It's almost 2020 and New York Times editors are still debating if Trump's a racist

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Sunday November 24, 2019 · 9:00 AM PST

2019/11/24 · 09:00

no image description available — These protesters knew exactly what Trump was when they protested at Trump's under-construction D.C. hotel in July 2015.

Wasting untold time and energy, New York Times newsroom leaders continue to struggle with the not-very-difficult question of whether they ought to refer to Donald Trump as a racist. More than four years after Trump entered our national political conversation by announcing his candidacy for president, the Times still can't figure out if the paper should accurately label him for his obviously racist behavior.

Likely terrified of sparking a right-wing media backlash, journalists continue to tiptoe around Trump's open embrace of hate speech and his deeply racist leanings.

Top editors at the Times recently sent a memo to department heads offering guidance on the topic. “It’s about navigating through calling things what they are, not getting into the kind of name-calling that seems to pervade political debate,” one anonymous Times editor told Vanity Fair. "That’s a little bit of the tension. We’re in a real name-calling culture. We like to stay above the fray, yet we also like to avoid excessive euphemisms, so the attempt here is to say: Let’s not use labels so much as to describe things as they are."

This came after Times executive editor Dean Baquet last week stressed that the paper just can't tell if Trump's a racist. "I don’t know. I think Donald Trump says racially divisive things. I think that’s a little bit different. I’m not in his head enough to know whether he says them because he wants to stoke his base," the editor told The Guardian.

Note that that's the same illogical defense the paper uses for not calling Trump a liar: Reporters and editors aren't in his head, so they can’t tell for sure. But it’s been documented that Trump has told certain lies more than 60-70 different times, which means there's zero doubt that he knows he’s telling boldfaced lies. Still, the confused Times just can’t make a tough call. Just like the paper can't make a tough call on Trump's misogyny.

There's "no question Donald Trump has trouble with women,” according to Baquet, who nonetheless oversees a newspaper that won't call him a sexist in its news pages.

That mind-reading defense is a convenient cop-out for the Times. But other publications and news agencies aren’t as reserved.

Eric Boehlert

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Wednesday November 20, 2019 · 9:13 AM PST

2019/11/20 · 09:13

John Solomon appeared on Fox News more than 70 times.

Closing the barn door two years too late, the editor of The Hill this week announced that the publication is going to review all the dubious Ukraine conspiracy reporting John Solomon did while he worked there as an executive vice president. We "are reviewing, updating, annotating with any denials of witnesses, and when appropriate, correcting any [of Solomon's] pieces referenced during the ongoing congressional inquiry," announced Bob Cusack.

Solomon is a well-documented fabulist who essentially works for the Republican Party, helping it launder its smear campaigns in public. At The Hill, Solomon played a leading role in advancing debunked claims about Ukraine and the supposed corruption of Joe Biden's son. For years, The Hill published the equivalent of a 9/11 Truther, but only now is the publication going to look back and see if something went wrong.

The Hill's reckless debacle, as it purposefully contributed to partisan misinformation under the guise of investigative journalism and applied virtually no standards to Solomon's work, tells us a lot about how the Beltway press functions in general, and that there seem to be no guidelines for handling right-wing falsehoods.

Indeed, Solomon's work has been consistently wrong for going on more than a decade, stretching back to his days at the Associated Press and The Washington Post.

Eric Boehlert

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Monday November 18, 2019 · 9:31 AM PST

2019/11/18 · 09:31

CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 18: Political operative Roger Stone attends rally on the first day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on July 18, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in downtown Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The convention runs through July 21. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) — Roger Stone was surrounded by reporters on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio.

News on Friday that a federal court convicted former Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone on seven counts, including obstruction of a proceeding, false statements, and witness tampering only added to Trump's woes as the second day of impeachment hearings played out in Washington. Stone’s conviction certainly added to an aura of criminality that surrounds Trump, as more aides and advisers are convicted and sentenced to prison time.

The guilty verdicts also returned focus to the dismal job the campaign press did in 2016. Specifically, the media treated a bottom feeder like Stone as a serious person while wallowing in the Democratic emails that Russian operatives stole, and for which Stone served as a conduit for Republicans.

