NY Times "Reporter" Never Actually Saw the Comey Memo

Nice.

 

Yeah write it down 150 times so you can believe it. Your bs is all yours, let me know the politician that hasn't lied or got facts wrong, I'll be waiting. Your entire argument is a straw man. OH OH I HATE TRUMP BECAUSE HE LIED. Uh we're talking about politicians here, the entire system is about lieing and grandstanding lol. Hey but keep on telling others they're uninformed lol

 

So, you made it up.

 

No, because the questions is irrelevant. The investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to the Russians dates back to last summer, well before the existance of the Steele dossier was revealed.

 

That's not so. MSM may not have have reported on the dossier, but Comey submitted as cause for a FISA warrant in June.

 

Sorry, but there was a lot more to the warrant than the dossier. Of course, many of the major points in that dossier have been confirmed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...a742a6e93a7_story.html?utm_term=.7a1b57b934ee

 

Yawn. None the less ... it illustrates the $1.5 million connection between the DNC / Russian investigations. It exposes your false claim the dossier wasn't what prompted the investigation. It's also clear you were well aware of the facts and were purposely obtuse, and disingenuous.

 

I'm on this site, exposed to a wide variety of sources. My main aggregator of political news is Memeorandum, which provides a broad spectrum of both news sources and commentary. I do this specifically because I WANT a wide variety of sources.

I'm also a former journalist. I spent 18 years working in newspapers. I know both the people and the process for how articles are produced. Yes, journalists are probably more liberal than the general public, though not to the extent you seem to think. But more importantly, they are PROFESSIONALS, dedicated to the principles of their craft. What I witnessed, year after year, was people bending over backwards to avoid bias, to the extent of giving CONSERVATIVE stories more run and weight than they probably deserved.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Journalists are human just like everybody else. There are good reporters and bad reporters. But news outlets have entire processes in place to compensate for that. Every reporter has an editor, and no article sees the light of day unless both the reporter and editor agree it's ready to publish. After that, every story is read at least once, and usually twice, by the copy desk. It is often read AGAIN by the person putting it on the page or website. And, of course, there is endless second-guessing after publication. It is difficult for one person's bias to make it into print unquestioned.

(I was a copy editor and page designer, and we tended to be contrarians -- we saw questioning the entire PREMISE of the article as part of our job. It had nothing to do with the ideological slant of the article, if any. It was about ensuring that whatever saw print would stand up to public scrutiny. Journalism is one of the few jobs where your mistakes are on display for the world to see. We didn't want any of those if we could help it.)

Now, that is how good outlets operate. There are plenty of outlets that are either amateurish or straight up biased, like Breitbart or ThinkProgress, or completely off the rails, like InfoWars. If you give serious weight to such outlets, you have a serious lack of judgement.

But no matter what you read, you need a working BS detector. Some sources are crap; and even reputable sources can have bad days. Bias aside, there is plenty of shallowness and inaccuracy in many news stories, enough that at the very least you always have to ask if you are getting the full story. That's just what happens when you have generalists writing under deadline pressure: it's easy to miss context or to misunderstand what you are writing about.

So be skeptical of everything you read. But being skeptical is not the same thing as beIng cynical.

So that is why I think that, by describing the MSM as "radical leftist", you have demonstrated both your extreme right perspective, and probably a non-functioning BS detector. Because if you view the MSM as "radical leftist", that means the sources you consider unbiased are very biased to the right, and those sources are almost certainly lying to you, by omission if nothing else. That's just what highly biased sources do.

 

Of course the reporter never saw the memo. These days if something fits the lefts agenda that is good enough. No evidence required.

 

You lost me at "reporter." You don't put quotes on that word.

 

I have an anonymous source saying they made the whole thing up. They read it to me over the phone. I didn't see it. Who in their right mind would question the validity of an anonymous source like that?

 

Not that it matters ... MSM says the Lynch email / memo that Comey discovered, ans presented as evidence warranting his re-opening the Clinton investigation, was a Russian phony. Comey can't discern fact from fiction. He fell for it again when McCain slipped him the dossier.

 

Come on, people, stop being stupid.

Media outlets don't use anonymous sources willy-nilly. Some random person calling up and making a claim will go nowhere.

Outlets only use anonymous sources if they KNOW and TRUST the source, to the point of being willing to put their own credibility on the line to publish what that source says.

Most reputable news outlets have specific rules around the use of anonymous sources. Those rules usually boil down to the following:

1. Push back against requests for anonymity. Pull out every stop to get sources to go on the record.
2. Agree to anonymous sourcing only when there is no other way to get the story, and the story is important enough to take a chance on anonymous sourcing.
3. Corroborate with other sources, if possible.
4. Be willing to use a single anonymous source as your sole source of information ONLY if you trust the source, and the story is SO big that it has to be told.

There IS an issue within the media around overreliance on anonymous sources. News outlets can sometimes grant anonymity too readily, and can sometimes get burned by a trusted source.

But the mere use of anonymous sources is not in and of itself a problem. Especially when there are multiple anonymous sources all saying the same thing to different media outlets.

