Opinion: baseless accusations against Trump hurt liberal American media reputation

March 25 US Attorney General William Barr reported the results of a two-year investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged relationship with the Kremlin in an attempt to influence the US presidential election in 2016. In the American media, this scandal is called "Rashageyt" (Russiagate). The investigation was carried out by experts with experience in the special services, and it was led by the former head of the FBI and special prosecutor Robert Muller. According to Barr, for two years the specialists did not find evidence of collusion of the US president with representatives of the Russian government.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin Photo: kremlin.ru

This news has become a disappointment for Trump's millions of critics. For two years, the largest US media outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have found that Muller’s investigation will force the US president to leave his post. At the same time, countless articles were published on Russia's interference in the American elections with the support of Trump.

Columnist Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi acted with a large column in a personal blog on how Rashagate led to the spread of mass disinformation in the American media, a brief review of the text was prepared by the publication TJ.

"Rashageyt" as a blow to the reputation of the American media

Since May, 2017, when Robert Muller launched an investigation into the Kremlin’s alleged connection to Trump during the election race, the American media began to create a “cult of hope” around him, Taibbi said. For millions of opponents of the new president, the investigation of the special prosecutor gave hope for the impeachment of the objectionable politician.

On the Internet sold candles with the image of Muller, and in the transfer of Saturday Night Live sang the song "All I want for Christmas is you, Muller," referring to the expectation of the report of the Special Prosecutor. A few days before the publication of the final findings of the investigation in The New York Times came out the column with the promise: "We do not need to read the Muller report, because we already know that Trump is guilty."

In the first months after the election scandal, The New York Times said that representatives of Trump’s presidential campaign met with Russian intelligence agents. Later edition of The Wall Street Journal reportedthat US intelligence agencies are afraid to share data with the new president, suspecting that he will reveal them to the Kremlin.

Hillary Clinton has publicly claimed that the Russians would not have been able to conduct a political campaign before the US elections without the support of the Americans, hinting at Trump. In his column, Taibbi gives dozens of similar examples and concludes that none of these statements was ever confirmed.

From the very beginning, the story was spun on espionage traditions: Trump's secret relationship with Russia, which helped him win the election. And it was not a metaphorical comparison, but quite specific. Former NSA agent even claimedthat for "espionage" and "treason" Trump "will die in prison."

“In pursuit of the [Kremlin-Trump] story, we broke every written and unwritten rule, starting with the ban on publishing articles about something you can’t verify,” Matt Taibbi wrote.

Now that the investigation has found no evidence of Trump and the Kremlin’s conspiracy, millions of Americans are outraged, according to Taibbi. He referred to the sociological research, about half of whose participants called Muller’s investigation a “witch hunt” initiated by journalists and the opposition. The other half believed in Trump's guilt, relying on media materials, and now she feels deceived. And this will lead to undermining the journalistic reputation, believes Taybbi.

Claim one - sacralization of the image of the agent of special services

One of the key characters, thanks to which “Rashageit” seized the American press for more than two years, Taibbi considers former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. The most famous made it Trump's "Dossier"Which published in BuzzFeed in January 2017. It mentioned the visit of a businessman in 2013 to the Moscow hotel Ritz Carlton, which Barak and Michelle Obama had stayed in the past.

It was alleged that Trump took the same number and invited prostitutes there to make a “golden rain”. All this was allegedly secretly recorded by the FSB agents, having the opportunity to blackmail the millionaire, which was the birth of secret connections between him and the Kremlin.

“A massive discussion of this publication marked the beginning of the Rashagate phenomenon as an ongoing theme in American media,” Taibbi writes.

After that, the media began to romanticize the image of an intelligence agent who “fights” with the alleged enemy in the White House. The new yorker dedicated Steele is a great article with the subtitle "How a former spy tried to warn the world about Trump's connection with Russia."

“Steele's report provided the right context for thousands of news stories, but no journalist could confirm his loudest accusations,” Taibbi writes.

16 March 2019 of the year is knownthat in preparing the "dossier" on Trump, the former intelligence agent used unconfirmed information. As Steele admitted, he used the iReports application, in which users post news posts, when searching for an invoice for a company that allegedly participated in election manipulations.

When Steele was asked if he understood that these publications were not verified by journalists, the former intelligence officer replied in the negative. He added that he believed that the information "had some kind of CNN status." As noted by Taibbi, this is an important point, indicating the controversial status of Steele as a reliable source.

“There were so many profiles of Steele as a 'remarkably diligent' spymaster straight out of John Le Carre's books. He was compared in appearance and manner to the legendary George Smiley (fictional detective from Le Carre's books - TJ's note). Who would have thought that the new Smiley cut and pasted text like a college freshman. But the story barely made it into the news,” Taibbi said.

Claim two - media reluctance to admit mistakes

According to Taibbi, in the framework of “Rashagate”, the American media had three patterns of behavior:

• First, journalists submit a story with a “loud” headline;
• After a few days or weeks, a refutation or a new material is released, reducing the degree of importance of the original article;
• Material removed or sent for revision.

According to the columnist, the last two points are rarely met - it is more profitable for publications to ignore the latest information if it contradicts the vector of the original article. He counted more 50 "loud" media materials on the topic of "Rashagate". In part of them, the reporter found factual errors, and some were based on erroneous versions.