During the 2016 campaign, both The New York Times and The Washington Post couldn't stop quoting Stone, and couldn't stop whitewashing his ugly past. In their pages, Stone was vaguely tagged as a "Trump confidant," a "veteran political operative," "an informal adviser," "a political strategist,” the "master of the political dark arts," a "sometime-Trump adviser," and yes, a "Trump supporter." What did news outlets politely leave out in 2016, when Stone became a go-to source? They left out his racist and radically hateful past.

From Media Matters:

Stone called commentator Roland Martin a “stupid negro” and “fat negro.” He referred to commentator Herman Cain as “mandingo” and called former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) an “arrogant know-it-all negro.” He also called commentator Al Sharpton a “professional negro” who likes fried chicken and asked if former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson was an “Uncle Tom.”

Additionally, Stone attacked New York Times columnist Gail Collins as an “elitist c*nt” and tweeted “DIE BITCH” at former Times executive editor Jill Abramson. Back in 2008, Stone formed the anti-Clinton group called “C.U.N.T.” Keep in mind, Stone had been banned by both CNN and MSNBC because he was so untrustworthy, but the Times and Post had no trouble trusting him.

Eric Boehlert

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Thursday November 14, 2019 · 10:38 AM PST

2019/11/14 · 10:38

Representative Jim Jordan(C), R-OH speaks during the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on November 13, 2019, at the first public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump's efforts to tie US aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. - Donald Trump faces the most perilous challenge of his three-year presidency as public hearings convened as part of the impeachment probe against him open under the glare of television cameras on Wednesday. (Photo by Olivier Douliery / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images) — Nothing sways the American people like giant posters—and the wisdom of Jim Jordan.

Republicans proudly advertised their radical ways during Wednesday's impeachment hearings into Donald Trump, wallowing in conspiracies and embracing debunked claims. The question now: How does the Beltway media cover a party that has aggressively removed itself from reality? How does the news business describe and treat a political party that routinely echoes the most unbelievable claims from Fox News and the darkest corners of the right-wing media?

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The truth is, this is a decadeslong game of dare that Republicans have been playing with the press, as members of the party uniformly become more radical and more antidemocratic, and basically challenge the press to call them out, knowing full well it won't happen. That's because the Beltway press basically revolves around the central idea that there are two major competing parties in this country and that they are mirror opposites of each other. Republicans are just as conservative as Democrats are liberal. Republicans are just as serious as Democrats are. Republicans are just as fact-based and honorable as Democrats are. That false equivalency drives political coverage in this country, and has for decades.

Why this obsession? Because to concede that one party operates under a radically different set of guidelines (or no guidelines at all, in the case of the GOP), journalists have to do two things. They have to defend themselves against allegations of "liberal media bias," and they have to throw out the old, dependable rule book that allowed the press to lazily suggest that Republicans and Democrats function on the same plane, and therefore had to be treated similarly.

But how on earth do you watch the Republican performances during the public impeachment hearings and still cling to that claim? How do you pretend a party that spent hours asking witnesses about Alex Jones-type conspiracy theories somehow functions on a parallel track with Democrats, who spent the hearings ensconced in facts, testimony, and firsthand witness accounts?

The equivalent would be if, during a 2002 congressional hearing, Democrats had spent hours badgering witnesses with 9/11 Truther questions, and the press had pretended that it was totally normal. It's not! And neither is today's irrational and reckless GOP.

Eric Boehlert

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Tuesday November 12, 2019 · 9:17 AM PST

2019/11/12 · 09:17

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 31: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is surrounded by staff and journalists as she leaves the floor after the close of a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry centered on U.S. President Donald Trump October 31, 2019 in Washington, DC. The resolution, passed by a vote of 232-196, creates the legal framework for public hearings, procedures for the White House to respond to evidence and the process for consideration of future articles of impeachment by the full House of Representatives. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is surrounded by staff and journalists as she leaves the floor after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry centered on U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 31, 2019.

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Four months after the Beltway press badly failed in its coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller's congressional testimony on the Russia scandal, the D.C. press corps has a chance at redemption this week with the first public impeachment hearings of Donald Trump. Hopefully, newsrooms will be up to the important task at hand.

"The stakes don’t get much higher when it comes to fulfilling [journalists’] core mission: informing citizens of what they really need to know," wrote Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan. Agreed. And here are simple instructions for the impeachment hearings coverage: Don't Both Sides it with lots of phony false equivalencies. Don’t treat it as theater. Don't obsess over optics. And don't pretend Republicans making wild, hollow, conspiratorial claims in defense of Trump are serious people.

