Journalism is in the Toilet

[GMDino]

I had dinner last night with two college friends,  both conservatives.  One is much more conservative (and much more religious) the other is less so on both counts.  The latter being my ex-college roommate, best man at my wedding (I was his also) and lifelong friend.

When we have these dinners we inevitably talk politics.  I won't bore you with that but my old roommate is not a fan of social media and how it divided us.  We had an in-depth conversation about  what I often say here:  There is social media, there is "the media", there is journalism, etc.


Clickbait is not the same as real journalism but too often everything gets intertwined because that is the earnings model that we have now for "news".  Be fast, be first...worry about the be right later, at least in most/many cases.

He believes that "news" channels deliberately manipulate their viewers.  I argue that they simply give the viewers what they want to get them to watch.  FOX know Biden falling will get more hits than a story about Fauci having to explain (again) to Rand Paul that Rand Paul is an idiot.  CNN knows that a story about an outbreak of Covid at Mar A Lago will get more views that a story about Biden accidentally calling Harris "President" during a speech.

And I am posting this story in this thread to show that "journalism" we is in the toilet when it is thrown in with things like this.  Alleged "investigative reporting" aired on a "news channel".

And sometimes the "news channel" does indeed intend to mislead their viewers.  OAN knew what their viewer wanted to hear.  The people behind the "story" knew OAN had viewers that would be receptive to it whether it was true or not.

Passing it off as documentary on a news channel only reinforced what viewers "knew" or "believed" and then they spread it like so much of a virus in Florida.

Sometimes it is hard to separate the real news from the propaganda.  That doesn't mean real news, real journalism isn't out there.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-proxies-helped-produce-documentary-oan-intelligence-report-2021-3

Quote:Russian proxies 'helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network' last year, intelligence report says
Sonam Sheth 
Mar 17, 2021, 6:00 PM

• An intel report said Russian proxies "helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network" in January 2020.
• The documentary appears to have been featured on the Trump-aligned One America News Network.
• It explored purported allegations of corruption involving the Bidens and Ukraine.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.
  

A bombshell report released Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence accused the Russian government of carrying out a covert influence campaign aimed at swaying the 2020 election in favor of then President Donald Trump.


As part of that effort, the report said, Russian proxies "made contact with established US media figures and helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020." This line appears to be referencing a documentary by the Trump-allied One America News Network (OAN) that aired the weekend of January 25-26 last year, according to NBC News.

Titled, "The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, Mass Murder," the film purported to "expose Biden-Obama corruption" related to Ukraine. It aired at the same time Trump was facing a Senate impeachment trial for withholding military aid from Ukraine while pressuring the country to launch politically motivated investigations targeting the Bidens.

The documentary was made by Michael Caputo, a former Trump advisor who served as the spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services before he took medical leave after spreading conspiracy theories about armed "left-wing hit squads" targeting Trump's second inauguration. He made the comments in September, when Trump and then-Democratic candidate and now President Joe Biden were still vying for the White House.

"I know Ukraine very well, and I knew that the Bidens were up to something there," Caputo said when promoting the documentary in an interview with the right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec in January 2020. "And I knew that the former president [of Ukraine], President Poroshenko, had been involved in interfering in the American elections. I thought that I could prove it, so I flew over there in August [of 2019]."

Allegations of corruption involving the Bidens and Ukraine, as well as claims of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, were at the center of Republicans' messaging during the 2020 race.

Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and several of their congressional allies repeatedly accused the Biden of inappropriately leveraging his role as vice president to help his son, Hunter, when the younger Biden served on the board of the Ukrainian natural-gas company Burisma Holdings.

They also alleged that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for meddling in the 2016 election, and that it did so to help then Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. OAN, which has often been compared to a state-run media outlet because of its pro-Trump agenda, was a key player in amplifying these claims.

But as the ODNI's report found — and as has been repeatedly confirmed by US officials, diplomats, and anticorruption activists — the allegations stemmed mainly from a Russian disinformation campaign directed by Vladimir Putin that aimed to push "misleading and unsubstantiated" narratives about Biden in order to "damage US ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump's prospects for reelection."

To that end, a "network" of pro-Russian Ukrainians like the lawmaker Andriy Derkach and the influence agent Konstantin Kilimnik "sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences," the report said. "These Russian proxies met with and provided materials to Trump administration-linked US persons to advocate for formal investigations; hired a US firm to petition US officials; and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials."

In the last year, OAN and fellow Trump-allied network Newsmax have gained traction with the former president's base for presenting his views without scrutiny or fact-checking. But that same loyalty to Trump also landed both outlets in legal hot water when the election tech company Dominion Voting Systems threatened to sue them for defamation.

In January, Insider's Jacob Shamsian reported, OAN quietly scrubbed its site of Domion-related articles despite publicly doubling down on conspiracy theories about the company. It also removed stories about Smartmatic, a rival election tech company that was also a subject of the conspiracy theories and threatened legal action.

That members of the Trump administration or his allies were dumb enough/corrupt enough to use it/back it is another story.