Journalists struggle with the 'L word'
Bob Collins January 25, 2017, 7:39 AM Jan 25, 2017
The first week of the Trump administration has put journalists in a spot they found themselves in during the campaign: Debating when a lie is a lie.
The latest volley comes after President Donald Trump indicated this week that he would have won the popular vote for president had it not been for voter fraud. There's no evidence that's the case, nor is it the first time the president has repeated the falsehood nor been told it's a falsehood.
It's a lie, the New York Times said.
This morning on NPR's Morning Edition, NPR journalists found themselves having to explain on the air why they're not following suit, a clear indication that listeners aren't happy with the network's failure to call out Trump.
"A false statement made with intent to deceive," said Mary Louise Kelly. "Intent being the key word there. Without the ability to peer into Donald Trump's head, I can't tell you what his intent was. I can tell you what he said and how that squares, or doesn't, with facts."
Also appearing on the program was Michael Oreskes, the network's news boss, and the missing voice on Morning Edition the last time NPR tackled the question with the editor of the New York Times.
"Our job as journalists is to report, to find facts, and establish their authenticity and share them with everybody," says Oreskes, who formerly worked for the Times. "It's really important that people understand that these aren't our opinions. … These are things we've established through our journalism, through our reporting … and I think the minute you start branding things with a word like 'lie,' you push people away from you."
Listen NPR And The Word 'Liar': Intent Is Key
In an op-ed in Tuesday's Boston Globe, Charles Taylor, of New York University, isn't buying this. His essay responded to a Meet the Press comment from Wall St. Journal editor Gerald Baker, whose position mirrored that of NPR's Kelly.
"Journalism that, in the face of the facts, refuses a reasonable and obvious judgment has abandoned not journalistic ethics, but common sense. Baker and all those who think his demurrals are reasonable now have a decision to make: Act as journalists or as part of the most prestigious union of stenographers the nation has ever seen," he writes.
In determining that they can't say 'lie', however, journalists must recognize that they're determining instead that the president is merely misinformed. That also requires a judgment without proof.
Donald Trump journalism Media NPR
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What a pant load. Kelly actually said she doesn't know if the sociopath had intent to lie. She must be the only one in the country that doesn't realize serial mendacity is his intent, regardless of situation. How about growing a pair and being professional, rather than hiding behind not knowing what is in the very small brain of that lying, unprepared, racist, sociopath.
With the media under direct assault from the Trump administration, NPR's decision not to call a lie a lie is absolutely the worst call it could make, and the rationalization for doing so is pathetically laughable. This decision plays right into the Fibber-in-Chief's efforts to de-legitimize the media. Truly appalling.
If more prominent journalists had been willing to call a lie by its rightful name decades ago, we might not be in the mess we're in today.
Trump isn't exactly the first president in recent history to lie, although he's somewhat more brazen and less artful about it. For just a short list:
– LBJ and Nixon both lied constantly to the public about Vietnam
– Reagan lied about Iran-Contra
– Clinton lied about Monica Lewinsky (not in the same league as his predecessors, but still a lie)
– The George W. Bush administration lied about WMDs in Iraq. Remember the Downing Street memo?
The latter also lied about torture by creating a euphemism for it: "enhanced interrogation techniques." NPR, among other mainstream news outlets, kept using that even when it had been proven that those techniques were actually just plain old torture repackaged in Orwellian language.
It took us a long time and a lot of journalistic deference to official falsehoods to get us into this mess. We're not getting out of it anytime soon.
Weak intelligence is different from a lie, the CIA choosing to not leak that we were being led to war based on weak evidence did a disservice to the American people. The other examples are classic clear cases of direct lies.
If I remember the Downing Street memo correctly, it said something to the effect that "facts were being fixed around the policy," with the policy being invasion and occupation of Iraq. Cherrypicking facts and evidence counts as a lie, just a more subtle one.
Yes, but we all do that, that's what bias is and everyone does it.
Sounds like an insanity defense. Well he just doesn't know any better. He can't tell fact from fiction. Great.
In order to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness, we elected some one with a less than firm grasp of reality to the presidency!
If intent is the problem, then the implication is that he 1) doesn't know it was a lie, which is probably actually worse 2) knew it was a falshood, but didn't expect any one to believe him (a.k.a. sarcasm.) or 3) he intended to decieve and we just can't confirm it.
None of these are good senarios.
"…and I think the minute you start branding things with a word like 'lie,' you push people away from you."