The committee room in the Longworth House Office Building on Wednesday will host the first hearing. There, three diplomats will recount what they know about Trump's dealings with Ukraine, and how that government had to agree to investigate completely bogus allegations of corruption against Joe Biden's son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukraine gas company, in order for Ukraine to receive nearly $400 million in U.S. aid.

Journalists are already keenly aware that there's mountainous evidence, mostly coming from officials who worked in the Trump administration, that an attempted bribery of Ukraine took place. They also know that Republicans have been utterly incoherent with the various Trump defenses they have tried to float, including the claim that the White House is too inept to pull off an international bribery scheme. So it's imperative that news reports do not pretend the hearings revolve around a Both Sides claim, or that it's just not possible to tell which side is dealing with established facts and which side is basically making stuff up.

The press needs to redeem itself with the hearings this week because the way journalists covered Mueller's day of hearings in July was largely a disgrace, as the press gleefully echoed GOP spin about what a supposed bust the event was. Within hours of the two Mueller hearings ending that day, journalists followed Trump's lead and announced that the day's events had been a "flop," and that he had emerged the clear winner.

Eric Boehlert

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Monday November 11, 2019 · 9:35 AM PST

2019/11/11 · 09:35

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 17: Honoree Michael Bloomberg speaks onstage during the Hudson River Park Annual Gala at Cipriani South Street on October 17, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Hudson River Park)

Here's a quick news quiz: If you were editing The New York Times and advisers to Michael Bloomberg were telling your reporters that the billionaire might run for president, would you run that story on the front page? For how many days in a row? Considering he is the former mayor of New York, I could see the Times putting that development on the front page for one day. But anything more than that would be overkill, right?

Bloomberg doesn't represent any obvious voter constituency within the Democratic Party, and he's already too late to the primary game to compete effectively in the first four contests. Despite that context, the Times decided to run the Bloomberg story on its front page for not one, not two, but for three straight days, signaling that the paper considered the billionaire's would-be run to be one of the biggest political stories of the season.

Indeed, the Times quickly provided readers with a cornucopia of endless Bloomberg coverage, including two very enthusiastic thumbs up from columnists. "Run, Mike, Run!" was the headline for one column, which followed "Welcome, Mike Bloomberg” by a day. Both emphasized what good news Bloomberg's possible candidacy was. The paper was hardly alone in pursuing the mini-bout of Bloomberg mania, as the billionaire's name was mentioned nearly 500 times on cable news between Friday and Sunday, according to media search engine TVeyes.

Question: If the former mayor of Los Angeles signaled that he might enter the Democratic primary at this late date, do you think major newspapers would splash that on the front page for three straight days? (Or even for a single day?) There's no way. Bloomberg is being treated as a Very Big Deal because he's a billionaire and the political press remains overly impressed with billionaires who want to be politicians. Political journalists tend to assume that voters are as impressed with billionaires as they are. But voters are not, especially not Democratic voters.

Indeed, rarely do we see such an obvious and yawning gap between what drives the Beltway media and what drives Democratic voters. Bloomberg's possible run has been treated as a blockbuster event by much of the D.C. press, and has mostly been greeted with shrugs by voters.

Eric Boehlert for Daily Kos

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Sunday November 10, 2019 · 7:45 AM PST

2019/11/10 · 07:45

Will playing whac-a-mole help save the Trump presidency?

That's what Fox News and Donald Trump defenders have been reduced to in recent weeks as the White House and its media allies scramble to try to find a coherent defense for his admitted campaign collusion with a foreign power. (This time, it's attempted collusion with Ukraine.) More than a month into this unraveling story, Fox News is trying its best to protect Trump by attacking key players from within the administration who have come forward with damaging information during the impeachment inquiry. Going on the offensive and smearing honorable people is one of Fox News' favorite pastimes: It's the engine that fuels the whole propaganda enterprise. But this time it's not going to work, simply because there are too many witnesses offering up too much damaging information for Fox News and the conservative media to combat.

To date, those officials have included the anonymous whistleblower, whose initial complaint sparked impeachment. They also include U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, and George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, among others.

For Fox News, that's a hit list that's simply too long to corral and to take aim at.

