Friday, June 15, 2018

Bad Faith

In "How the conventions of political journalism help spread Trump’s lies" Greg Sargent takes traditional news outlets to task for their knee jerk 'two sides to every issue' reporting on the Inspector General report released yesterday. Keep in mind that the IG review only exists due to bad faith efforts by the president and the Republican leadership in Congress to discredit inquiry into the Trump campaign.

The very fact of journalists' efforts to maintain "balance" in political reporting betrays a weakness that ruthless politicians are willing to exploit. As a result, the journalistic commitment to the truth (using outmoded standards that rely on good faith, or, an idealistic belief that "the truth will out" or "no one will ever trust a liar") is the very thing that makes them report falsehoods as possibly true.

Sargent writes:

"One of the most important but overlooked lessons in the bombshell report on the handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation is that bad-faith, right-wing ref-working, via purely instrumental attacks on institutions, works. Buried in the report by the Department of Justice’s inspector general is evidence that former FBI director James B. Comey undertook actions that damaged Clinton’s candidacy, in part, because he had been spooked by such attacks."

And he continues:
"Right on cue, the news media’s coverage of the inspector general’s report is also confirming the same lesson: Bad-faith ref-working is producing its desired results once again.

The report’s core finding is that the FBI’s decision not to prosecute Clinton was untainted by bias or politics. This lays waste to one of the most important narratives pushed by President Trump and his allies in the quest to undermine special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation by claiming law enforcement is riddled with anti-Trump corruption.

But in many of this morning’s accounts about the report, you find versions of this additional claim: The IG report nonetheless provides fodder and ammunition to Trump and his allies to discredit Mueller’s probe.

Trump’s allies have widely cited the inspector general’s findings about the now-infamous texts between an FBI agent and lawyer — which do show animus towards Trump’s candidacy — as not just proof of anti-Trump bias at the FBI during the Clinton investigation, but also to bolster Trump’s argument that the Mueller probe into Russia-Trump campaign collusion is suspect.

Many news accounts inadvertently grant these arguments credibility, not just by quoting them, but also by claiming as fact that the conduct in question actually does lend support to those arguments. Yes, they also convey that the inspector general’s overall conclusion undercuts the Trumpian narrative. But the straddle itself is the problem. It showcases a convention often relied upon in political journalism — the use of the “lends fodder” formulation to float false claims alongside true ones — that has to go.

For instance, the New York Times quotes a Trump ally pushing his narrative, and then asserts as fact that “any independent criticism” of Comey “helps” Trump “undermine the credibility of someone who may be a crucial witness against him in any case of obstruction of justice.” The Associated Press claims the report gave Republicans “ample fodder” to “question” the Russia probe. The Post says the report will serve as a GOP “cudgel” against Mueller. CNN asserts that the inspector general gave Trump “fodder” to claim a “deep state” coup.

But here’s the problem: There is no neutral way to make this claim. Either the inspector general’s actual findings legitimately support that Trumpian argument about the significance of those findings, or they do not. To be sure, these accounts sometimes quote an interested party on the other side saying the findings don’t support the Trump/GOP interpretation. Yet this isn’t enough, particularly since these accounts also state as neutral fact, in the voice of the omniscient journalist, that the findings do indeed provide “fodder” for those arguments, effectively conferring legitimacy on the Trump/GOP interpretation of them.

This rewards bad-faith arguments. The IG report simply does not legitimately lend “fodder” to efforts to undermine the Mueller probe. Take the Times’ claim that the report may boost efforts to undermine Comey’s credibility as an obstruction witness. As David Leonhardt notes, the IG report doesn’t question Comey’s credibility; it questions his judgment in his handling of the Clinton case. So that claim adds meaning to the report that isn’t there, conferring legitimacy on the manipulation of the inspector general’s findings in service of a bad-faith assertion.

Or take the claim by Trump’s allies that the report’s demonstration of anti-Trump bias by two FBI employees means the Mueller probe is deeply suspect or illegitimate. That’s the “fodder” some accounts refer to. But describing this neutrally as fodder for that interpretation effectively endorses it. And this interpretation is just straight-up nonsense. As Brian Beutler and John Harwood point out, even if there are legitimate concerns about the FBI agent who texted about stopping Trump, the IG report showed, above all, that any such bias was institutionally prevented from impacting the Clinton probe and that the FBI’s conduct helped elect Trump. That agent got removed from the Mueller investigation. The claim that the report lends “fodder” to Trump’s attack on Mueller announces itself as true — even though it isn’t — by virtue of the fact that Trump is treating it as such.

Bad-faith attacks get rewarded"

And "Comey was worried that the FBI, which Trump and company assailed during the campaign as in the tank for Clinton, would be falsely accused of rigging the election if he didn’t go public. So he did, and this helped tip the election against her. The bad-faith attacks were rewarded.[emphasis added]"

And so on. This is not only a failure of the mainstream press to convey meaning with truthful reporting. It is a failure to recognize that they, the mainstream press, are the dupes of Republican attacks on democracy, and, by extension, Putin's attacks on American democracy and the Western alliance. Standard political reporting requires objectively reporting facts and relegating meaningful conclusions to a battle of arguments between two equal and opposite sides, both of which are as likely as each other to be acting in good faith and both of which need to tell the truth - otherwise, anyone lying loses credibility. That's the theory, but the theory is false. As Trump knows, you can say anything and they will believe you. He knows that works because he does exactly that and it works.

Sargent notes above that Comey adjusted his behavior in a manner that rewarded bad faith attacks. Sargent notes in his piece that the bad faith attacks are currently being rewarded by the press with their bending meaning to favor false interpretations of the IG report.

But bad faith is also rewarded by diverting attention away from other stories of corruption that is widespread and open. For example, now that we know so much more about the intertwining of the Trump campaign with Russia and Russian operatives, including Wikileaks, the Internet Research Agency, Cambridge Analytica, and so many others, in a sane world, we would be looking back at AG Sessions' Senate testimony denying any Russian contacts between the campaign and Russia.


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