:
| > Dershowitz disagrees with Trump on policy matters on
| just about everything. What he doesn't do is let his
| political disagreements pervert his legal opinions on
| constitutional matters.
|
| Like when Dershowitz defended Trump during the
| impeachment hearings, on grounds that he hadn't been
| shown to commit a crime, that were very tendentious and
| rejected by constitutional scholars? Give me a break, the
| man's judgement is completely compromised.
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/1/30/legal-
| experts-r...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > he doesn't do is let his political disagreements
| pervert his legal opinions on constitutional matters
|
| I think the idea of the "apolitical" constitution is more
| myth than reality. Dershowitz is perhaps a liberal in the
| classic political philosophy sense, but I would not call
| him a "prominent liberal" in the American sense.
|
| He also might have been 'blacklisted' because he was at
| least somewhat credibly accused of pedophilia.
| nwienert wrote:
| There's two social groups, they don't want to critique
| _their_ social group.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Many more than two social groups.
| nwienert wrote:
| Sure, pedantically.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| This is an oversimplification. There's a difference between
| rocking someone else's boat and rocking the one you're riding
| on.
| disown wrote:
| > There have been a virtually uncountable number of high-
| profile investigative pieces that criticise people in power
| published in the last 6 months! This argument is nonsense.
|
| They have been attack dogs of one political party or the
| other. But its always been this way. Social media (
| especially twitter ) has shown people that journalists are
| political actors, not dispensers of "truth". They are part of
| the power structure, not a counterweight to the power
| structure.
|
| At this point most newspapers should just be part of the
| democratic, republican or intelligence agency because that's
| all they are.
|
| I can almost guarantee that most of the people here attacking
| greenwald and partaking in the downvote brigade are news
| employees or members of a particular political party. It's
| hilarious.
| r-w wrote:
| A nihilist regarding truth, I see. You might want to watch
| this video to see why that's a dangerous attitude, and one
| that plays into the hands of morally unscrupulous actors
| and foreign adversaries:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| In the general sense, it's not a new problem.
|
| One of the main points I got from Chomsky & Herman's
| _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade
| earlier), is that journalists print what the government says
| because it's convenient -- it's less work to print what the
| government (or anyone else) says at a press conference than to
| do your own research -- AND even when it comes to privately
| given info, because they need to maintain the relationships
| with government (and other powerful) sources, if you make a
| government source mad, and they stop giving info, how are you
| going to get that privileged info to write your stories?
|
| Journalists develop "sources", and relationships with those
| sources, and then there are pressures to serve the interests of
| those sources. Sources are usually powerful people (whether
| government or "socialites"), because that's who has valuable
| info on an ongoing basis, generally.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing
| news from a decade earlier),_
|
| While it may be good work, it's so out of date it's useless
| as a tool for evaluating the media landscape of today.
|
| I spent 20 years as a journalist and can tell you from first-
| hand experience and the contacts I have kept in the industry
| that the media today is not the same as the media of 2010, or
| 2000, or 1990, and certainly not the 1970's.
| uoaei wrote:
| Obviously it is not the same as it was decades ago. But how
| can you deny that the "5 pillars" framework presented in
| the book still holds true today?
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I can believe it. There's been a heck of a lot of change,
| newsrooms have been _decimated_.
|
| To me, like I said, mostly what I remember taking from it
| is how it got me thinking about how a journalists
| dependence on sources, and resource-constraints to be able
| to get out stories without exceeding available time to
| report em... leads to over-reliance on reporting what the
| powerful say as "the news" and by implication "what
| happened".
|
| I'd suspect that is still relevant to the landscape of
| today, probably even MORE so because reporting resources
| have been so devastated, but do you think not?
| theknocker wrote:
| For anyone who actually understands the principles
| explained in the book, it's clearly still applicable today.
| pm90 wrote:
| If journalists didn't rock the boat, the current POTUS would be
| very happy. But they do, and he's not, so this theory seems to
| have no merit.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The journalists are not on that boat with the POTUS, so they
| are more than happy to rock it.
| president wrote:
| It's more that journalists don't want to upset their boss and
| their boss doesn't want to upset their boss and all the way up
| the chain. Somewhere in that chain is someone that is aligned
| with getting that particular story suppressed. The issue here
| is that somewhere along the way, keeping your job became more
| valuable than keeping your integrity. Happens in tech all the
| time in my experience.
