Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Trump's Tells

Trump optimizes every statement he makes such that if true and relevant, the statement would place him in the best possible light. In the vast majority of cases, the result is a false or misleading statement that sends the fact checkers scurrying to debunk it, or compare it with something Obama or Clinton did (or did not do), thus wasting energy on a fruitless task while Trump moves on to the next self-protecting statement. Irrelevant statements that are true (or may be, such as "I can not release my tax returns because they are under audit) need to be considered in the same category as the lies and other distractions. And the "birther lie" was not a lie. It was an evil, baseless opportunistic claim that was false and degrading. "Show us your papers. We are in charge, not you."

When our objective media agonizes over whether or not to call Trump a liar they fall into the trap of inefficient and ineffective analysis. Unfortunately, constantly telling lies works better than ever telling the truth as a strategy to control the narrative, along with never admitting fault and never accepting responsibility. Our objective media has always relied on tilting prevailing narratives toward the truth by pointing out false statements. With a persistent opportunistic liar in power, journalists need to stop evaluating Trump using traditional methods and instead describe which type of lie he is most likely telling on each occasion. For example, when, five days ago, Trump pointed to the White House window for journalists to look at Melania, but no one saw her, the proper response is not to presume she was there or even may have been there. Instead, presume the lie with Trump always, always, always - OK, Melania is obviously not in the White House or anywhere nearby. She has probably left Washington.

And please let's not rely on White House aides for their take on what goes on in Trump's head at any time, especially because he gives us so many tells.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

The Bright Light of Day

Since February of 2016 this site has been dedicated to the proposition that increasing tactical politics poses an existential threat to democracy and that only if some combination of (1) moderates who tend to vote Republican/moderate Republican officeholders and (2) mainstream journalists who favor "balanced" reporting of news recognize what is happening and adjust their behavior accordingly, liberal Democracy in the U.S. could fail.

In today's environment that has continued to see democracy erode since 2016, objective journalism is itself a liberal enterprise and the execution and administration of the law is itself a liberal enterprise.

In "President Trump Is Taking Control of the Mueller Probe in Slices", Jonathan Chait refers to Trump's advance antidemocratic efforts "Salami Slicess"
He writes:
"If Trump had baldly demanded a year ago that he be handed full control over the prosecutorial powers of the Justice Department, many of his coalition partners (Republicans in Congress) would have revolted. Instead he has encroached step by step upon the Department’s independence. At each step, his opponents have had to choose between giving him one more slice of salami and staging an irrevocable breach. The salami is getting shorter, and Trump’s final demands are drawing closer."

We have been heading toward this moment for the past 30 years or so. It was not the inevitable result of the 2016 election, but with Trump running, all of the necessary elements were in place.

So, contrary to the WaPo motto that "Democracy Dies in Darkness", in the U.S., Democracy Dies in the Bright Light of Day

In his description of Team Trump chipping away at the rule of law, Chait closes with the chilling statement:

"If Republicans maintain their majority in November, Rosenstein and the Justice Department will suddenly be staring down an emboldened Republican Party prepared to take whatever remains of his independence."

Unfortunately, facing that reality is not something we can expect from moderate Republican voters, moderate Republican officeholders, or journalists who believe that all balance equals truth - until it's too late.




Sunday, May 27, 2018

As the Headline Turns

We complain a lot here about news organizations being slow learners - letting politicians run circles around them and responding only with "fair and balanced" stories that are, as a result, unfair and out of balance. The NYT is a frequent easy mark for unscrupulous politicians.

CNBC is among the slow learners, but they show signs of learning.

CNBC headline of May 24:

"GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy believes an alleged computer hack by Qatar agents led to the exposure of his affair with Playboy Playmate"

CNBC headline of May 25:

"GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy says an alleged computer hack by Qatar agents led to the exposure of his affair with Playboy Playmate"

Bold emphasis was added. "Believes" means that we, CNBC, can safely report that Broidy is telling us the truth - that we know this as sure as we know the sun rose this morning. But that is simply not the case. We do not know that he is telling the truth about what he knows and believes. In fact, we have every reason to suspect he is lying as noted previously: "When News Becomes Opinion and Opinion Becomes News " which was followed up in "The Incredible Lightness of Minimalism".

