You have to feel a little bit sorry for Media Matters. The far-Left propaganda outlet that specializes in spinning for progressives while supposedly flagging “fake news” on the right has to restrict itself primarily to Fox News, though it does participate enthusiastically when it wants to assist the mainstream media in burying stories like the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop or the mysterious <cough!> discovery of cocaine in the White House. NewsBusters, in contrast, has almost the entire mainstream media spectrum to mine for outrageously biased and unethical news coverage, even with its own conservative bias in full operation. And the alleged giants of the once honorable field of journalism keep churning out frightening examples like this:
Fox News expatriate Chris Wallace visited “CNN Primetime,” hosted by Laura Coates, to promote his soon-to-be -broadcast interview with RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. CNN audiences heard this excerpt from the two discussing Donald Trump’s claims about the 2020 election:
MCDANIEL:But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that.
WALLACE: You’re saying you’re not sure, as the Republican Party chair, that he was the legitimately elected president.
MCDANIEL:I am saying there were lots of problems with the 2020 election and we need to fix it going forward.
Coates responded by asking, “I mean, Chris, I understand the value of a yes-or-no response. You didn’t get one there. So, what does that portend for the tone of this entire race now?” Wallace replied, “Well, look, there are an awful lot of people, an awful lot of Republicans who don’t think that Joe Biden won the election fairly in 2020, even though he did, even though there were 60 court cases that said he did. And you’ve also got the frontrunner, the overwhelming frontrunner, Donald Trump, who flatly says that he won 2020.”
But what CNN watchers were shown was not the actual exchange that Wallace revealed on his show two days later. McDaniel really said this: “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that. I think when you look at — let’s look at the Hunter Biden laptop. Fifty-one people in the intelligence agency signed a letter saying it was Russian disinformation. That’s what the public disseminated was being told. That’s not true. That’s a lie.”
The “60 court cases” had nothing to do with what the RNC chair was talking about. The Hunter Biden laptop story suppression is just one example of how false and biased media coverage aiding pro-Biden disinformation made a fair Presidential election by an informed voting public impossible. The exchange was edited for Coates’ show to make viewers think that the RNC chair, and, by extension, her party, backs Trump’s ridiculous claim that he actually “won” the election, which he believes was stolen by voter fraud. McDaniels was making a different argument entirely, and a completely valid one that Ethics Alarms endorses: Wallace and his co-conspirators aided and abetted false information spread by Democrats throughout Trump’s term ensuring that the election would not be fair. Yet he, Coates and CNN deliberately misrepresented her point to fit the media’s ongoing “Trump’s unsubstantiated claims” narrative, in essence doing more of what McDaniel was referring to. The 2020 election was not fair. It was demonstrably rigged through four years of partisan spin, anti-Trump propaganda and unprecedented irresponsible, dishonest and biased journalism.
CNN’s dishonest editing didn’t just allow it to spread a false narrative about McDaniel, it allowed others to do the same. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes panned McDaniel on Thursday as someone who “just can’t say the straightforward sentence”…”Way Too Early” guest host Ali Vitali added, “And of course we will again underscore the fact president Biden did win the election and he did so fairly. The fake version also made its way around the internet to Mediaite, the Washington Post, the DNC’s website, and HuffPost.
In other words, business as usual.
Wallace knew what McDaniel was talking about, NewsBusters concludes,” but based on his answers to Coates, he doesn’t care.”
It bears mentioning that McDaniel is a fool. After numerous incidents like this, wary conservatives and Republicans have made it known that they were carrying recording devices so this kind of tactic would risk immediate exposure. It would also help if she could speak clear English: who knows what language “That’s what the public disseminated was being told” is? Also helpful would be if Trump would focus public attention on what he can prove, easily, which is that the media bias against him and its relentless unethical practices aimed at undermining his Presidency made a fair election impossible. Instead he keeps saying that he “won,” which is nonsense, and that Biden’s victory was “stolen,” which has not been proved and is unprovable.