| ggggtez wrote:
| It's also the kind of story that can _break_ someone 's
| journalistic career.
|
| Even Fox News wouldn't run the story because it wasn't
| supported by facts.
|
| And last I heard, there _still_ has been no concrete evidence
| of wrongdoing. Tucker Carlson claims that his evidence "got
| lost in the mail". In the age of the internet, they didn't snap
| any photos of this so-called proof?
|
| There is no "there" there. Just a bunch of internet sleuths
| with MS paint red circles and theories about deep states. And
| your comment falls into this category.
| marcusverus wrote:
| Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. He
| broke the Snowden story--another sensational-sounding scoop
| which likely sounded like total bullshit at first.
|
| Is it possible that Mr. Greenwald is a better judge of
| whether or not there is a story here?
| drewrv wrote:
| It's also possible he's a once great journalist who has
| gone off the rails. Which seems likely given the fact that
| the editors at a publication he founded refused to publish
| this piece.
| originalvichy wrote:
| I think saying he brokenthe stort is a bit of a stretch.
| Didn't Snowden himself contact journalists?
|
| Snowden was tightly in contact with these journalists and
| showed them undoubtable proof that he did indeed work with
| the NSA. This story as I understand it is not even close to
| the level of verification that the Snowden story had.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Wait so what's the claim at this point?
|
| The Hunter Biden emails are fake? or that they are real,
| but Giuliani got them from Russian agents?
|
| Or that they are real, but "the big guy" doesn't refer to
| Joe Biden?
|
| Or that they are real, but Hunter Biden was just saying
| shit, and Joe didn't actually do any of these things?
|
| Any but the last claim seems likely false to me, pretty
| hilarious to see so many on the thread arguing otherwise.
| rat87 wrote:
| It's more likely that Greenwalds colleagues are a better
| judge
| r-w wrote:
| The namesake of the Pulitzer prize, Joseph Pulitzer, was
| one of the foremost proponents of yellow journalism. Rudy
| Giuliani, an American hero for a couple of years after
| 9/11, is now a foreign asset for all intents and purposes.
| Having prestige doesn't make you infallible, it just means
| you were in the right place at the right time.
| mcphage wrote:
| > This story seems like the type of thing that would normally
| make peoples' entire journalistic career, and yet the
| journalists, the people who are supposed to be a part of our
| protection and sense-making system are actively trying to
| suppress it.
|
| This story is the type of thing that would make peoples' entire
| journalistic career _if it was true_. And if a journalist
| pushes it, and it turns out false, it would _ruin_ their entire
| career--for instance, see Dan Rather. So journalists have to
| assess how likely they feel that it 's true, and I think we've
| seen a pretty consistent response to those assessments.
| nebolo wrote:
| Can you be a bit more specific on what you believe to be so
| important/surprising/relevant about this story that would make
| an entire journalistic career? What is the story that is not
| being told, and actively being suppressed? I have been
| following this quite closely and can't see it.
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| Did you watch the Tony Babulinksi interview with Tucker
| Carlson? It shows that Joe Biden had an ownership stake in
| and was directly involved with his son's company that
| received a 5-10 million forgivable loan from a top member of
| the Chinese Communist party. This directly contradicts claims
| Joe Biden has made throughout his campaign and at the last
| debate.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Tucker Carlson is a professional entertainer. Why are you
| mentioning him in a discussion of journalism?
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Fox News argued before Mary Kay Vyskocil, United States
| District Judge, well, to use the court's words: "Fox
| persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation,
| any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount
| of skepticism' about the statement he makes."
|
| My question to you is: are you arriving with an appropriate
| amount of skepticism?
|
| Tucker Carlson is not a credible source, and nothing aired
| on that program "showed" anything definitive except
| accusations that were made. The Wall Street Journal ran
| their own story on these allegations and found no link:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-
| partn...