That is through the lens of marketing, not journalism. Worried about the impact of describing what is happening.
If Trump says the sky is green, the headline should not be "Trump says the sky is green", then people say the paper/radio is reporting that the sky is green.
Tell it like it is.
Rich in Duluth
I agree with NPR on this. Until there is actual evidence (emails, recordings, etc.) that the intent of these blustering, hyperbolic statements are intended to mislead the public , professional reporters should simply call them false statements, not lies. How else do we trust the media to give us facts and not opinions, if they don't meticulously use words appropriately?
After someone has been told several times that a statement is false, if they continue to make the same statement the intent becomes clear. One time can be chalked up as a false statement. Repeated incantations are lies.
seedhub
As an individual, I agree with you. Personally, I find Trump to be a misogynistic, racist, fascist, blowhard. I think he's dangerous to the well-being of our nation and particularly to the well-being of those of us who are not wealthy. This is my opinion.
However, the post is about journalists and how they should describe these exaggerations and falsehoods. These are professionals who are tasked with bringing us the truth and, as Kelly indicated, an actual lie indicates intent. So, without hard evidence of his intent to mislead us, I think false, unsubstantiated, wrong, are appropriate words for the professionals to use.
I know what you are saying, but I can't agree.
Journalists can reasonably infer Trump's intent when he continues to tell the same lie. Using softer words only enables that behavior. I believe that the intent of the Trump administration is to completely blur the lines between truth and lies by inventing their own "alternative facts" when it suits them. Kellyanne let that cat out of the bag.
If journalists don't consistently call them to account for this behavior and call them lies, we are doomed to live in a country where the battle is between competing liars and "truth" and "facts" have no meaning. If there is no penalty for lying, what is the point of either knowing or speaking the truth?
I guess we must agree to disagree, on this one.
I do agree that it's very important to call Trump and Co. out on their false statements, every time. I couldn't believe that Kellyanne could say "alternative facts" with a straight face.
If someone honestly believes what they're saying, is it a lie? If so, then Obamacare promises were clearly lies as well.
You get to be Gary today, so here's a YAWN for your trolling.
Meh. As eye-roll-inducing as Gary sometimes gets, he at least offers a viewpoint different from most other commenters. I might not agree with a lot of it, but it at least makes me think.
Agreed, when Gary directly addresses the post.
Sure, show me media outlets calling Obamacare numbers a lie at the time and by all means we can call Trump's false beliefs lies.
That's rich – "false beliefs."
Isn't that all religions? False or unprovable beliefs are the core of every religion…maybe political beliefs have reached that point today.
rallysocks
//by all means we can call Trump's false beliefs lies.//
hmmm…a liar or delusional? Which one is worse?
John O.
I'll second the YAWN. "You're doing a heckuva job Brownie." Or, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Oh, did anyone ever actually find any WMDs under Saddam's regime?
Postal Customer
Mark it zero, dude.
//"A false statement made with intent to deceive," In other words, a lie? A falsehood? A fabrication? A fib?
Does responding to simple, direct and deceitful language, (which this new president is quite adept at) with convoluted euphemisms really fulfill the role of the journalist in this case?
I found it interesting how Ms. Kelly described her email inbox as having exploded with people wanting to know why she and other will not respond with the direct language in kind. Good question, and I really did not hear a good answer in her and Steve Inskeep's piece.
In short: Not saying "lie" provides some legal insulation.
In longform: A news organization has to be careful about wording because it's also very easy, especially in a situation like this, for them to get sued over something as simple as the distinction between "falsehood" and "lie." Defamation law makes it simultaneously very easy and very hard to win a libel suit, and this particular situation is one where it's likely fairly simple.
As mentioned above, the word "falsehood" means that a statement is factually incorrect, while the word "lie" means that it is a falsehood that is an deliberate falsehood with intent to deceive for some sort of gain to the liar or harm to their target (for those keeping score at home, there is a similar distinction between "fact" and "truth").
The implication that intent is known is what could cause problems for news organizations, and that's the reason that NPR won't do it: unless every use of the word "lie" comes with the added "(in our opinion)," then building the suit isn't terribly difficult. Even if a successful legal defense is possible, it would be expensive and time consuming, and it might be worth just staying out of editorializing about perceived intent so that you can continue to have the resources to fight the war, not just the single battle.
No, that's not the reason.
Also, "libel" is print. "slander" is radio/TV.
and it would require proving malice.
And public officials would have a horrendous time in a slander suit.