There is an inherent contradiction in the standard journalistic minimalism approach. On the one had, we are extremely careful not to speculate, nay, not even to consider possible logical conclusions to events which are inflammatory unless they can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other had, in the case of those individuals who might come under suspicion in those very same inflammatory cases, we happily post headlines that "So-and-so believes X" on occasions where So-and-so says X because to do otherwise would not be "fair and balanced". (Even though, to do otherwise, would be to faithfully report facts rather than to report claims of fact.)

Anniversary Surprise

1968 was a big year in American history for tragedy and horror. Which means that since the beginning of this year, we face many significant 50th anniversaries and newspaper commemorations.
But merely reporting "50 years ago today" is not enough. Our news organizations place a premium on new twists on old stories.

WaPo treated us to a couple of 50th anniversary twists in a single edition earlier this week (and they just keep coming). The Memorial Day long weekend invites this treatment because the piece can be prepared in advance so more journalists can head out early to the beach.

And so we have "Who killed Bobby Kennedy? His son RFK, Jr. doesn't believe it was Sirhan Sirhan.", which is fine as a feature story about RFK, Jr., but not necessarily as a search for truth.  Timing is everything. The coincidence with the 50th anniversary of the assassination tells us the author does not consider this a breaking news story and likely does not believe the allegation. Which puts this story squarely in the category of "Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence" purporting that the Japanese military captured Earhart and her navigator alive, timed perfectly for the 90th anniversary of her disappearance.

Joel Achenbach asks "Did the news media, led by Walter Cronkite, lose the war in Vietnam?" employing the annoying journalism convention that turns a declarative statement into a rhetorical question, implicitly claiming the News label for an Opinion piece. One can argue that a more appropriate title would be " What took them so long? Did the news media, led by Walter Cronkite, prolong the war in Vietnam?"

In that case, instead of the message - Hey, fifty years later, let's entertain a new twist on an old story -- the question would be - How do we feel about overall news coverage of the Trump administration? Does the news media focus too much on the day to day and pat themselves on the back each time they identify a lie? Do they need to do a better job, still, after almost three years of this nonsense? (starting with the campaign) Are journalists too slow to adapt to changes in behavior among politicians? And, most important of all - Is the traditional news media up to the task of covering the 2018 midterms and the 2020 election? So far, it's not looking good.

Unfortunately, when given a choice, our traditional news people seem more interested in reporting out an improbable new take on history, rather than the more useful lesson for today that can be drawn from something that happened many years ago. In many ways, 2018 feels like it could easily become the most wrenching year in American history since 1968, which our still free press would do well to recognize and react accordingly.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Lie Me a River

In Lying in Plain Sight along with A Sane World, we made the case in January of 2017 that Trump should always be presumed lying unless proven otherwise. That approach reverses traditional political reporting which treats every statement by major officeholders as truthful, but subject to verification. Now, a year and a half later, most Republican officeholders, with notable exceptions, have steadfastly lined up to support Trump's constant lying.

But just as the mainstream press delayed reporting candidate Trump's constant lying until it was too late, the press has been too reticent, too slow to react appropriately to this pattern of lies.

In WaPo, Paul Waldman writes ii's "Time to stop chasing Trump's lies down the rabbit hole."

His compelling case about Trump's statements:

"These are lies. They’re not “unconfirmed,” they’re not “misstatements,” and they’re not “exaggerations.” They’re lies. They should have been greeted with headlines reading, “President Trump Lies to Public About Russia Investigation.”

How many times do we have to go through this charade?

At this point, Trump has earned the presumption that everything he says on the topic of the Russia investigation is offered in bad faith and is almost certainly false, until proved otherwise. So we should treat his statements the way we do press releases from the North Korean state news agency."