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| Tucker Carlson isnt the source, Tony Babulinski is the
| source. Im not a regular Fox viewer but I think you
| should watch the interview, Tony comes off as very
| credible. An interesting feature of this story is that
| Tony Babulinski's claims are corroborated by Hunter
| Biden's own words. That seems pretty definitive to me.
|
| I cant read passed the first paragraph of that article
| because of the paywall, Im curious how they can possibly
| say that there is no link when we have so much first hand
| evidence of a link. Can you please let me know? Imho the
| only room for judgement is whether or not you find the
| link unethical or significant but to deny it exists seems
| disingenuous to me.
| nebolo wrote:
| I think you fundamentally misunderstand the role and
| requirements of serious journalism. One is attempting to
| corroborate information, and weighing that information by
| the likelihood that it is, in fact, fact. Tony may have
| seemed very credible to you, but I think that there are
| many people who are good at seeming credible while lying.
| So unless the specific information you find damning is
| corroborated by some source independent of Bobulinski,
| serious journalists will not and should not present it as
| fact.
|
| Tucker Carlson is not serious journalism - he's opinion
| at best and propaganda at worst. None of the above
| applies to him (as persuasively argued by Fox News
| itself).
|
| Let me quote the WSJ linked above: >The venture--set up
| in 2017 after Mr. Biden left the vice presidency and
| before his presidential campaign--never received proposed
| funds from the Chinese company or completed any deals,
| according to people familiar with the matter. Corporate
| records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show no role
| for Joe Biden.
|
| Here's a detailed Q&A by NYT:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/us/politics/bidens-
| china....
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| CEFC was supposed to send $5mill to Tony and Hunter's
| company and 5mil to Hunter Biden as a loan. They did
| indeed never send the money to the company but we know
| from the senate report that CEFC did indeed send 5
| million directly to Hunter. And official documents
| showing no role for joe biden is expected as this looks
| really bad for him. We know from Hunter Biden's email
| that his share was being held by his family members.
| Again Hunter Biden wrote that not Tony.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| We don't know that at all, you've begged the question by
| assuming the veracity of the disinformation and then used
| that to justify the authenticity of further
| disinformation.
|
| This NBC News story should help you understand the origin
| of this conspiracy:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1245387
| AaronFriel wrote:
| You haven't given me any reason to believe these
| allegations, and I have seen the interview and I am not
| persuaded that Tony is a credible source.
|
| Now what.
| TearsInTheRain wrote:
| Now nothing, youre entitled to your opinion. Cheers!
|
| But from your comment above, can you please let me know
| why the WSJ says there is no connection between Hunter's
| company and Joe Biden despite Hunter's texts discussing
| Joe's involvement?
| AaronFriel wrote:
| The Wall Street Journal investigated corporate filings
| and paperwork that indicated the opposite of the alleged
| connection. So at least in terms of above-board money
| flowing around, they investigated and saw nothing
| untoward.
|
| So, is it a he-said, she-said? No. The texts can't be
| verified as they came from a laptop that no one can prove
| actually belonged to Hunter Biden.
|
| From an outside infosec perspective, without the whole
| picture, it looks like the laptops are a mix of what
| happened with Podesta's emails (hacked by a foreign
| intelligence agency in a disinformation campaign and
| laundered through WikiLeaks to make the lot seem
| credible) placed on a physical device and dropped off in
| a place with a tip-off to a susceptible target (Rudy
| Giuliani).
|
| There's no evidence Hunter Biden (a Delaware resident)
| traveled traveled to a no-name retailer in a city he
| doesn't live in (!) to get laptops that were in-warranty
| (!) repaired there instead of the Apple Store (!), where
| they offered to do many, many hours of labor backing up
| those laptops for only $85 (in New York City?!), and then
| Hunter forgot the laptops and left them there (!) even
| though they contained allegedly damning images, allegedly
| child pornography, and allegedly damning business records
| detailing financial ties between his father and a foreign
| power, and that it just so happened that the retailer was
| active on social media as a Trump supporter (!) and
| somehow knew how to get in touch with Rudy Giuliani (!)
| to convey these laptops to Rudy, where they then sat for
| nearly 10 months unpublished (!). Even by the loosest
| standards for an evidentiary chain of custody, that's
| pretty bad.
|
| Rudy Giuliani also tweeted out alleged "text messages"
| from this laptop that were pictures taken of a blackberry
| showing a screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation, and in
| the top left corner of the screenshot showed a Russian
| telecom network.
|
| Example: https://twitter.com/mikeemanuelfox/status/131928
| 209151992218...
|
| So, no, I don't think these claims are in any way
| credible. I think it's very unlikely that Hunter Biden
| would do those things, and I think the entire story
| beggars belief. That's why the story was shopped around
| to multiple outlets, that's why the New York Post was the
| only to go forward with it, and it's why the Wall Street
| Journal's coverage of it was incredulous because the only
| records they could verify contradicted these wild
| accusations.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Because the bumbling relatives of powerful people
| exaggerate their connection and involvement all the time.
