BuzzFeed drew much-deserved criticism this week for publishing an unverified 35-page dossier containing what purported to be details about the compromising financial and personal activities of President-elect Trump allegedly in the possession of Russia.
The online news group caught hell from all corners of the media for failing to verify the contents of the document, and for publishing it knowing it contained multiple errors.
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But BuzzFeed is not without its defenders in the media, including the Columbia Journalism Review’s managing editor Vanessa M. Gezari, who wrote this week that the online news group did a public service by publishing unverified and sensational claims about the president-elect.
She added that those in the media who’ve criticized BuzzFeed for tossing the unauthenticated dossier to the public are doing so mostly from a place of self-interest.
“The media’s full-throated condemnation of BuzzFeed is both self-righteous and self-serving,” Gezari wrote.
She explained:
By publishing the documents when it did, accompanied by strong caveats about their reliability, BuzzFeed put itself at the heart of the story and made some of its most prominent journalists go-to people for any tips the dossier might generate. … BuzzFeed took a different but still well-established approach: Release what you can when you have it and see what new leads it generates. If this strategy pays off, the outlet that has morphed from a cat-video factory to a font of serious journalism could end up with some terrific scoops. You can almost hear the rest of the media muttering, “Damn, why didn’t we think of that first?”
Well, for starters, many newsrooms didn’t think to publish unverified information because it’s generally understood that floating unconfirmed charges that could damage a person’s reputation, and then telling audiences “here, you figure it out,” is not news reporting; it is spreading vicious gossip.
Also, as the Washington Examiner explained earlier this week, “When you’re aware that the source is unreliable, that compounds the sin.”
The rest of Gezari’s column goes on to argue that most mainstream newsrooms don’t have room to criticize BuzzFeed considering they had no problem publishing emails last year reportedly taken from the private accounts of Democratic National Committee staffers and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
That’s not a bad point about the press’ seeming double standard when it comes to verifying stories. But there are some obvious differences between publishing the unverified Podesta and DNC emails and publishing the 35-page “intelligence” dossier.
Unlike the emails, the Trump document came from a single unrevealed source. No names. Not even an alias. The hacked emails, on the other hand, at least had names, titles and addresses that could be corroborated, and the reader at least knew who was publishing them.
Further, unlike the dossier, the emails were not published with any known errors.
There’s also a big difference between publishing an unverified email showing interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile reportedly leaked debate questions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign team and publishing an unverified dossier alleging the president-elect enjoys watching Russian prostitutes urinate on each other.
Though the former allegation is certainly unflattering, and Gezari is right to point out the newsroom inconsistency, it’s hard to argue it’s in the same category as the error-riddled, uncorroborated Trump dossier.
Media have yet to confirm any of the claims in the 35-page document published by BuzzFeed. Trump has vociferously denied all of the claims.
CNN, on the other hand, terminated its contract with Brazile shortly after the emails were leaked. The cable news group also suggested that she might have gotten the leaked question from former contributor Roland Martin, whose employer, TV One, had partnered with CNN for the debate.
