The news media in the United States is horribly, perhaps irrevocably, broken.
In the past 72 hours, there have been two major, all-consuming news cycles based on inaccurate or outright false allegations. Equally distressing as the fact that the press promoted these stories despite obvious red flags is that some reporters continue to cling to the original bogus narratives. Because when it comes to accusations leveled against certain political targets, many in the nation’s largest and most powerful newsrooms are less arbiters of the truth and more actively hostile and willfully dishonest participants in the toxic culture wars.
The first major news cycle came Thursday evening after BuzzFeed News published a report titled, “President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project.”
The press went wild, enthusiastically repeating the story’s central claim, ignoring all the while that it is based entirely on the say-so of two anonymous sources who claim they’re familiar with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Newsrooms continued to parrot the BuzzFeed News allegations even after its authors contradicted each other over whether they had actually seen proof to corroborate their anonymous sources’ claims.
On Friday, the three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC News, spent an impressive 27 minutes promoting the story. The talking heads at CNN and MSNBC used the word “impeach” roughly 200 times Friday morning and afternoon as they theorized about how the article would likely play out for the White House. Laughably enough, newsrooms and pundits also referred to the story as a “bombshell” while also leaning heavily on the “if true” qualifier.
Then came Friday evening.
“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Mueller’s office said in a statement.
Good thing those newsrooms couched their coverage with the ironclad “if true” qualifier.
Absurdly enough, some in the news media maintain that the denial isn’t even a denial. Others are criticizing the Office of Special Counsel for seeking to correct the record. More still say the news industry is the real victim of BuzzFeed News’ reporting.
“Those trying to tar all media today aren’t interested in improving journalism but protecting themselves,” said MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. “There’s a lot more accountability in media these days than in our politics. We know we live in a glass house, we hope the folks we cover are as self aware.”
His self-righteousness would be more persuasive were it not for the fact that we’ve been down this exact same road maybe a dozen times already in the Trump era. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Newsrooms face-plant on a thinly sourced story Trump administration story, the president and his allies claim vindication in their anti-media crusade, and members of the news media say it’s unfair that people keep pointing out that their mistakes all seem to go in one direction. This was a much more interesting story back in Trump’s first year.
Todd’s claim that the press does a good job holding itself accountable would also be more convincing were it not for the fact that newsrooms were at it again less than 24 hours after the Mueller statement, eagerly sharing a brief, shaky video they claimed showed several white high school students at the March for Life harassing Nathan Phillips, an elderly Native American protester. There have been calls for boycotts of the teens’ school. Some of the students have also been “doxed” and threatened with physical violence, and all because of the press’ endorsement of a single, incomplete video and say-so of the man who was allegedly harassed.
“Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March,” reported the New York Times this weekend.
The Washington Post reported in a headline, “‘It was getting ugly’: Native American drummer speaks on his encounter with MAGA-hat-wearing teens.”
“Viral video of Catholic school teens in ‘MAGA’ caps taunting Native Americans draws widespread condemnation; prompts a school investigation,” reported ABC News.
The New Republic’s Jeet Heer called the teens in the video “racists.” CNN’s Ana Navarro claimed the teens’ “asswipe” parents had taught them “bigotry” and “racism.” Others uncritically repeated Phillips’ charge that the teens had chanted “Build the wall” at him while blocking him from ascending the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
As it turns out, however, more complete footage of the incident tells a different story entirely. The longer tapes are so revealing, in fact, that it seems clear Phillips’ account in the Washington Post and elsewhere was deliberately misleading. The teens perhaps did not behave as well as one would hope, but there is nothing to show that they “mobbed” Phillips — he approached them. There is nothing to corroborate Phillips’ assertion that they chanted “Build the wall.” In short, there is nothing to show the incident played out the way newsrooms claimed it did.
Several of the media commentators who had originally called for the boys’ destruction have since deleted their initial remarks, which, again, were based solely on a context-less video and the say-so of one person. Others, however, are clinging to the narrative that racist teenagers from a school in Kentucky tormented a Native American.
It should have never come to this. Newsrooms and reporters wouldn’t be backtracking frantically and stretching hard to defend disproven narratives had they applied even a fraction of the normal amount of skepticism to both the BuzzFeed report and MAGA-teens video. Both stories should have been treated as thinly sourced allegations requiring additional context and further corroboration. But the news media can’t help itself, especially if it sees red.
I’ve spent the last two years urging the press to do better, arguing that every misstep and face-plant feeds the president’s claim that the news media is an unreliable narrator. To a degree, he’s right. If there’s one takeaway from this weekend of clown-shoe news reporting, it’s that a disproportionate number of reporters care more about sticking it to the other side than they care about facts.
The press in the United States has always been an unabashedly political machine. Since this country was a country, newsrooms have overtly or subtly pulled for specific parties and candidates. But the events of this weekend suggest the national news media have gone far beyond mere politics. The culture wars have descended firmly on our leading newsrooms, and the desire to push self-serving narratives, with no concern whatsoever for the consequences or the facts, has replaced any sort of impartial pursuit of the truth.
Don’t expect the reporting to get better. So long as this industry continues its downward spiral into the supremely partisan, with journalists chasing blindly after the destruction of their chosen targets, the reporting is only going to get worse. Much worse.