In the end, Vindman by himself is not going to matter. Taylor's not going to matter. Sondland's not going to matter. Nor is Volker, or Kent. Even the whistleblower isn't going to matter. In the end, it's going to be the collective that delivers the big blow to Trump. It's going to be the kaleidoscope of administration officials who all tell the exact same story of Trump-sanctioned bribery, and holding up U.S. foreign aid to a foreign power in exchange for digging up dirt on Trump's political opponents.

For now, the strategy appears to be to claim that up is down and black is white, and to insist all new damning revelations exonerate Trump. Or, in the case of reliable Trump apologist Sen. Lindsay Graham, he's simply going to ignore all new information. "I've written off the whole process," Graham told a reporter this week. It's a deeply cultish way to deal with the emerging crisis.

Taking their cues from Fox News, the entire Trump defense is now based on wholesale lies and rattled conspiracy theories. They believe the Ukraine whistleblower is a "traitor." And they believe Democrats are trying to pull off a "coup." This is all part of Fox News' larger problem since the Ukraine impeachment story broke more than a month ago: Nobody has a coherent defense for misdeeds that Trump has publicly admitted to.

Eric Boehlert

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Monday November 04, 2019 · 9:49 AM PST

2019/11/04 · 09:49

US President Donald Trump sticks out his tongue as he addresses a "Make America Great Again" rally in Topeka, Kansas, on October 6, 2018. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) — So savvy.

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It’s gone from bad to worse: After spending years refusing to call Donald Trump a liar, the press is now toasting his reelection campaign, which is built on lies.

"That campaigns are now being fought largely online is hardly a revelation, yet only one political party seems to have gotten the message," The New York Times recently reported in a major story on Trump's reelection run. "While the Trump campaign has put its digital operation firmly at the center of the president’s re-election effort, Democrats are struggling to internalize the lessons of the 2016 race and adapt to a political landscape shaped by social media." The message the Times presented was unmistakable: Trump's reelection campaign is trouncing Democrats online. (Trump had gotten "the message.") Separately, the Times in another piece announced, "The technical superiority and sophistication of the president’s digital campaign is a hidden advantage of incumbency."

What did the Times almost completely ignore in its flattering reports about Trump's "web operation"? His reelection campaign is built around spreading lies online. Somehow, that unprecedented presidential campaign strategy wasn't considered to be the newsworthy one.

"His 2020 campaign, flush with cash, is poised to dominate online again, according to experts on both ends of the political spectrum, independent researchers and tech executives," the newspaper reported. That was the key angle. Also, Trump isn't necessarily pushing lies online. Instead, he’s creating "emotionally charged content" and "provocative ads" featuring "divisive themes" and touting an "angry partisan approach," the paper reported.

If a Democratic candidate such as Joe Biden unleashed a torrent of fabricated and outlandish claims via Facebook campaign ads, it’s highly doubtful that the Times would marvel at how savvy Biden was being and how he was outsmarting Republicans with a digital strategy that relied on constant bouts of purposeful misinformation. Instead, Biden's constant lies would be the Times' obvious area of focus. And the brazen untruths wouldn't be gently referred to as "provocative content."

Yet with the Trump coverage, the fact that his campaign is wallowing in aggressive misinformation isn't presented as the most newsworthy element. Instead, Trump's lies are depicted as being part of a formidable, winning online formula that has desperate, overwhelmed Democrats trying to catch up.

Eric Boehlert for Daily Kos

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Sunday November 03, 2019 · 7:20 AM PST

2019/11/03 · 07:20

In January 2016, Catherine Herridge, Fox News' longtime chief intelligence correspondent, reported a huge scoop: No fewer than 150 FBI agents were investigating Hillary Clinton's emails and the private server she used while serving as secretary of state. The number, as part of Herridge’s exclusive report based on anonymous sources, was shocking. If the FBI had assigned 150 agents to fan out across the country and were treating the Clinton email case as one of the most pressing crime probes in the country, akin to a terrorist attack investigation, then of course Fox News' favorite controversy at the time must represent a truly blockbuster scandal, right? I mean, 150 agents.

It turns out Herridge was off by a bit. In fact, she was off by roughly 140 agents. NBC News soon confirmed that the FBI had put roughly 12 people on the Clinton investigation. Herridge made big headlines when she reported 150 agents were on the case, and her estimate was off by more than 90 percent.