Of course, it's not just every statement on the Russia investigation that is offered in bad faith. Every statement Trump makes, every tweet, is offered in bad faith as the statement which, if true, would benefit Trump's political interest in the very short term, and which, if false, will almost surely be superseded by a statement that follows the same pattern:

 offered in bad faith as the statement which, if true, would benefit Trump's political interest in the very short term, and which, if false, will almost surely be superseded by a statement

 offered in bad faith as the statement which, if true, would benefit Trump's political interest in the very short term, and which, if false, will almost surely be superseded by a statement

 offered in bad faith as the statement which, if true, would benefit Trump's political interest in the very short term, and which, if false, will almost surely be superseded by a statement
...

This endless pattern of tactical false statements has led us to a situation where Trumpworld needs to support a convoluted and elaborate web of claims that is materially false in many quite major ways. In this world, not only is Hillary Clinton a criminal who should be "locked up", but lifelong Republicans like Andrew McCabe and James Comey at the FBI, and Robert Mueller, all of whom have a long history as "straight shooters", are depicted as part of a "deep state" conspiracy against Trump, or "really Democrats." And these generally trustworthy and upright citizens are not to be trusted, but the Trumpians, who lie all the time, are to be trusted.

In an important larger sense, either the narrative expressed by Democrats (and many out-of-office Republicans) is correct  and serious investigation into Team Trump is necessary, or Team Trump is correct. There is no middle ground where the truth could sit. But the long series of "refutations" offered by Team Trump needs to be considered in its totality, where the gross logical inconsistencies become painfully obvious, not in isolation based on the most recent dubious claim or two.

For example, consider the Sean Spicer statement that "If the President puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russia connection" at a March 28, 2017 briefing. Think today, only a year later, now that an incredible number of sketchy Russia connections (in 2016 and ongoing) have been uncovered, just how preposterous that Spicer denial was. And yet CNN reporting at that time referred to an "exasperated" Spicer, based solely on his posturing, thus conferring implicit credibility to the Trump team denials.

The mainstream press has a really tough time with this situation. As another example, the press takes shortcuts that would generally work with an honest president, but have no place here, reporting that "Trump believes..", "Trump thinks..." etc. But if he is lying all the time, we do not have any idea what he believes. Not only do we never know for sure what anyone believes, in Trump's case, we know for sure that we do not know what he actually believes, and we have good reason to believe that what he is saying at any given time is not true and is likely misleading. So whenever the press reports that "Trump believes X", they are lending credence to Trump that he does not deserve based on his well established patterns of behavior.






Wednesday, May 23, 2018

The Incredible Lightness of Minimalism

Minimalism in journalism that is. Let me explain with an example.

Chris Hayes had Paul Campos on his MSNBC show last night to discuss Campos article in New York "Hey Look: More Evidence That Broidy May Have Been Covering for Trump in That Playmate Affair".

Campos lays out more indications to support the theory that Playboy model Shera Bechard was likely paid off by Trump/Cohen $1.6 million (quarterly payments still in process) to cover up Trump's role in an affair and her consequent abortion. See When News Becomes Opinion and Opinion Becomes News.

On the MSNBC show, Campos explains the basis for the theory, but he was quickly interrupted by Hayes who cautioned, (I paraphrase) "Wait a second. Let's get this straight. This is all just your theory, right? Based on circumstantial evidence." Campos agreed, but pointed out that the version offered by team Trump - four days after the raid on Michael Cohen's apartment - was accepted and reported as fact by the news organizations selected for the leak of the story. At that point, Hayes ignored Campos' point about the role of the news media, thus becoming part of the story of the failure of the news media.

Here's where the problem of minimalism comes into play. If Trump got a Playboy model pregnant and paid for her silence (and presumably the abortion), this could be a really big deal for his support among the Christian right (evangelicals and Catholics). And certainly would have been a very big deal just prior to the 2016 election. For the traditional media, the fact that the Trump role, if true, is so inflammatory raises the bar of scrutiny, subjecting the theory to a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Which is fine, but ignores the fact that the theory of an affair with Trump, not Broidy, is more credible, more plausible, than the claim that Broidy is "David Dennison" in this isolated case. It's minimalism in the sense that Chris Hayes came to a hard stop on the story because the evidence was circumstantial, despite where the preponderance of the evidence leads.