| Without further evidence of Joe Biden's involvement, this
| amounts to hearsay.
|
| That indicates the media should probably ask Biden about
| this and almost nothing more.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I'm curious about this too. It definitely doesn't help that
| every single person involved in the story has zero
| credibility left, starting with a "lawyer" who has time and
| time again been caught peddling the president's lies, has
| exposed himself to a "15yo" reporter, and who the
| intelligence community say is being used by foreign nations
| to meddle in our elections.
| reaperducer wrote:
| There have always been socialite-class journalists, and under-
| class journalists. The problem is that the people coming out of
| journalism schools these days want fame and to become YouTube
| stars, rather than change the world for the better. And the
| schools optimize for this desire in order to keep the tuition
| money flowing in.
| stumblers wrote:
| I'll have to listen to the podcast, but I think you're way off
| in thinking this kind of story makes careers. Journalists take
| their credibility very seriously and this story doesn't have
| it, at least not yet if it ever will.
|
| Going with a story that hasn't been vetted marks a serious
| journalist as a dupe for the rest of their lives.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| You're propagating disinfo - in the real sense of the word,
| not the modern Orwellian meaning - with this line of
| criticism. Because this is a story that has absolutely been
| vetted, but the issue is all of the left-leaning mainstream
| media (read: literally everyone except _parts_ of Fox News)
| have absolutely refused to cover this story.
|
| Do you really believe if the same story were about a member
| of the Trump family, that NPR would refuse to cover it?
|
| One more point on credibility - we literally have videos,
| images, text messages, e-mails of which the other recipients
| have been confirmed - this is all basically undeniable at
| this point. So the only question is, is the actual story of
| how the material was obtained (the laptop repair shop) true,
| or was the material hacked and then they basically used
| parallel construction to hide the true origins? That's a fine
| question to ask, but if you think that the material itself is
| false that's just completely incredible.
| [deleted]
| ehsankia wrote:
| Take a minute to step back. What do you think is more
| probable. That every single news organization out there,
| every single journalist, including NPR as you mention, are
| trying to hide this very real story and are wrong, while
| the one publication is in the right. Or that maybe, just
| maybe, it's the other way around and NYP published
| something that has not been well vetted?
| blumomo wrote:
| In a democracy majority should decide what to do. But
| it's not the majority who decides what _is true_.
|
| Marc Twain used to say: "Whenever you find yourself on
| the side of the majority, it is time to pause and
| reflect."
|
| (Interestingly you're demanding the same: taking time to
| step back ;)
| ehsankia wrote:
| Your analogy doesn't really apply. These publications are
| all top of their field reporters. That's like saying 99%
| of scientist agreeing that vaccines work doesn't mean the
| majority is right.
|
| In a normal population you may be right, but in a field
| of experts, I'm happy sticking with the majority than
| with the one random scientist who believes in satanic
| rituals telling me hydroxychloroquine works.
| blumomo wrote:
| Mhm, do all these many doctors of
| https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/ look like a
| single random scientist who believes in satanic rituals?
| ehsankia wrote:
| They are still in the clear minority, just like those 3%
| of climate scientist who refuse to believe in climate
| change. The fact that the president wasn't given HCQ is
| all the proof you need to know how effective it is.
| colordrops wrote:
| Try this 30 second test on WaPo about the "Majority
| Illusion":
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/wonkblog
| /ma...
|
| Then, with this in mind, look at the fact that almost all
| media is controlled by less entities than you can count
| on your two hands (assuming you have ten fingers):
|
| https://external-
| content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
|
| https://external-
| content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree that this story probably leads to
| nothing, either because it is absolutely nothing or
| because the corruption here is too vague to nail down
| (that's the smart kind to do).
|
| But after living through the media's credulity toward the
| war on terror, credulity toward the war on drugs,
| credulity toward the satanic panic of the 90s, credulity
| toward the broken forensics that have gotten innocent
| people executed, dismissal of Juanita Broaddrick and
| vilification of Edward Snowden, I'm inclined to believe
| they are totally capable of a kind of mass group think
| without any need for a belief in a kind of conspiracy.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I may not have first hand experience with some of the
| older examples you give, but "vilification of Edward
| Snowden" makes no sense, considering 3 of the biggest
| news publications were the ones who were tasked with
| spreading Snowden's documents in the first place. How are
| they vilifying him if they're literally helping him
| spread the word?
