https://www.tiede.fi/comment/2590225#comment-2590225

russiagatehoax2.jpg

https://russia-insider.com/en/media-criticism/10-worst-most-embarrassing-us-media-failures-trumprussia-story/ri25962?fbclid=IwAR3MKojV0B2Bl6y-O6LNld0Hqt3sEKaGkGCDCVv3n3koutxeWYlQBcT1HDE

The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story

Glenn Greenwald Mon, Jan 21, 2019

Buzzfeed was once notorious for traffic-generating “listicles”, but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its “bombshell” story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face, this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller’s office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims “inaccurate.”

But in homage to BuzzFeed’s past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

Note that all of these “errors” go only in one direction:namely,exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle’s connection to it. It’s inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that’s being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here.Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its “errors” went in that direction, virtually all of its major “errors” in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that C-SPAN “confirmed” it had been hacked. The whole story was false: C-SPAN: "No, we weren ´t hacked!

Ua4txf8w.jpg

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

... 9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

On December 30,2016, the Washington Post reported that “Russian hackers penet-rated the U.S.electricity grid through a utility in Vermont",causing predictable outrage and panic,along with threats from U.S.political leaders.But then they kept diluting the story with editor’s notes - to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not con-nected to the U.S. electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:
The Washington Post has retracted its story about Russian hackers penetrating the nation’s electricity grid with a virus found in a Burlington, Vt.,electric company laptop.

...

8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

propppppp-1548001135-1024x889.jpg

On November 24,2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammato-ry, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S.politics using so-cial media, accusing “more than 200 websites” of being “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans". It added: “stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times.”

Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. – as “Russian propaganda outlets,” producing one of the longest Editor’s Note in memory appended to the top of the article (but not until two weeks later, long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the media ecosystem):

Eliot Higgins‏Varmennettu tili @EliotHiggins

Eliot Higgins uudelleentwiittasi Ben Norton

Just want to note I hadn't heard of Propornot before the WP piece and never gave permission to them to call Bellingcat "allies" ...


... 7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.

3 CNN journalists resign after retracted story about Trump´s ally

6. Russia Attacked U.S. “Diplomats” (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

On September 11,2017, NBC News and MSNBC spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia was behind a series of das-tardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea what to make of it.

But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered any brain injuries at all - that instead they appear to have experienced collective psychosomatic symptoms - and then biologists published findings that the “strange sounds” the U.S. “diplomats” reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean male cricket during mating season.

https://youtu.be/aUU2vD5NFeU

crick1111-1548008606-1024x640.jpg

Lovelorn crickets, scientist say.

...

5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

xwZDe7zt_400x400.jpg


CwIiIxKWEAAWZ0_.jpg

Hillary: Time for trump to answer serious questions aout his ties to Russia...

Donald: Not talking with secret server to Russia...

...

4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

On November 27,2018,the Guardian published a major “bombshell” that Trump cam-paign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed to sneak inside one of the world’s most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and visit Ju-lian Assange on three different occasions.Cable and online commentators exploded.

Seven weeks later,no other media outlet has confirmed this;no video or photographic evidence has emerged; the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake.

... 3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

On July 27,2018,CNN published a blockbuster story: that Michael Cohen was prepa- red to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, mhowever, two problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that “contacted by CNN, one of Co-hen’s attorneys,Lanny Davis, declined to comment” (in fact, Davis was one of CNN’s key sources,if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis,admitted it was a lie.CNN, however, to this date has refused to do either.

... "

2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

Mueller ´s office denies BuzzFeed ´s report...

...

1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

jrtw-1548016337-1010x1024.jpg

The morning of December 9,2017 launched one of the most humiliating spectacles  in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impos-sible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian,using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have “independently confirmed” this mammoth,blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here).

There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see,not before.Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access,as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confir- med, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already tal-king about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.

To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so com-pletely wrong in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete silence and refusing to explain how it could possib-ly be that all of their “multiple, independent sources” got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating – and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.

Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the internet,including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough sur-vives to document just what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable de-bacle this was. Particularly amazing is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) ha-ving to admit the error for the first time, as he awkwardly struggles to pretend that it’s not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously is: Moments later, it collapses.