In the absence of reliably fair and honest news coverage and delivery, no election can be considered fair. It is fine to say that no one should trust the news media, and no one should, but that does not solve the problem. A Democratic Republic only works with an informed electorate. Who will inform them?
Ethics Alarms 
Pulitzer and Hearst are laughing in their special place in Purgatory.
The answer that few people seem to be able to come up with is deceptively simple: “We don’t trust that this election was free enough of malfeasance that the outcome was legitimate, but we will not contest it. Instead, we will make sure that everyone can trust the results of the next election, and will work with bipartisan committees to find steps that we can all agree we can trust.” It shouldn’t be difficult to come up with this position nor to get people to understand why it’s the most ethical one.
As for the news media rigging the narratives and the presentation, we just need to change the subject to something we can actually make progress on, like what we want the future to look like. Those subjects make the divisive talking points obsolete, like the trustworthiness of specific mediocre politicians.
Actually, it’s McDaniel here who’s being dishonest.
You quote her as saying:
“I think when you look at — let’s look at the Hunter Biden laptop. Fifty-one people in the intelligence agency signed a letter saying it was Russian disinformation. That’s what the public disseminated was being told. That’s not true. That’s a lie.”
But that’s not what the former intelligent officials (and she is leaving out important information by not mentioning that they were former) said in the letter.
Here is the letter, in which they admit that they do not have evidence that the laptop is Russian disinformation, and that they are not stating this as fact; merely as a theory and “opinion.”
As you have noted, an opinion, if truly believed, cannot be a “lie;” therefore McDonald is wrong to claim that they lied about this.
This seems to be a much more material deception than simply leaving out the relevant portion of the interview in a preview, when that portion will be made available when the full interview airs.
You have also argued in 2016 that simple disinformation in a presidential election is not enough to make that election “rigged” or “unfair,” so I’m not sure what has changed since.
Thanks for welcoming me back.
Forgot the link: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000
You forgot to mention that it was Mike Morrel (CIA and Biden campaign staff) who contacted the fifty to provide talking points for Biden to counter Trumps use of the laptop in a debate. It was well known among the signatories that this was for helping Biden’s campaign. I believe it was Clapper who heartily said put my name on the letter.
The wording of the letter gave the signers plausible deniability about the veracity of the claim by using the words “had all the hallmarks of . . .” instead of “was”. These people are skilled in using language to create a false impression which was why Biden himself claimed those 50 stated it WAS Russian disinformation in a speech to the nation. As you said, firmer intelligence officials who did not have access to the evidence weighed in and by virtue of their former status they were able to convey to the public they had inside knowledge with an appeal to their authority. Given they had no direct knowledge of the evidence they could not specifically believe that it was disinformation given what was already known about Hunter. Using equivocating language intentionally designed to confuse misrepresent or deceive is a lie. If they were not sure they should have used the word “could be Russian disinformation and not has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.
I didn’t forget to mention it. He was not with the CIA at the time and I didn’t see the relevance. I will agree that if this was done on behalf of the Biden campaign (which seems likely), this should have been disclosed in the letter. I also have no trouble believing that Biden spoke sloppily, even deceitfully, when he claimed they stated it was Russian disinformation as fact.
I do think there was a LOT that was suspicious about the laptop story from the beginning—enough to make reasonable observers conclude that it was Russian disinformation, though this turned out not to be the case. (You’re right that “could be” would be more precise, but I also think they really thought it WAS Russian disinformation.) Ultimately, the reason this was believable was because of Russia’s interference in the previous election, and the Trump campaign’s gleeful acceptance of same. (No, acceptance isn’t “collusion,” but it’s still unethical and worthy of calling out.) We can keep going back to reveal the layers of the turducken of half-truths and sloppy statements here, but that’s the root cause. And it’s one the Trump campaign, and later administration, lied constantly about—people went to prison (and were later pardoned) for such lies. Did Trump telling the world he had no business in Russia while trying to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow make the 2016 election unfair? Did his AG lying about the conclusions of the Mueller report make the 2020 election unfair? Possibly. But we all know when MAGA partisans talk about the “rigged election,” they are enabling conspiracy theories that go much farther than that.