The reason NPR won't say "lie" is because they believe it to be journalistically indefensible. Nothing more.
Derp. I forgot we were talking about radio. Regardless, could someone not make the case that since it would affect the president's ability to carry out his job that it's per se defamation?
They could certainly argue that. If they wanted their opponent to get a summary judgment on day one .
Don't want to call it a lie because you can't establish intent and don't want to unfairly editorialize? Fine. Call it a falsehood, then. Regardless, in a time when the term "Orwellian" is becoming less and less hyperbole, the press needs to keep the current administration in check lest Sean Spicer's title change from White House Press Secretary to Minister of Truth.
This is an administration that banned reporters it didn't like from attending campaign rallies, and—now that they're in office—has entirely suspended the operations of the EPA, including public communications. No matter what happens, our elected officials need to be held accountable for their crap and shown that the press won't just back down and let them continue to mislead the American people, intentional or not.
Here's the problem many of us on the right have, where was this need to call out lies the past 8 years? Did anyone call Obamacare numbers a lie? How about all these lies that simply went ignored for 8 years?
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/false/
A lot of what Trump has done is, admittedly, just extensions of how Obama stretched executive power and this is a classic case of "what goes around comes around." The difference is that the Obama administration wasn't overtly barring access to major news organizations, wasn't telling entire federal agencies to stop all communication with public, and didn't have a major advisor tell the press that demonstrable falsehoods were simply "alternative facts."
Regardless, if we want to compare Politifact pages, in the first page of of Obama's "false" record gets all the way back to October 2012, and there's 4 total pages that span 10 years of statements. The comparable space for Donald Trump ( http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/false/ ) only gets back to October 2016, and contains 6 pages covering just 6 years.
The rate at which falsehoods and lies are being stated is so much faster under Trump, and the lies are about the most petty and ego-stroking things. I'm not just concerned that Trump lies; I'm concerned with the speed at which he lies, how easy it is to disprove a lot of these statements, and how petty the things he lies about are—if you can't trust a president to admit the size of the crowd at his inauguration when faced with actual pictures of the crowd, how can you trust them to not lie about more significant issues?
It's also not even the end of week one, and he's already violated one of his biggest campaign slogans, "Drain the Swamp." Rather than draining the swamp, he has appointed nominees that are entirely representative of the swamp: generally under-qualified to hold their positions and universally coming from immense wealth. I wouldn't necessarily hold another president to such a standard, but it was literally his campaign slogan.
Speaking of campaign slogans, let's talk about the doublespeak involved in "Make America Great Again." As a phrase it implies that (a) America used to be great, (b) it isn't anymore, and (c) it can be again. At the same time, it doesn't take much to find Trump describing this country as "the greatest in the world," which directly flies in the face of premise b.
At least previous administrations made an effort to look like they were trying to hide it when they made false statements or didn't carry through on a promise, but the new administration is already violating one of their biggest promises and is brazenly and repeatedly stating blatant falsehoods on day six.
(Edited to fix broken link)
So the solution to the left lying is for the right to tell even bigger lies?
You've got us it's a race to the top. Winner makes america great again. (those are both lies)
No, they are alternative facts.
Yes, when Harry Reid lied about Romney's taxes on the floor of the Senate, that moment changed the game…from here on out it's about who can tell more "believable" lies. I honestly think that's a big reason Trump didn't release his taxes.
Yeah, let's be honest for a second, it's not about who can tell the most believable lie… it's about who can win elections.
Trump did it telling his base what they wanted to hear, and discrediting hillary at every opportunity (with the help of comey and wikileaks)
And if telling your base what ever lies they want to hear is a winning strategy people will adopt it… but it's not a long term strategy… because when you fix the lies (by telling the truth) and nothing changes people might start to catch on…
God bless truthiness.
Well, they're gonna have to find their spine. Start calling them lies or face irrelevance.
JStrander
The intent to mislead/deceive is clear when someone has been told directly that what they stated previously is false and they continue to repeat it. It may not have begun as a lie, but these kinds of statements now are.
is it possible the Trump is doing this as a red herring? That he know that there is/was no voter fraud, but is doing this to throw people off from things like ethic investigations?
snyde043
He's doing it as a justification for when he comes after our voting rights.
I'm with you Bob S. By distracting the press with old grudges and imagined slights via Twitter, it gives him cover to do things many Americans would consider illegal and ethically wrong.
The mainstream press needs to stop taking the bait.