In other words, for the traditional news folks, if you are going to accept a leak from Team Trump on its face and report it as news, ignoring the consistent history of lies and fabrications, maybe because it "embarasses" someone (Broidy) in this case, you need to acknowledge that this approach has its shortcomings.

The traditional news media continues to be easily manipulated by Team Trump. The traditional journalistic model treats every story involving politics as a "he said/she said" story:

Step 1: "He said." Trump, Giuliani, or another Trump associate makes a statement that is treated as true by NYT, CNN, et al until and unless proven false. The proof of falsehood is made subject to fact checking. But the goal of team Trump to distract from the heart of the matter (whatever it is in each situation) has already been achieved. Traditional journalists still have no idea how to deal with this.

What I am calling "minimalism" is a lack of imagination tied to an antiquated standard that says political news reporters are not responsible for finding and reporting the truth - reporters are responsible for reporting "maybe facts" - claims and statements that reporters are to accept as true in an almost "hands off" manner, until and unless "fact checking" establishes otherwise, or the "other side" refutes them in a debate based on reason, supported by facts. But what if that reliance on reason by "all sides" never comes? What if one "side" is happy with their truth supported by their claims?

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The Times They Are Not a'Changin'

Appearing on Hardball this evening, NYT political reporter Peter Baker was asked by Chris Matthews about Trump summoning Rosenstein and Wray to the White House to meet regarding the FBI source who met with Trump campaign officials in 2016. With right wing media in full attack mode in support of Trump applying pressure on those investigating him, Baker's immediate reaction was to draw a comparison to the tarmac meeting of Clinton with Obama's attorney general in 2016.

Is it really necessary in every single news piece and every single appearance on television for Peter Baker to write about current events - this time Trump - by drawing a comparison with "the other side"?

When the difference is far more significant than any similarity,  drawing any attention to an alleged similarity as a precondition to discussing the importance of differences creates a distracting and confusing frame around the event. The issue of the threat to rule of law in the U.S. is lost in that frame, regardless of a subsequent backtracking from the sentence that begins "Well, Clinton...".

Clinton was a former president in 2016. Trump is current president in 2018. The power differential is extreme. Any comparison that ignores that is ridiculous.

This forced balance of the NYT reporter only feeds the narrative championed by one "side", which creates a result that, in the end, is not exactly fair or balanced.

We should not be surprised by the NYT, exercising caution to such an extent, that the result is recklessness.

Two days ago, one of their early headlines to a story read thus



On some devices, the condensed headline was even worse, reading:
"Mueller to End Obstruction Inquiry by Sept. 1, Giuliani Says". Which does not have exactly the same meaning. And, for many readers, a quick gloss will give the impression - "oh, so that investigation will be ending by September 1...".

After a number of complaints, the latter headline morphed into something more like "Giuliani Claims Mueller Inquiry May End by Sept. 1". Rephrasing to lead with "Giuliani Claims..."is more accurate in several ways:
1. The first headline gives the false impression of a breaking story - the Mueller inquiry now has an end date! September 1! The source is less important. Happens to be Rudy Giuliani. Hmm. Wait a second.
2. OK, so there is no real breaking story, but if the NYT insists on pretending there is, they at least need to provide the proper frame. The only action is being taken by Giuliani (not Mueller). Giuliani  is out there talking, so begin the headline with Giuliani, not Mueller.
3. Giuliani is not just any source. He is acting on behalf of Trump who is known to lie constantly. By becoming a public spokesman for Trump, Giuliani is rendered potentially untrustworthy. When he makes a statement, it is a claim and needs to be called a claim.

So, good for the Times to revise the headline in response to criticism. But why didn't the Times get it right in the first place? When will they learn?

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

When News Becomes Opinion and Opinion Becomes the News

What do we mean when we call something "News"? We mean an accurate report on what is actually happening. And, to be good and reliable, we expect that reporting to be supported by facts and to support a true narrative.

