About Doubt

"Doubting the Intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked" reads the headline this week in WaPo. But does he doubt the intelligence, or reject the intelligence? The text of the article does not mince words quite like the headline, going on to state that - "Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House."

So if he indeed rejects the intelligence, the question is why. Is it a healthy skepticism? Is he a spy?
The thought that the POTUS is an agent of a foreign power is such an extreme idea that, even if all of the evidence pointed in that direction, our responsible journalists in their everyday reporting bend over backwards to present alternative theories with equal weight.

Three Amigos courtesy politico.com

Now the main thrust of the article is clear as it states "The result is without obvious parallel in U.S. history, a situation in which the personal insecurities of the president — and his refusal to accept what even many in his administration regard as objective reality — have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat. The repercussions radiate across the government." So whatever the reason for the actions of the president, the article highlights the clear threat to national security of a president who refuses to hold a hostile foreign power accountable for their direct actions against the U.S.

This piece comes at an important time with Republicans in the House challenging the reliability of the FBI and the Mueller investigation.  U.S. foreign policy tilts heavily in favor of Russia and other dictatorships and away from nations allied with the U.S. in the decades before 2017.

But when it comes to the possible culpability of the president, instead of offering the simplest explanation for his actions, the WaPo piece scales back from a common sense conclustion to an ostensibly plausible (but really implausible) explanation. "White House officials cast the president’s refusal to acknowledge Russian interference in the election as an understandably human reaction."

The article unearths a series of encounters between and among senior government officials, which does shed light on how the Trump position on Russia has played out throughout 2017.

And WaPo notes "Trump has never explained why he so frequently seems to side with Putin.
To critics, the answer is assumed to exist in the unproven allegations of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, or the claim that Putin has some compromising information about the American president. Aides attribute Trump’s affection for Putin to the president’s tendency to personalize matters of foreign policy and his unshakable belief that his bond with Putin is the key to fixing world problems."

That "To critics.." statement is the weakest point of the piece. As a hard news article, editorial policy of WaPo dictates that any interpretation of events that would constitute a reasonable best guess, but would appear highly accusatory must be consigned to the 'he said/she said' bin of logical discourse, the "on the one hand yes, but on the other hand, no."  The 'we report the facts, but we have no interpretation.'

So the most important point - is the president a spy? a money launderer? an agent of a foreign power? is shunted aside to an evenhanded tug between "unproven allegations" and "the president's tendency to personalize matters of foreign policy" as well as a never explained and vague "unshakeable belief that his bond with Putin is the key to fixing world problems."

The problem with this approach is what Republican political strategist Steve Schmidt calls, to paraphrase, starting fresh every Monday morning with Trump as if we know nothing about him, as if we only have the claims made by two equal and opposite sides, even though this president "lies 100% of the time." as Schmidt has said many times.

Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine is one of the few observers who picks up on the significance of this reporting flaw in "Advisers Afraid to Bring Up Russian Hacking Around Trump Because It Triggers Him". Chait states that the WaPo article reports "in devastating detail" about the short tempered president, while pointing out "And yet, as humiliating as the treatment of the president’s fragile psyche may be, in its most important aspects, the account is exculpatory. "

The problem with the WaPo piece that quotes top aides about Trump's "frustration" because "he believes he is innocent" is that, as Chait says - "This is a perfectly sensible frame for analyzing the thinking and behavior of a normal person. But it is not a sensible frame for analyzing the thinking and behavior of Donald Trump." Chait ends with the simple statement - "But it’s quite possible his hair-trigger anger over the subject of Russia is a tactic designed to close off a subject on which his guilt runs very deep."

And so the frame of the WaPo report is a flawed frame that exists due to the use of outmoded standards for 'objective' reporting, but which are not accurate. Avoiding the obvious explanation for Trump's behavior because it makes him look guilty, guilty, guilty results in distorted presentation of the story. One could read the WaPo piece and reasonably conclude - No wonder Trump becomes furious! He knows he is innocent after all. What could be more frustrating. Sure, let's shut down that infuriating Mueller investigation at once would be a reasonable takeaway from the WaPo piece.

Political journalists interested in accuracy need to center every news story on the frame most likely to be accurate, then point out the areas of possible doubt - not the frame that assembles the facts that are most easily proven and combines these with speculation, such as second hand witness accounts of alleged state of mind - as if anyone truly knows another person's true state of mind.

At the very least, WaPo and other news organizations need to face the reality that when they report accounts of state of mind or feeling, they are presenting opinions as facts, which jeopardizes the accuracy of their reporting. That correction would be a small step to improve reporting.

But the more important red flag in the article is the "To critics.." statement noted above. Each time a news reporter tries to boil down the facts to an argument between equal and opposite 'sides', they need to recognize that that is an improper frame. Their knee jerk tendency to do this is the reason we are in this mess today.

In fact, by this standard, perhaps WaPo news articles should note "To critics, the Washington Post is so-called 'fake news' that says whatever Jeff Bezos tells them to say..."