The fact of the matter is that the Trump administration is so dysfunctional that it is leaking like a sieve, and that the anonymous sources have been proven correct over and over again. Not 100%, of course, but quite often. This is what happens when you have a White House that lies constantly. In such an instance, we are in a situation where the anonymous sources have more credibility than the White House.

 

There is an ongoing investigation. Claiming there is no evidence before the investigation has concluded is ridiculous. Just like it would be ridiculous to claim there IS evidence of collusion.

There is enough evidence to justify an investigation; nothing more.

 

Well at least you admit anonymous sources aren't always credible, that's a start and the great thing about this one is when Comey testifies we'll get to see exactly the context he took it. The left has clearly published and been saying that it proves Trump was obstructing justice and was taken by Comey as saying Stop the Investigation. Surely if Comey, which was fired by Trump, says he didn't take it that way you will happily come on here and admit the MSM was pushing a false narrative. If Comey says the memo didn't exist or he doesn't remember writing it then you'll admit they are flat out lieing, right?

What I fully expect Comey to say is that at the time he didn't take it that way but it could be perceived that way. That's what he does tries to give both sides ammunition so everyone can like him lol. See Hilary investigation for my reasoning.

 

How would a media outlet using an anonymous source they trusted equate to that outlet "pushing a false narrative" or "lying"? What you would have is the SOURCE doing that -- assuming they were lying, and not simply mistaken. The questions for the media outlet would be, "Were you right to trust that source?" and "will you trust that source in the future?"

Scenarios like that are why media outlets have a vested interest in limiting their use of anonymous sources.

Yes, when Comey testifies we will (maybe) see if the various anonymous sources were accurate in various particulars. Deciding whether there were lies involved requires looking at what was claimed by whom.

That's reasonable, yes. Let me note two things:

1. That would be consistent with what the anonymous sources have been saying;
2. You implicitly assume that COMEY is the accuracy problem -- he will try to split the difference to keep everyone happy, regardless of what he might have said or not said in private.

 

A lot of media sources have already lost credibility to anyone with half a brain. The NYT was caught being a propagandist for the DNC. Why should anyone believe anything they print from anonymous sources? Now let's take into account the "journalist", who works for a know DNC propagandist, didn't even lay eyes on said documents and just ran with it. Why on earth would anyone not be skeptical of the information?

 

Again, that is your extreme bias talking, not reality. Feel free to discount the NYT as a "propagandist". Just don't expect that to comport with reality.

For instance, what do you consider credible news sources?

 

Uh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Congress?

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...rump-never-pressured-fbi-halt-investigations/

 

They were caught being propagandist. It's not my bias talking, it's their own emails. And you suggest I'm ignoring reality, hahahahahahahaha that's rich.

I kind of sift through the crap and try to remain objective because all news sources are biased. I can't say there is a single source out there that I blindly trust.

 

Please provide a link. I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Fine. What sources do you trust the MOST? Clearly, the NYT is not on that list.

 

Wikileaks released the DNC and Podesta emails. They are full of collusion between the NYT and the DNC. But they pail in comparison to the Washington Post and CNN. If you don't know that truth it's because you've chosen to ignore it. Head on over to Wikileaks or one of the numerous places that break them down. Or don't, I think we know which way you'll go.

There is not a news organization I trust. None of them have proven to be reliable enough to trust without question.

 

a credible news source doesn't actively collaborate and coordinate with a campaign like the NY Times did with the Clinton campaign

The NY Time ceased being a news organization and became a propaganda outlet for the Clinton Campaign

 

What I recall is emails showing journalists talking in familiar terms to their sources, and seeking information from their sources. I also recall emails discussing who the DNC considered "friendly" reporters, which is common practice among any organization seeking to get their message out: you focus on the reporters you think will be most likely to decide your proposed storylines are newsworthy. It is not an indication of bias on the reporter's part; it's just basic media strategy.

If you're talking about people like John Harwood, he is a pundit and analysis guy, and even then only an occasional contributor to the NYT. His actions hardly slime the entire organization.

Okay, well, a quick look at threads you have created show some mainstream sources, typically quoted when the subject is cut and dried. And a whole mess of right-wing swamp sources, like Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, American Mirror and Dennis Michael Lynch, a strident anti-immigrant activist. Oh, and uncritically accepting Assange's assertions about the source of the DNC link, even though Assange has lied about such things in the past, and has a clear interest in muddying the waters around that.

So I guess I see why you wouldn't want to discuss your list of sources.

 

One thing for sure I don't trust any news outlet that only uses anonymous sources in their reporting with no other collaborating evidence and the vast majority of this Trump/ Russian collusion is based on nothing but unverified anonymous sources, rumors, innuendoes, assumptions, and speculation
I want facts I want evidence and no anonymous sources aren't facts aren't evidence, rumors, innuendoes, assumptions, and speculation aren't facts aren't evidence
and when a news outlets rely most only on anonymous sources, rumors, innuendoes, assumptions, and speculation they aren't credible
and yes that goes for all news outlets left and right it is why I give very little credibility to outlets like Info Wars and you wont ever see me use them as a source