Unfortunately, journalistic standards applied by the NYT and other outlets require a certain "stepping away" from the story if politics is involved, presumably because all political reporters are presumed to be ruled by uncontrollable political bias that inevitably warps their ability to practice their chosen profession.

The result is a lot of reporting on politics - labeled "news" that fails the "what is really happening" test. And reporting on politics that is speculative regarding "what is really happening" that an organization like the NYT would consider "opinion" but which is better labeled "news", but with a caveat that the reporting represents a "best guess".

A case in point appears in the current New York Magazine. Notably in some versions the title is "Another Trump Affair Coverup?" and in others, it's "Here's a Theory About That $1.6 Million Payout From a GOP Official to a Playboy Model" by Paul Campos."
NYMag;Broidy, Bechard, and the original "Dennison"

The author, Paul Campos, makes a compelling case that Playboy model Shera Bechard was paid off $1.6 million to cover up an affair and pregnancy with Donald Trump, not Elliott Broidy per the story "leaked" to the NYT, WSJ, and CNN. (Interesting aside: when Team Trump wants credibility, they still leak to traditional news organizations despite Trump's persistent accusations of "fake news".)

As Campos states on the Broidy allegation, "This is the story that was leaked to the Journal — and to the New York Times, and CNN, which the Journal beat to the punch by publishing it first. It has since been repeated as fact by just about every major media outlet in the country. But there are good reasons to consider whether it might not be yet another audacious lie from Trumpworld." (Note: The "audacious lie" would fit into the category of the "Silver Bullet" described in "Both Sides Don't Do It" - in this case a fabrication, whether credible or not, that can be used on its own to discredit a truthful narrative in favor of a false narrative."

Campos lays out cogent arguments every step by step - under the following headings - to a reasonable conclusion:
The New David Dennison Sounds Exactly Like the Old Donald Trump
Elliott Broidy Seems Exactly Like Someone Who Would Pay $1.6 Million to Protect a Lucrative Influence-Peddling Business
Who Is Shera Bechard More Likely to Date?
It Doesn’t Make Sense That Davidson Would Have Reached Out to Cohen
The Sum of the Settlement Is Fishy
Are We Really Supposed to Believe That Broidy Wanted Cohen to Represent Him?
Broidy’s Actions Don’t Add Up

The article is a must read, but all you really need for evidence is the sum of the settlement - $1.6 million - and the relative unknown Broidy whose actions don't add up -  Broidy paying so much hush money, but then jumping at the chance to disclose "his" affair at the earliest opportunity.

But the NYT reporting April 13th was completely credulous in "RNC Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns". Despite knowing that Team Trump lies constantly, the NYT took the story first published in the WSJ as fact, presumably because it was an admitted embarassment, never stopping to question whether the objective was to hide a much bigger, more plausible, and potentially devastating embarassment to POTUS.

As to that admitted embarassment - the WSJ reported that Bechard terminated the pregnancy while the NYT made no such mention. Was the NYT editorial decision that the outcome of the pregnancy was irrelevant to the story? Or was the NYT thinking that making the abortion part of the story might make the reader start to wonder whether $1.6 million to Bechard and $130,000 to Stormy Daniels means that $1.3 million is the price to conceal an abortion on behalf of a sitting president who counts on the support of conservative Christians. And the NYT prefers the minimalist approach to political reporting on Republican officeholders and candidates. Until we have incontrovertible proof of politically explosive information, we can not posit plausible explanations for certain behaviors. We must shy away from damaging or incriminating stories until we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

So this is yet another case of the failure of mainstream journalists to update their standards to better handle the endless stream of lying from the powers that be. In this situation, the proper response would have been - 'OK, we are getting this embarassing information now leaked from people who lie all the time. That was easy. Why now? Should we believe it? Might there be a motive to lie about this? What do we think is going on here?'

The willingness of the NYT and others to report claims made by this administration as fact makes journalists a powerful tool for deception in the arsenal of duplicitous politicians.

