As the last(?) great frothing mess of the 2016 election cycle sputters its way through another set of breaking news alerts and mysterious sources described only as "people familiar with the matter"—truly, the very top ranking of all anonymous claimants—the national news media ends the campaign where it began: In a reflexive, buffoonish race to to the bottom of their brightly painted barrels.
In lieu of actual reportage, cable news — which always needs material to fill its 24-hour mandate — has had to fall back on hours on end of pure speculation. Comey said, in his internal memo, that he was trying to be careful in how he disseminated this information on the eve of an acrimonious election. But he does not seem to have understood that in this era of constant news he created a perfect storm for confusion, misinformation, and — in some sectors — unhinged conspiracy. There is an appalling disconnect on cable news between what has actually been said and what is being implied or perceived, and it is doubling back on itself and expanding. [...]
10 days away from the resolution of this election, one way or another, the news media is demonstrating serious weakness with reporting uncertainty and ambiguity. At the risk of sounding too naïve about the role of truth in journalism, it would be appreciated if clarity were prized over controversy. But then again, this election has been defined by the breakdown of our best intentions in the Byzantine political-media complex, where time must be filled, takes must be filed, and we as a nation have struggled to wholly apprehend what we have become.
Whatever one may think of Mr. Comey, the effects of his letter were both predictable and inevitable. House Republicans would immediately and blatantly inflate the so-called significance of the move; sources whose motives are described only as being "familiar with the matter" would rush to leak details hinting at the most salacious possible interpretations—including completely implausible ones; journalists who have been repeatedly fooled by those same specious claims by those same specious sources would dutifully report the most theoretically sensational new bits yet again; television's pundits would furrow brows and spend their available air time speculating on the speculations; the hired partisans would once again lie outright with new assertions about how the speculation proved this or that. Nearly all of it would be be debunked, many weeks or months later, but the speculated-upon versions would be still be considered gospel long after the truth was out.
It is inherently dishonest—and a fixture of the cable news model, a multi-network circus in which every clown and trapeze artist must compete with the others for the attention of the crowd. The product is the performance, the props are merely the props. “News” is merely the ball or hoop or pin juggled on this particular day, and it is our own damn fault if we expected any more than that.
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—Mexico won't back US Iraq resolution:
Why is it that all of Bush's international "friends" are abandoning the US? Russia's Putin, whose soul had passed the Bush test, has already sided with the evil French in opposition to the US's "bomb Iraq" UN Security Council Resolution. In most ways, that was to be expected.
But now Bush's supposed best friend, Vicente Fox, has announced his opposition to the measure. Mexico has one of the rotating seats on the Council, and along with Ireland is one of the swing votes. Yet the Americans, who assumed Mexico would vote with them, are showing they are no one's bitch.
And Bush is pulling one of those famous temper tantrums he throws when he doesn't get his way.
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