CNN error extends run of journalistic mishaps

Dishonorable Mention:

  • ABC News’ Brian Ross is fired for reporting Trump told Flynn to make contact with Russians when he was still a candidate; in fact, Trump did that after he won.
  • The New York Times claimed Manafort provided polling data to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a person “close to the Kremlin”; in fact, he provided them to Ukrainians, not Russians.
  • Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked Ukrainian artillery apps; they then retracted it.
  • Bloomberg and the WSJ reported Mueller subpoenaed Deustche Bank for Trump’s financial records; the NYT said that never happened.
  • Rachel Maddow devoted 20 minutes at the start of her show to very melodrama-tically claiming a highly sophisticated party tried to trick her by sending her a fake Top Secret document modeled after the one published by the Intercept, and said it could only have come from the U.S. Government (or the Intercept) since the person obtained the document before it was published by us and thus must have had special access to it; in fact, Maddow and NBC completely misread the meta-data on the document; the fake sent to Maddow was created afterwe published the document, and was sent to her by a random member of the public who took the document from the Intercept’s site and doctored it to see if she’d fall for an obvious scam. Maddow’s entire timeline, on which her whole melodramatic conspiracy theory rested, was fictitious.
  • The U.S.media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all “17 intelligence agencies” agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally retracted that in June, 2017: “The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Fede-ral Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.”
  • AP claimed on February 2, 2018, that the Free Beacon commissioned the Steele Dossier;they thereafter acknowledged that was false and noted,instead: “Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it.”
  • The national media have offered multiple, conflicting accounts of how and why the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia began.
  • Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered “sex for favors” were totally false (and scurrilous).
  • After a Russian regional jet crashed on February 11, 2018, shortly after it took off from Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, Harvard Law Professor and frequent MSNBC contributor Laurence Tribe strongly implied Putin purposely caused the plane to go down in order to murder Sergei Millian, a person vaguely linked to George Papadopoulos and Jared Kushner; in fact, Millian was not on the plane nor, to date, has anyone claimed they had any evidence that Putin ordered his own country’s civilian passenger jet brought down.

Special mention:

mensch-1548021076-902x1024.jpg


maddoww-1548021314-1024x437.jpg

As I’ve said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing  extreme indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to turn the U.S.media into their main adversary; and when people turn to “fake news” sites.

If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to exami-ning their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that  politicians and news consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.


Source: The Intercept


***

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/05/03/520362/Hillary-Clinton-James-Comey-2016-election

" Putin 'interfered' in 2016 election to 'hurt me,' Clinton says

Wednesday, 03 May 2017 1:01 AM 

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton takes part in the Women for Women International Luncheon in New York, US, on May 2, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed responsibility for her failed campaign in the 2016 election, however, blaming the loss on FBI Director James Comey and WikiLeaks.

"I take absolute personal responsibility, I was the candidate, I was the person on the ballot," Clinton said in a Women for Women International event in New York on Tuesday.

“I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had. It wasn't a perfect campaign. There is no such thing,” she added.

Clinton said she was close to winning the election until Comey publicly announced he might reopen the investigation into her use of a personal email server when she was secretary of state. She also pointed to the alleged interference of Moscow in the last year’s election.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey delivers the remarks at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Leadership Dinner on March 29, 2017 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by AFP)

"If the election were on October 27, I would be your president," Clinton said, referring to the day before Comey’s letter went public.

"I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off," the former US presidential candidate said.

“And the evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling, persuasive. And so we overcame a lot. We overcame an enormous barrage of negativity, of false equivalency, and so much else,” she noted, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "certainly interfered in our election. And it was clear he interfered to hurt me and to help my opponent. And if you chart my opponent and his campaign's statements, they quite coordinated with the goals that that leader who shall remain nameless had."

Moscow has already rejected claims that it interfered in the US election, despite such a conclusion by the American intelligence community that has triggered three parallel investigations into the matter.

US President-elect Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech at the New York Hilton Midtown, in New York City, November 9, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Clinton sent more than 30,000 potentially confidential emails while heading the US State Department. This is while, she deleted thousands of the emails before turning over the server.

Before their ultimate face-off on November 8, GOP candidate Donald Trump accused Clinton of violating federal laws for using a private email server and using her political links to get away with the crime.

Clinton had been leading Trump throughout the campaign in most of the polls except for the last week of the election when she lost ground to Trump.

Trump stunned the world on November 8 by defeating his heavily favored Democratic opponent in the presidential election, sending the United States on a new and uncertain path.

Trump won the presidential election with 306 votes in the Electoral College, 36 more than he required to win the White House.           


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir

www.presstv.co.uk "