|
| I think you're using "The media" very liberally there.
| Were there pundits on some cable channel vilifying him?
| Sure. But that is in no way equivalent to every single
| major news publication refusing to back NYP on this
| report.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > What do you think is more probable. That every single
| news organization out there, every single journalist,
| including NPR as you mention, are trying to hide this
| very real story and are wrong, while the one publication
| is in the right. Or that maybe, just maybe, it's the
| other way around and NYP published something that has not
| been well vetted?
|
| Great thought exercise. I'm happy to inform you that I
| have actually already considered both scenarios and am
| confident that it really is this:
|
| > every single news organization out there, every single
| journalist, including NPR as you mention, are trying to
| hide this very real story and are wrong
|
| If you look back at the media in the last four years that
| shouldn't be as surprising as you are implying.
|
| Although I take issue with "every single journalist",
| since the point of Greenwald's piece, among others, is
| that even if one journalist wants to tell the truth, they
| will be suppressed.
|
| ---
|
| To go more concrete here though, are you specifically
| claim that the _materials_ are not real, or that the
| story of how they were acquired is false? The former is
| absolutely undeniable; the latter is up for debate but I
| personally don 't even think the laptop repair shop story
| is fabricated.
|
| I personally watched (part of) the video of Hunter Biden
| smoking crack while receiving a footjob, so unless you
| think it's a body double or a deepfake there is no doubt
| in my mind that these documents are real. Furthermore the
| big smoking gun is the financial documents which should
| be trivially easy for a journalist to debunk. So if you
| want to question how the materials are acquired, go
| ahead, but the documents themselves are real, and they
| show very questionable business dealings in China,
| Ukraine, and Russia.
|
| BTW, the existence for years now of the Russia Collusion
| hoax - namely, the debunked notion that Trump is a vassal
| of Vladimir Putin and directly colluded with Russia to
| win the US election - should tell us everything we need
| to know about the intellectual integrity of the corporate
| press.
| blhack wrote:
| _Every_ single journalist? What about Glenn Greenwald?
| How about Matt Taibi?
| ehsankia wrote:
| Err, sorry I meant publication. What other large real
| publication has been willing to back up NYP?
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| No mainstream publication has been willing to do so.
|
| And IMO, that should be seen as an indictment of the
| state of the modern corporate press, as opposed to an
| indication that the story lacks veracity.
|
| As we've seen repeatedly over the last four years, the
| mainstream media is happy to amplify absurd stories - the
| Trump "suckers and losers" story which was quickly
| debunked, the entire Russia Collusion narrative, etc - if
| it serves their own interests.
|
| So to view what is reported in the mainstream media as
| the barometer of what is true is to commit an enormous
| error.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I'm sorry, I'll still rather take their word than those
| of a random internet stranger. And I'd like to see your
| proof of the "suckers and losers" story being "easily
| debunked, when it not only came from multiple sources,
| but it even matches very easily to actual public things
| Trump has said or implied, or the fact that he himself is
| a war dodger.
|
| And again, as stated above, take a moment to consider
| what you're actually implying. That publications such as
| NPR, AP, BBC, Reuters, some of the least partisan and
| most trusted news source with the hardest working
| journalist dedicated their life to communicating the
| facts. You're claiming that they are hiding the truth in
| some big conspiracy and that your one flaky source is the
| one telling the truth? Cmon man, don't be an old facebook
| grampa...
| blhack wrote:
| What do you mean this story hasn't been vetted? One of the
| major players in the story has gone on record, giving an
| approximately 45 minute long interview verifying the claims.
|
| The FBI and DNI have also both confirmed the validity of the
| laptop. How much more "verified" than that would you need?
| ehsankia wrote:
| The same FBI claims Giuliani is being used by foreign
| nations to influence our elections. What's your source?
