In Which I Find Myself Agreeing With Greta Van Susteren
Credit: Politico.com
March 23, 2015

In the past couple of weeks, I've heard Fox yakkers say things I actually agreed with -- two or three times. (And I can assure you that they're moving closer to my views, and not vice versa.)

Now I read this from Greta Van Susteren, and I gotta say, she nails it:

I was reading a story about Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails and I am struck by the state of journalism. Can’t the NY Times do better than this? No named sources and they didn’t see the emails themselves and we are suppose to accept this as the facts? (See paragraph below.)

This is what is wrong with journalism — American people are fed what amounts to as gossip and the NYT is happy to feed it. In the old days, journalists would have worked the stories longer (there is no rush to get this published) and harder and either the journalists would have seen the emails themselves or gotten us names of those who supposedly were telling the content.

And other journalists as they read this? Do they call the NYT out? nope, because for the most part this is so common no one sees it as a problem and / or they do it themselves. Anonymous sources should be used rarely, not routinely and in this instance, the reporter has not even seen the emails himself but expects us all to accept this as fact.

She's referring to this. Apparently the Times hasn't learned a thing since their bullshit Whitewater stories!

“…The emails have not been made public, and The New York Times was not permitted to review them. But four senior government officials offered descriptions of some of the key messages, on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize their access to secret information..”

A story constructed entirely of gossip from unnamed sources, but the Times is determined to turn their original story into a giant scandal because freedom!

If you can get a copy of Kathleen Hall Jamieson's "The Press Effect," in which she points out the unstoppable media compulsion to create these stories, and how they affect electoral outcomes and policy, I highly recommend it.

Understand something: The media loves conflict. There is nothing they hate more than the idea of Hillary Clinton getting the nomination without significant challenge. You may even agree with them -- but this dynamic is toxic and we need to stop feeding it.

I always tell people: "Learn to give Democrats the benefit of the doubt." Now, more than ever, you need to remember that.

I've been untangling these rat's nest media-created stories for more than ten years, and I want to make clear: They hardly ever amount to anything. Maybe 98, 99 times out of 100, it's either a complete fabrication, or a story so nuanced and confusing that most people won't take the time and effort to unravel it. And by the time the media outlet finally releases "clarification" in drips and drabs, all you will remember is that original scandalous headline.

I promise you: if a prominent Democrat does something evil, we will be more than happy to write about it.

Can you help us out?

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