What the News Media Got Wrong about Trump-Russia

These are excerpts from Part I of Jeff Gerth's Four-Part series at the Columbia Journalism Review, who previously worked for decades with the NYT.

Today, the US media has the lowest credibility—26 percent—among forty-six nations, according to a 2022 study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. In 2021, 83 percent of Americans saw “fake news” as a “problem,” and 56 percent—mostly Republicans and independents—agreed that the media were “truly the enemy of the American people,” according to Rasmussen Reports. . . .

What follows is the story of Trump, Russia, and the press. Trump’s attacks against media outlets and individual reporters are a well-known theme of his campaigns. But news outlets and watchdogs haven’t been as forthright in examining their own Trump-Russia coverage, which includes serious flaws. Bob Woodward, of the Post, told me that news coverage of the Russia inquiry ” wasn’t handled well” and that he thought viewers and readers had been “cheated.” He urged newsrooms to “walk down the painful road of introspection.” . . .

On the eve of a new era of intense political coverage, this is a look back at what the press got right, and what it got wrong, about the man who once again wants to be president. So far, few news organizations have reckoned seriously with what transpired between the press and the presidency during this period. That failure will almost certainly shape the coverage of what lies ahead.

The title of Gerth's article: "The press versus the president, part one"

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The Psychological Traits of People who Seriously Support Free Speech

Many people say they support free speech, but only of a subset of those are willing to stand up and take flak in support of free speech in particular uncomfortable situations. How do these two groups differ?

Researchers Jeff Cieslikowski and Sean Stevens of FIRE have reviewed the relevant psychological research. High cognitive ability and emotional intelligence predict greater support for free speech. Here are a few excerpts from their recent article:

[P]eople with high cognitive ability also often exhibit greater intellectual humility. At its core, intellectual humility refers to whether a person is open to the idea that they might be wrong, and research has demonstrated that the relationship between cognitive ability and support for free speech is amplified if an individual also possesses more intellectual humility.

The most recent research extends these findings. Those higher in cognitive ability and emotional intelligence –– the ability to recognize emotions in oneself and others, and to use this emotional information to productively and positively guide one’s actions –– were more supportive of freedom of speech and less concerned with appearing "politically correct," which the researchers define as “using language (or behavior) to seem sensitive to others’ feelings, especially those others who seem socially disadvantaged.” The researchers suggest that those high in emotional intelligence favor free speech because the former correlates positively with psychological reactance –– the tendency for people to experience anxiety or distress when they perceive their freedom is threatened.

Those who strongly and consistently support free speech:

[P]ossess a unique perspective on the negative consequences of speech restrictions, and that these individuals are more likely to be concerned with how speech restrictions can backfire and be used to suppress the expression of disadvantaged or unpopular groups in society...

[P]rincipled support for free speech is rooted in the idea that all human beings are fallible. Therefore, we should be intellectually humble and open to the ideas of others, for we ourselves might be wrong. This suggests that individuals high in cognitive ability and emotional intelligence may be principled defenders of free speech, tolerating even the speech they abhor. They would likely agree with John Stuart Mill, who wrote:

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

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The Pot Shot Version of the Ad hominem Attack

Today I posted the following on my Facebook account:

I often post quotes, article excerpts or videos featuring the writings or conversation of others. I post these because I find them interesting and, sometimes, inspiring. Quite often, people respond in the comments by pointing out that that person once did something they disapprove of. They often write something like "I don't like that person."

I don't understand this way of thinking. There are many brilliant but flawed people out there. In fact, each of us can see one of those significantly flawed people in the mirror every morning. When I share information on FB, it is because I find the information interesting. I am not saying "This is a perfectly well-adjusted person who is always correct and who has never done anything I would ever question." For instance, there are severely flawed artists (e.g., Michael Jackson) whose work I admire greatly. Same thing with writers, podcasters, politicians and activists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Is this a problem? Hell, yes. Was he also brilliant? Did his genius help establish this amazing (though flawed) country you call home? Absolutely. When I celebrate Jefferson's amazing accomplishments am I trying to say it's OK to own slaves? Some people apparently think so, because they've been renaming schools that bore Jefferson's name. This is performative, not serious thinking.

All of the people I find interesting are flawed. I am flawed, you are flawed. People of prominence often stumble in big public ways. If you've never gone out into the world to attempt something brave and ambitious, you are flawed in that way too. Can we have an understanding, then, that I am already aware that everyone I mention in my posts is a flawed human being, and many of them have fucked up more than once? Sometimes they've fucked up in intensely cringe-worthy ways. Many of them have fucked up, realized they've fucked up and already admitted that they've fucked up. Pot shots are especially strange in those situations. When you watch a movie, do you sit there obsessing that some of the actors are personally flawed human beings? Or do you enjoy the movie on its own merits? Why do you give your favorite actors a pass?

I don't share information about people BECAUSE they are flawed. Rather, I am sharing their work and observations because I have found that work to be interesting or admirable. I work hard to try to make sense of an extremely complex world and my thought process never stops evolving. I often disagree with things I have stated in the past and you have too. We do this all the time and there is no way to stop doing this. That's how people think and that is why we have conversations--to help each other when we fall off the tracks.

It is the easiest, lowest and most ignorant form of criticism to sit back and point out people's imperfections. This insidious pot shot form of ad hominem is ubiquitous on FB. I assure you that I could engage in taking pot shots at others every hour of every day, with very little effort, but it would do nothing to encourage meaningful conversation or human flourishing.

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Project Veritas Undercover Pfizer Video Fails to Ignite News Media Interest

You might not like any of the players featured in this episode of Tucker Carlson, but the topic should be drawing a massive amount of media inquiry. Unfortunately, it is getting zero coverage at the NYT, Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC or CNN (based on my website searches in the past 5 minutes). Total radio silence, while the Project Veritas video has been played more than 12 million times on Twitter, FOX and Rumble. It appears that our left-leaning legacy "news" outlets are trying to "protect" us from this story much as they tried to "protect" us from every story that has strayed from the official COVID narrative for the past few years (as clearly shown by the Twitter files and elsewhere).

At first, I had trouble believing that, Jordon Triton Walker, the man featured in this secretly-recorded video was really a doctor employed by Pfizer, but screenshots of documents taken prior to massive ongoing Internet scrubbing suggest that he is, indeed, a doctor and that he, indeed, has been working for Pfizer. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. Good luck getting answers.

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Federal Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Against California Regarding Law that Punishes Doctors who Stray from the COVID “Consensus.”

A federal court has issued a preliminary injunction against the state of California regarding California's new law that attempts to require doctors to adhere to COVID orthodoxy when they discuss treatment with their patients. Here is an excerpt from an article by FOX News:

A California judge issued a preliminary injunction against a state law that empowers the Medical Board of California to discipline physicians who support opinions about COVID-19 that are not in line with the "consensus," according to reports.

The law, known as Assembly Bill 2098, was set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Under the law, the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California could discipline physicians who "disseminate" information about COVID that is not in line with the "contemporary scientific consensus.""

Doctors said the law violates their First Amendment rights because it impedes their ability to communicate with their patients during treatment. . . .

Doctors also argue that "contemporary scientific consensus" is "undefined in the law and undefinable as a matter of logic."

I checked each of the following websites and you won't read a word about this important court ruling in the NYT, MSNBC, CNN, NPR or the Washington Post.

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