Hey, everybody: Chris is a banned, long-banned in fact, commenter. I let his last couple comments get posted in error, but since I did, I’ll leave them up. Any more after this will be spammed.
My apologies to all, including Chris for appearing to reverse myself by accident.
Nothing in 2016 amounted to four years of misinformation, fake news, contrived impeachments and a manufactured “collusion” investigation that lasted much of Trump’s administration. I have definitely written that Trump was cheated out of a fair election, as was the country.
As for the theory/opinion in the letter, it was not a good faith opinion, but a partisan, manipulative abuse of authority opining officially on a matter in which they not only had no information, but misrepresented their opinion as if it had anything behind it besides a desire to deceive. A statement presented as an opinion is a lie when it isn’t an opinion at all. Fr example, if I am debating about foreign policy and I state that it is my opinion that China can be trusted when I know damn well it can’t be, that’s a lie.
The letter was intended to deceive, and did deceive, by presenting to the public what appeared to be a good faith analysis that was, if fact, and effort to compete a cover-up until after the election, backing the unconscionable decision by social media and news media to bury the story.
OH!!!!…nothing was wrong with the comment of yours I just rebutted, but never mind: you’re still banned.
I had completely forgotten your handle and thought you were someone else!
I apologize for the error….to you, to everyone. My fault.
I think I accidentally awoke him. I responded to a thread from a decade ago that he was part of under a different email address I guess. Must have popped up in his email and he realized “oh man, I’ve got a way back in”.
Whatever. He’s banned still.
Is it Christopher Souza or a different Chris?
Nope, same ol’ banned Chris.
I say wipe everything this crust on a dead monkey’s balls ever posted.
It would wipe out whole threads and interesting discussions. Can’t do it.
Rats.
It’s hard to blame the MSM for engaging in such dishonest grandstanding when many average people, including independent voters do the same. I’ve repeatedly got into debates and arguments with people where I stated and explained why the 2020 and 2022 elections were “rigged”, focusing only on bias in news coverage (exaggerating certain hurting GOP stories while suppressing stories hurting Dems), and changes to election laws and rules, often in unconstitutional manners, which made election less secure and
and trustworthy (mass mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, little to no voter validation, etc.), only to have them scuff and fall back to ridiculing claims like the voting machines changing votes.
I think some of that blame falls on Trump and some righty zealots who focused on such outlandish claims (even though there may be some truth to them) while ignoring the blatant and undisputed shenanigans.
“I think some of that blame falls on Trump and some righty zealots who focused on such outlandish claims (even though there may be some truth to them) while ignoring the blatant and undisputed shenanigans.”
A lot of the blame does. Trump’s word clouds have certain tactical advantages, but his inability to focus clearly and obsession with hyperbole and superlatives make legitimate issues easy for his foes and the news media to ignore or cover-up legitimate issues.
Regarding information disseminated to the voting public, you ask, “Who will inform them?”The answer is quite clear from what is happening viz a viz Hollywood. AI will inform us, and what we will be informed of will be controlled by algorithms.
It is genuinely bizarre to me that the same people who were way out over their skis on the Steele dossier and the “piss tape” are willing to lean back eruditely and wax poetic about the possible nascence of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
And regardless of how it may have seemed at the time, we have the benefit of the last three years now.
Nothing from the Steele Dossier was ever corroborated.
Things from the laptop have been.
And even if you want to suggest that the Russians planted the device at the repairshop… Which is a really odd defense, particularly since no one from the Biden campaign has ever actually disparaged the shopkeeper’s story. Even if I give you every point asserted: We’re back to the same fact pattern as when the Russians hacked the DNC – They reported true things. They gave Americans more access to information.