The way people of Trump's ilk maintain power and control is to keep people off balance. The more chaos there is the better they like it.
They demand absolute loyalty and when they don't get it they explode.
In the next year we are going to see a lot of resignations from people who don't deal well with a man who acts like a prepubescent child.
Heb Ienek
Seems like no one would argue against using the coverage of Obama's mendacious ACA narrative as a model. Politifact famously awarded it "Lie of the Year", although I can't find any newspaper of record calling him a liar.
USA Today put it thus:
"The Affordable Care Act is in one word: complicated. Republicans and
President Obama have been debating whether Obama's repeated overtures
that Americans would be able to keep current health care plans and doctors, if satisfied, were deceptive."
The problem with Trump's declarations regarding the election is there is no hard proof one way or the other. He has said he's going to launch an investigation, and I think that's a good idea. I don't think there has ever been a concerted investigation into just how secure the integrity of our franchise is, and given the yearly food fights, I think it's worth the investment to have the FBI thoroughly check into it.
One thing I will note; if Trump contains his lies to issues related to his vanity, it will be far less costly, and painful to the nation than the lies of some of his predecessors.
// One thing I will note; if Trump contains his lies to issues related to his vanity, it will be far less costly, and painful to the nation than the lies of some of his predecessors.
The voter fraud "lie/falsehood" is about the groundwork for additional voter suppression. Voter suppression is hardly about vanity.
I would also argue that in his mind and many of his supporters it is also another argument for building that wall.
Voter fraud is and had been conclusively proven many times.
"Calif. Senator Convicted Of Voter Fraud, Perjury"
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/01/28/socal-lawmaker-convicted-of-voter-fraud-perjury/
And there are instances that have not been proven definitively to be cases of fraud, but that are nonetheless disturbing:
"More Than 200 Dead People Shown to Have Voted in NY County Elections: Report"
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Dead-Voter-List-Long-Island-Nassau-County-Newsday-230030371.html
So, the correct argument is not "Does fraud occur?", it is "How widespread is vote fraud?" and "Does vote fraud effect the outcomes of our elections?"
Trump says he's going to launch an investigation and I think that is an excellent idea. I'm in favor of a concerted, nationwide probe into vote fraud, conducted by the FBI. Let's put the argument to rest one way or the other.
In a land of hundreds of millions of voters, you found two media references to a grand total of a couple of hundred instances of voter fraud? Shocking! By all means, let's unleash the FBI!
Oh, darn. I found and foolishly posted every instance of verified fraud there is, completely disregarding your demonstrated powers of observation, and you caught right on to it.
I guess I was hoping you'd think it was just a couple of examples, but nothing gets by you. Embarrassing.
I feel for you, as it looks like Steve Bannon and one of Tea-rump's kids have joined the voter fraud ranks. Lock 'em up!
If my tax dollars are paying for the investigation I think I'm going to need some assurances that Trump will step down if the investigation finds that he infact lost the electoral college.
I expect it to be independant, non-basis and not have their findings filtered through the whitehouse.
If he wants to make himself feel better he can fund his own investigation, it can be as non-basis or as basis as he'd like, but he should expect the findings to be taken FAR FAR FAR less seriously than climate change studies.
Every election cycle, partisans say the other side cheated. Many of us are sick of the sound and fury that signifies nothing.
We know people cheat; but how widespread is it, and does it make any difference? Those are the questions that deserve answering, I think.
Trump doesn't have to fund his own investigation. He has the full power and all the resources of the federal government at his disposal. Congress could also order an investigation. It is in the interests of the American electorate to know what's going on, and therefore a legitimate public expenditure.
BTW. This investigation could be useful to Democrats that want to keep an ID requirement from voting eligibility. We could find out it's not necessary, or that it wouldn't stop the most prolific kinds of cheating that might be found to occur. I don't see a downside.
As to finding Trump did not get an honest electoral college win, I think the result would be inherent and a Pence elevation unavoidable.
In this case the sound and fury are coming not from the "other side", but from the winner of the electoral college. The source of this controversy is not the whining of a sore loser, but the false boasting of the winner who seems to be seeking validation of a bigger win than was achieved.
Well, I hear a lot of Democrats whining about the California popular vote margin, and media is fanning those flames too, but no doubt Trump and his people are doing their share.
We've never looked into election fraud. I think a thorough investigation is a good investment.
Do you consider your call for investigation a part of the sound and fury?
Trump does not have the full power and resources of the federal government at his disposal.