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-
| bi...
| blhack wrote:
| The source is the Director of National Intelligence:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-
| hunter-...
| ModernMech wrote:
| Director of National Intelligence a.k.a. Republican
| Congressman John Ratcliffe. Do you see the problem here?
|
| "John Ratcliffe, then a lawmaker from Texas, promised
| senators skeptical of his vocal support for President
| Trump that he would be "entirely apolitical as the
| director of national intelligence."
|
| A few months into his tenure, Mr. Ratcliffe has emerged
| as anything but. He has approved selective
| declassifications of intelligence that aim to score
| political points, left Democratic lawmakers out of
| briefings, accused congressional opponents of leaks,
| offered Republican operatives top spots in his
| headquarters and made public assertions that contradicted
| professional intelligence assessments."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/us/politics/john-
| ratcliff...
|
| Just last week he had the FBI director stand behind him
| while he ad-libbed about how Iran was attacking our
| elections to help Trump (an off the cuff assertion that
| he didn't clear with the FBI director when he was shown
| the prepared remarks). He is not credible.
| af16090 wrote:
| I don't see anything in that article that indicates that
| "[t]he FBI and DNI have also both confirmed the validity
| of the laptop".
|
| From the article:
|
| > Appearing Monday on Fox Business Channel, Director of
| National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said "there is no
| intelligence that supports" the idea that the purported
| Hunter Biden laptop and the emails on it "are part of a
| Russian disinformation campaign."
|
| Absence of intelligence that the laptop is "part of a
| Russian disinformation campaign" doesn't mean that the
| contents of the laptop are genuine. That statement still
| leaves open a bunch of possibilities including that the
| contents of the laptop were faked by non-Russians, were
| faked by the Russians but the US doesn't have
| intelligence confirming it, etc.
|
| As for the FBI, they say "we have nothing to add" to the
| DNI's statement and that "the FBI can neither confirm nor
| deny the existence of any ongoing investigation". Nothing
| in the FBI's letter says anything about the laptop's
| contents being genuine.
| stefan_ wrote:
| The system set up by people ignorant to its effects many many
| years ago has succeeded in making everything a choice between
| two factions. It's no longer just guaranteeing you forever get
| two parties, two candidates, you now also need to join a side
| individually.
|
| It's silly watching from afar because as is highly likely,
| _both choices are bad_ so embracing one of them so
| wholeheartedly just comes across as uninformed and plain
| mental. Not much more needs to be said on Trump but it also
| doesn 't take a history diploma to know Biden wrote the 1994
| "tough on crime, law and order" bill.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| Is there anything worth reading by the Intercept excepting
| Greenwald?
| codq wrote:
| Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill are consistently fantastic.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| Thanks.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| I've been following Zaid Jilani.
|
| https://theintercept.com/staff/zaidjilani/
| creaghpatr wrote:
| Second Zaid Jilani.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| I'll take a look, thanks.
| uncoder0 wrote:
| That was the only reason I went there. There podcast also went
| off the deep end over the past few months and has been terrible
| I used to love it and listen to it regularly since 2016ish.
| mlamat wrote:
| He is trying to lobby the Trump administration to pardon Snowden
| in the next three months. He said on Rogan's podcast that this is
| his main mission now.
| vehemenz wrote:
| I wonder if his come-to-Jesus moment happened before, during, or
| after his recent podcast with Joe Rogan.
| specialist wrote:
| Aggrieved left leaning pundit throws tantrum, self exiles. So
| cliche. So performant.
|
| Glenn Greenwald, Mark Crispin Miller, Greg Palast, Keith
| Olbermann, Harlan Ellison, Bill Maher... just from the top of my
| head.
|
| I love their work but omg they must be terrible to work with.
| Greenwald can't even get along inside the org that he cofounded.
|
| I've worked with similar artists, purists, ultimatists. It's
| exhausting. Harlan Ellison biopic "Dreams with Sharp Teeth"
| captures it _perfectly_. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1018887/
|
| Contrast Glennwald with others who figure out the working artist
| schtick.
|
| Bill Maher did a new thing on cable.
|
| Rachel Maddow somehow plays the corporate media game.
|
| Even Chris Hedges, the world's biggest Eeyore (or Marvin the
| Robot from HGTG), gets paid.
|
| Some leftists figured out the podcast game. Pod Save America,
| Young Turks, "bread tube".
|
| Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias launched a new masthead (vox.com).
| Seriously impressive.
|
| And contrast the left and right ecosystems.
|
| Rightists have time proven playbook. Merch, weird advertisers,
| tours and events, stable sources of funding.
|
| If Limbaugh and Alex Jones and Shapiro can find patrons to seed
| their endeavors, and customers to buy their wares, surely
| leftists can suck it up too.
| tpmx wrote:
| The first two of the three hours of him being a guest on Joe
| Rogan yesterday were brilliant. I've never heard someone so
| eloquently tear down the shiny facades of what passes as high-
| brow "journalism" these days.
| jjj1232 wrote:
| Have you read manufacturing dissent? It's a useful lens to read
| any mainstream news through.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| Or just a bitter man being kicked out of the club?