Oh well. Maybe next time. Not.


Tuesday, May 1, 2018

When Reporters are Accomplices

For journalism in modern America, false balance is the root of all evil. But false balance derives from "fair and balanced" journalism. So fair and balanced journalism is the source of all evil. How can that be? What can be wrong with fair? OK, nothing is wrong with fair. The problem is balance. But balance is not always wrong and balance in journalism worked pretty well in the 1970s. Times change.

Forcing balance in every news article about politics is a problem. Balance is not objectivity, but reporters try to use balance as a perfect proxy for objectivity. The fact that reporters on politics do this creates an opening that ruthless politicians and their allies at ruthless media outlets are willing to exploit to make the purveyors of false balance look and act like fools.

This site has many blog posts decrying False Balance. In our current political environment, with an extremist president and Congress, the failures of the false balance squad emerge in new formats.

Jay Rosen's "What savvy journalists say when they are minimizing Trump’s hate movement against journalists"
breaks this down for us with numerous examples, noting "To the uninitiated it may look like a fight. Actually, it's a dance, they tell us." and "For two years I have been tracking a speech pattern among American journalists, in which they try to explain to us — and perhaps to themselves — why Donald Trump’s campaign to discredit them is not what it seems, why it’s no big deal."

Several examples are taken from the some of the usual suspects from Politico, Vox, and ever the New York Times. Rosen's brief, trenchant essay culminates in:

"So that’s the pattern I wanted to show you. What are we to make of it? First, the speakers in this post make valid points. Among them are: 

* In Turkey journalists are being arrested. Independent media has been absorbed into the state. Nothing like that is happening in the U.S. 

* Journalists can still report freely and publish what they find. As far as we know, Trump’s worst threats on that score have not materialized. 

* The civic emergency created by Trump’s election has been good for the media business, and good for writers who wish to be read. 

* Reporters on the White House beat find sources eager to talk and an almost unlimited supply of big, important stories to chase. 

* Trump is desperate to be liked. He craves press attention. He is a media animal. These facts modify his public expressions of disdain for journalists. 

I do not contest the truth of these observations. Journalists are right to point them out, and we should factor them into our understanding of events. 

But I do dissent from the larger theme of a “phony war.” Something quite dangerous is happening. I have put my arguments for that proposition into an essay for New York Review of Books. You can read it here. It begins, “There is alive in the land an organized campaign to discredit the American press. This campaign is succeeding.” 

So what is going on here?

I would argue, by inference from these behaviors, that for the traditional, objective media, standards of reporting news about a president who appears to behave very badly require strict adherence to a standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt". That is, the more extreme Trump's behavior, the more compelled these reporters feel to report only the facts and deliberately avoid collecting those facts into identifiable patterns that would point to extreme levels of guilty intent.

And to the extent Trump's patterns of behavior, and those of his inner circle, appear to indicate malfeasance and criminal acts, the more inclined these reporters are to push themselves to concoct innocent explanations for these statements and actions. In order to be "unbiased", the so-called objective reporters act as proxies for the administration.

Basically, if it has not happened yet, it's not going to happen could be their motto. Reporters have not yet been locked up. Hillary Clinton has not been put in jail yet, so it could never happen and must be taken as a joke, or bad form.

The endgame may not be locking up journalists, but totally discrediting them. If the coalition of the Trumpanistas and loyalist Republican voters are able to maintain the electoral advantage through hook or by crook, then there is no need to lock up the journalists. Their articles can be called fake news when reporting is negative on Trump and Republicans and weaponized as "real" news when weaponized as balanced favorable reporting on Trump.

In a way, the situation reminds me of the days prior to the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait when reporters briefed by "senior government officials" were told that Saddam Hussein was "saber rattling". News reporting at the time, at the NYT and other outlets, tended to accept the Bush administration depiction. Sure, that intelligence assessment might have been accurate, but simple common sense suggests that gradually amassing up to 100,000 troops and all of the necessary weapons of war along the border of a small country rich in oil is the logical first step to a rapid strike.