He has only the powers granted to the office of president by the constitution of the united state of america.
"We know people cheat"
Oh, so there is no need for in investigation, you already have the information and you an Trump have been hiding it form the american public?
You don't know, if you knew there wouldn't be a need for an investigation…. you suspect… maybe you hope… you don't know.
No, I know there is cheating because there are people in jail for cheating. What I don't know, and you don't know, is how much cheating goes on. And we don't know if it is enough to make a difference.
Why are you so afraid of sunlight?
I've no fear of sunlight, I've concerns about taxpayer dollars being spent on a partisan witch hunt, AGAIN. The party of fiscal responsibility KEEPS DOING THIS and the base of fiscal responsibility keeps encouraging them…
Why are you so adamant on spending taxpayer dollars for what has been investigated time and time again and found little to no evidence of a problem? Yes some issues occur 4 of them in 2016 were caught… let's assume that at least 1% of people get caught… that means we had potentially 400 voter issues… out of 135 million voters.
Heck let's assume there were millions of fraudulent votes cast like Trump (falsely) claims, that means that half a million fraudulent votes were cast for each one that was caught… 0.0002% of people get caught… that is the claim that law enforcement is so ineffective that only 0.0002% of the time you'll get caught… (should hold well with the blue live matter crowd that law enforcement is pretty much completely ineffective… but I guess the 2nd amendment crowd has been saying that for years…)
if you'd like to launch an investigation on large scale criminal misconduct with no evidence, feel free, Just stop asking me to pay for it, Trump had his chance to challenge the results, in most states he'd have been responsible to pay for it… he didn't… He condemned Jill Stein for trying to do it, when she was willing to pay for it.
He has no moral high ground here, he has no evidence to merit an investigation, he has nothing other than his word against reality, calling for a investigation into this is a waste of time and money, WHy are you so adamant to waste time and other peoples money and end up with nothing to show for it?
Let's not assume anything. Let's find some, you know, facts.
Combine all of these things into one and have a big hearing…Russian hacking, voter fraud, the whole nine yards.
We'll setup an expedition to find the land of the lost… Sure there is no credible evidence that it exists and no other expedition in history has reported stumbling across any significant number of dinosaurs roaming the earth… but we need facts!
I'll await your check to fund the expedition, because I'm not going to spend my own money on this.
Lots of people are saying dinosaurs are still roaming the earth in some valley somewhere on the planet.
Oh, your money will be spent, shaking lip withstanding. Obama spent Trillions, almost none of which benefitted me, now it's your turn because elections have consequences.
Fine. Let's have an investigation. A BIPARTISAN investigation. Not by a GOPer president or GOPer congress. Maybe that'll put the voter fraud BS to rest. Not likely even then with the modern fascist party.
Well, we're going to have to wait a minimum of 8 years for that.
KTFoley
Following the posted link about the 200 dead people, I find this:
"Investigators tell the paper they don't consider the discrepancy fraudulent; the number of votes attributed to deceased voters is too small and their votes are spread out over more than two dozen elections. "
Per your own reference, not voter fraud.
Also from my link: "But the inflated registries are still problematic. Voting lists are used to create precinct boundaries, verify voters at the polls and audit results."
I said this was not a proved case of vote fraud, but are disturbing. I think I have accurately reflected what my link stated.
If you don't agree, I'm ready to hear your argument.
You said, "Voter fraud is and had been conclusively proven many times."
The posted evidence does not support that claim.
Sigh. The link attached to *that* statement was news of a conviction. A felony conviction.
Why do I even have to explain this?
You said, "Voter fraud is and had been conclusively proven many times." The notion of "many" matters a great deal.
In the 2016 presidential election, the Washington Post reports four documented cases of fraud out of 135 million votes cast. (First link below)
Four sounds like many. Four out of 135 million does not.
The work of Professor Justin Levitt at Loyola Law School comes awfully close would be the bi-partisan investigation you're looking for. He has tracked every specific, credible allegation of voter fraud in elections between 2000 and 2014 — a billion ballots cast — and has found 31 credible incidents in that time. (Second link below)
Thirty-one sounds like many. Thirty-one out of a billion does not.
The current president would like people to believe that voter fraud exists to the tune of 5 million votes in the previous election, specifically illegal immigrants.
Five million would be many, but for the case that it's not real.