| [deleted]
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| Is it telling that you conceive of news outlets as clubs?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Are you sure the Intercept will survive without him?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| It's romantic, but blind, to paint examples of one's own
| opinion like this.
| parliament32 wrote:
| I like how this link is being suppressed from the front page of
| HN as well. 309 points in 1 hour, and it's at #52 instead of a
| single digit ranking as you'd expect. In comparison, the current
| #1-#3 have 175-80 points in 2-3 hours.
| lostdog wrote:
| Given the number of comments and downvoted comments, it almost
| certainly set off an automated flamewar detector.
| tolbish wrote:
| It would be so very, very interesting if Trump were to pardon
| Snowden.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| It's such a no-brainer since the national security apparatus
| (the FBI, NSA, etc) were used against Trump and his campaign
| very transparently. So you'd think he would want to strike a
| blow against them by pardoning Snowden.
|
| In reality, he doesn't seem to have a deep, principled
| understanding of the issues of the "national security"
| apparatus (commonly known as the "deep state"). So I'm not
| optimistic, although maybe he's just waiting until after the
| election.
|
| What Trump's administration is doing to Julian Assange is also
| quite evil (see Cassandra Fairbanks' reporting here - she's a
| very clear Trump supporter and yet is highly critical of his
| admin with respect to their treatment of Assange). It's not any
| more evil than what Biden or others would do, to be clear, so
| this isn't something unique to Trump, but we can certainly say
| that Trump has not shown any desire to try to do the right
| thing here.
| tolbish wrote:
| I am not saying he would pardon Snowden out of morality.
| SamBam wrote:
| > It's such a no-brainer since the national security
| apparatus (the FBI, NSA, etc) were used against Trump and his
| campaign very transparently.
|
| A Republican-led senate investigation found that the
| intelligence community was not used against Trump, did not
| illegally spy on his campaign, and was fully-correct in
| following up on the Russia leads. [1]
|
| Do you have evidence that the Republican and Democratic
| senators did not?
|
| 1. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-
| house/513499-republicans-i...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's such a no-brainer since the national security
| apparatus (the FBI, NSA, etc) were used against Trump and his
| campaign very transparently.
|
| Except that Trump doesn't even bother to hide his desire to
| use them even more brazenly than anyone in the past
| (including Nixon, whose abuses prompted explicit legislative
| limits) for partisan political purposes; Trump definitely
| doesn't want to make the _existence_ of a vast security
| apparatus _or_ its partisan use an issue, only to sell
| himself as a victim.
|
| > In reality, he doesn't seem to have a deep, principled
| understanding of the issues of the "national security"
| apparatus (commonly known as the "deep state").
|
| The "deep state" is more a reference to the permanent
| official and unofficial establishment of public service as a
| whole (both the permanent civil service and the network of
| past and present senior, largely executive, leaders who
| remain in-the-loop and exert influence even when out of
| current office); its not particularly associated with the
| national security apparatus. The use of the term (except as a
| reference to others using the term directly) is a fairly
| explicit indicator that the speaker prefers a strong-man rule
| and factional spoils system to the rule of law and
| professionalism.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| The main issue I see: this story and stories like this generate
| interest. If it's not published and discussed in depth on main
| stream media, then the only source available becomes some crazy
| right-wing conspiracy theory sites. So readers are forced to
| choose between no analysis or an analysis done by some nut-job.
| golemiprague wrote:
| I don't understand what is the big deal, it is a publication,
| they can have their editorial line and unlike Twitter or Facebook
| they will also have to bear the consequences if they publish
| something problematic.
|
| The problem is with platforms which benefit from both worlds.
| They are considered as utilities when it comes to bear the
| consequences of what they publish but as a publication when it
| comes to their ability to decide what they publish and what not.
|
| I think that there should be a distinction between a forum like
| HN, which should be able to curate their content without being
| considered a publication because it deals with a specific subject
| and community, to a general platform like facebook or twitter
| which should be considered as a utility not different to a phone
| or electric company.
| macspoofing wrote:
| When William Roper argued that he'd "cut down every law in
| England" in order to get the Devil, Thomas More responded with:
| "And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on
| you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?" ...
|
| This is where the entire mainstream center-left/left news
| establishment, along with the DNC, ended up after 2016. Trump
| broke people's brains. It's as simple as that.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| ... what?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-10-29 23:01 UTC)