• In December, 2016, in The Washington Post out material linking Russian hackers to hacking into an electrical network in Vermont. Three days later edition released denial;
• In February, 2017, The New York Times опубликовала an investigation pointing to Trump’s connection with Russian intelligence during the presidential election. In June, the former FBI director, James Komi, publicly stated that most of the information in the material is not true.

In February, NYT reporters told 2018 about the “Russian bots army” who allegedly tried to “embroil the Americans” in a discussion about the mass shooting in Florida. The article was commented on by Jonathan Morgan, head of the organization for tracking the spread of misinformation on the Internet New Knowledge.

“For bots, this behavior is typical, they often use high-profile news in this way. They deliberately seek to divide Americans in all topics. Almost at the system level, ”said Morgan.

In December 2018, it became known that New Knowledge participated in creating fake activity of Russian bots in the Senate elections in Alabama. The authors wanted to prove to voters that the bots of the Russian "trolley factory" more often support Republicans.

“When it turns out that one of your main sources generates fakes in the activity described in your article, you need to at least remove the quote or notify readers. Alas, the Times material remained unchanged,” Taibbi noted..

Another example concerns the Russian woman Maria Butyna, who was arrested in the United States on suspicion of espionage. Summer 2018 of the year at the trial the prosecutor said the woman suggested Sex to no one American for their own benefit. This version smashed the largest edition, putting Butina a spy using sex as a working tool.

Two months later judge refuted the words of the prosecutor. It turned out that he based his statement on Butina’s correspondence with his girlfriend. As explained by the judge, the words of the accused were written in a comic form, and it took him five minutes to clarify this fact. However, as Taibbi writes, it is still easy to find original articles on the Internet without refutations.

“Here the reporter may be indignant: “How could I know this? The prosecutor said she traded sex for money. Why shouldn't I believe him? What about the fact that the authorities lied to reporters' faces even before the advent of electricity? It doesn’t take deep investigations to understand that the main source of Russiagate is the intelligence services, which have been deceiving the media for years,” Taibbi said..

Claim three - publication of materials with a minimum of evidence

According to Taibbi, gradually, articles on “Rashagate” began to turn into conspiracy theories based on the minimum number of facts. He gave an example material The New York Magazine, in which the version is being put forward that Trump has collaborated with Russia for several decades. The theory is based on the trip of a businessman to the USSR in 1987, during which he could allegedly be recruited.

According to Taibbi, he went through this text in detail in search of facts that would at least partially prove the author’s position. And I found only two convincing arguments: “Trump met with representatives of the USSR in 1986 and went there in 1987. That's all. Here is your story on the cover of the magazine,” the journalist’s material says.

“This is mania. Putin is literally in our pants. Perhaps, if you're lucky, The New York Magazine someday recognizes, that their article about the Russians setting up an anti-masturbation hotline to lure and blackmail Americans is not only inherently absurd, but absurd because it is sourced from New Knowledge. The organization that admitted to rigging Russian influence in the elections in Alabama,” Taibbi emphasized.

The columnist believes that American journalists and politicians still do not see the difference between the USSR and Russia, so it seems realistic to them that Trump could have been recruited back in the 1980s.

In March, 2017, Rep. Adam Schiff referred to a report by Christopher Steele, which described the meeting between Trump's assistant Carter Page and Rosneft head Igor Sechin. He allegedly offered a majority of Rosneft’s shares to the president’s supporter if he would help lift the sanctions against Russia. Describing the meeting, Schiff called Sechin "the Russian oligarch, Putin's friend and KGB agent."

“Schiff meant the FSB. The inability of Russiagate supporters to remember that Russia is not the USSR is becoming increasingly absurd. [Political scientist] Donna Brazil still hasn't deleted her tweet that “Now the communists dictate the rules of debate [in the United States],” the columnist writes.

What solution does Taibbi offer?

Throughout the text, the columnist compares “Rashagate” and how it is served by the media with the US invasion of Iraq in the 2003 year. Then the government justified this with evidence that President Saddam Hussein had stocks of weapons of mass destruction. Federal media picked up the story, partly justifying the invasion. Later, journalists thought about whether the information that politicians and special services told them in the role of "reliable sources" was true.

Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not found, and the war led to the death of thousands of civilians. In subsequent years, The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, CBS and other major publications of the country recognized - they should be more attentive to the evidence and check the sources.

According to Taibbi, history repeats itself. Initially, having entered the history of Trump's connection with the Kremlin through unverified information based on the words of former intelligence agents and politicians, journalists have become political pawns. According to the reporter, the American media should completely rethink their attitude towards Rashagate, taking a sober look at the facts. Otherwise they will lose their reputation in the eyes of the people.

Russiagate led many journalists to radically change their mission. We have begun to pick sides, erasing the concept of the press as an independent institution whose primary role is to sort fact from fiction. We were smart enough to eventually rethink our role in WMD (weapons of mass destruction, referring to the 2003 invasion of Iraq), and that's the only reason we had some audience left after that episode. Is the press capable of such self-awareness now? WMD has damaged our reputation. If we don’t change the situation, this story will destroy it,” Taibbi is sure..

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