All around the country we have attempts (some successful) at passing increasingly restrictive voter ID laws. If "many" were true, then those laws might have the effect of fixing an actual problem. But it's not. Instead, those laws will have the effect of disenfranchising legal voters, with disparate impact on immigrants, the poor and people of color.
The 2017 version of Jim Crow relies on people believing that "many" is actual and relevant. It's not.
Want to tackle a phenomenon that is already acknowledged to be true and relevant: widespread, present on both sides of the aisle, demonstrably affecting the makeup of local & national governments? How about gerrymandering?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-000002-percent-of-all-the-ballots-cast-in-the-2016-election-were-fraudulent/?utm_term=.e702147f8581
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/?utm_term=.b3e679f887d3
Would an investigation of the integrity of the voting process also include efforts at voter supression and gerrymandering?
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/01/07/182924/federal-judge-rules-pasadena-infringed-on-latino-voting-rights-orders-changes/
Yes, absolutely. We are in agreement.
As your link illustrates, court challenges are SOP every time district boundaries are redrawn.
What, exactly, do you propose in addition, or was that "jus sayin'"?
An investigation.
OK Every time districts are re-drawn we should have an investigation. I'm on board.
Not necessarily, just when there's a whiff of an attempt to disenfranchise voters.
Sure. OK.
They stumbled over those instances without even trying. You won't find what you don't look for. Let's have a thorough investigation and see what turns up.
From what I can tell, The Heritage Foundation has really been trying. Given their support for Voter ID laws, they'd want to be as thorough as possible. Their ongoing efforts have yielded 462 cases/742 convictions. (link below)
Again, that sounds like "many" until we recognize that:
(a) the number of cases that would have been prevented by Voter ID is a subset of that total;
(b) the number spans elections at all levels in the 34 years between 1982 and 2016.
In 34 years, 462 cases. In Donald Trump's narrative, 3-5 million illegal aliens. In both cases, the intention is to make it harder for immigrants, the poor and people of color to cast their votes.
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/pdf/VoterFraudCases-8-7-15-Merged.pdf
Since this is not a zero sum game, sure, there were roughly 60 examples between 2000- 2010, with over a billion votes cast. Now 60 votes across the country over ten years might have determined an outcome, in reality it didn't . People not purged off the rolls after death is not fraud – but its good of you to continue that pointless meme.
You can't point to an actual example of true voter fraud, so why do you think this waste of money is worth it.
Why anyone would risk a felony (which is the penalty for mythical voter fraud) for the sociopath is beyond me. But if you think his brainless followers did so, well good on ya.
I thought this was funny. Now you go out and find one, one where someone is being prosecuted, not just a wishful thought in your own mind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/27/a-trump-supporter-was-charged-with-voting-twice-her-lawyer-says-she-shouldnt-stand-trial-2/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-national%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.7a98d17dfc79
You protest too much, I think.
I should add: the Times is big on this. I just got one of their auto-bot subscription emails.
Subject line: "Read news that values the truth."
A focus on coverage of Trump's honesty is important, but less so than coverage of his racism.
Seems like established media have had too cozy a relationship with politicians in exchange for "access." Now is the time for journalists to adopt a "prosecuting attorney" mindset. Access doesn't buy you anything in an era of Twitter.
I'm sorry but the media simply dropped the issue of a direct lie that Harry Reid told on the floor of the US Senate about Mitt Romney's taxes. No debate about calling that a lie, no days of media coverage about where our government was lying to us and swaying an election. A pure fabrication was allowed to slide with little to no consequence from the media, but now with Trump the media is concerned about which studies can be referenced. I sense hypocrisy and bias.
At least Reid owns up to his lie. Doesn't excuse it, but at least he's not lying about lying.
Absolutely, Reid was quite proud of his lie and of what his lie accomplished. Not sure that's something someone arguing for integrity would boast about, though.
A lie versus an unending series of lies? Big lies, little lies, stupid easily disproven lies?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-000002-percent-of-all-the-ballots-cast-in-the-2016-election-were-fraudulent/?utm_term=.b026a929401b
AmiSchwab
trump's not lying, he's just telling his truth.
There have been several cases of voter fraud proved but to my knowledge, there has never been a concerted investigation of fraud nationwide. We don't know what "nothing much" adds up to be.
As I said, maybe such an investigation will make your argument against ID. It's got to be better than the weak access excuses I've heard.
I don't see the problem unless you don't really believe the argument against ID.
Deleting messages with insults to other Commenters. Be better.
liberalinlove
We can call a lie a lie, without calling the liar a liar.