In some newsrooms, a shocking misstep like that could get you fired. But not at Fox News, of course, where the "news" is designed to provide content for GOP-style propaganda. And that's why Herridge’s embarrassing miscue on the 150-agent story probably isn't even her most egregious bout of inaccurate reporting. For many years, she managed to get report after report wrong about the Benghazi terror attack, the Clinton emails, and the Clinton Foundation. (She was aggressively wrong on the Benghazi story for three years, which isn't easy.)

But no, Herridge's job was never in jeopardy, because Fox News is in the misinformation business. What is surprising today though, is that executives at CBS News looked at Herridge’s blotted record and recently decided they wanted her on their team. Funny how the Beltway media works. And it's funny how mainstream media outlets appear so anxious to make nice with conservatives that they're willing to hire someone with a resume of misinformation like Herridge's.

"Catherine Herridge is a skilled investigative correspondent who has consistently brought depth and originality to her reporting," said Christopher Isham, vice president and Washington bureau chief for CBS News. "We are very excited that she will be joining the outstanding team at the Washington Bureau." Ironically, almost nothing in CBS's statement about Herridge was accurate.

What's especially odd about CBS's decision to hire a Benghazi fabulist like Herridge is that the network was rocked with a far-ranging scandal in 2013, when correspondent Lara Logan aired a completely untrue 60 Minutes report that advanced unfounded Republican claims about Benghazi.

Eric Boehlert

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Wednesday October 30, 2019 · 9:28 AM PDT

2019/10/30 · 09:28

How do you solve a problem like Sean Duffy? The former Republican congressman, who was hired by CNN to blindly defend Donald Trump while the impeachment process unfolds, is creating problems for the network by constantly fabricating facts and spreading reckless and dangerous conspiracy theories. And yes, he's only been on the CNN payroll for 10 days.

On Tuesday, Duffy questioned the patriotism of Purple Heart recipient and National Security Council official Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, after it was reported Vindman was telling House investigators damaging information about Trump's open collusion with Ukraine and his attempt to get a foreign power to dig up dirt on the Republican's political opponents.

At least twice yesterday, CNN anchors went on the air and directly denounced Duffy's comments as a "smear" and an ugly form of "bigotry." This is odd, yes? CNN pays Duffy for his commentary, which after just one week with the network is so out of bounds and so offensive that his cable news colleagues have to basically apologize to viewers for it. What's the plan here, CNN?

Here's the vise that the network finds itself in, and I understand that for executives there the solution seems extremely painful. But it really isn't—not if you're committed to being in the business of journalism. The conundrum is that CNN wants to position itself as occupying the center of American politics, which means CNN has to have lots of conservative voices to match the number of liberal voices, all so they can stage Both Sides debates. For decades, that has worked for the network. What no longer works is CNN hiring Trump sycophants like Duffy, because Trump sycophants like Duffy say crazy stuff nonstop.

During his CNN debut last week, Duffy lied about the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords. He lied about Joe Biden trying to fire a Ukraine prosecutor in order to protect his son. And Duffy helped spread the preposterous lie about the Democratic National Committee's email servers from 2016 somehow ending up in a foreign country.

As I noted last week, It's not up to CNN and other media players to hire bad actors like Duffy simply because the conservative movement is filled with so many bad actors. All news outlets ought to have easily identifiable standards, and if would-be paid contributors can't meet those standards, they should not be hired.

The problem for CNN is that there are no longer any thoughtful or trustworthy Trump defenders.

Eric Boehlert

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Tuesday October 29, 2019 · 9:30 AM PDT

2019/10/29 · 09:30

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 23: Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) speaks during a press conference alongside House Republicans on Capitol Hill on October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. The conference called for transparency regarding the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images) — GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin speaks alongside House Republicans on Oct. 23. before the group barged into a secure impeachment proceeding, demanding "transparency."

Nancy Pelosi called the GOP's impeachment bluff this week, and in doing so she completely undercut the "process" attacks they have been making about the House inquiry. Demanding that a formal House vote be held on impeachment, Republicans have insisted the lack of a vote represents a tell-tale sign that the inquiry is unfair. But now that vote is scheduled to take place on Thursday, robbing Republicans of a preferred talking point.

Suggesting it's everything from a coup to a "lynching" to the crucifixion of Christ, Republicans and the conservative media have been wallowing in impeachment hysteria mode for more than a month. During that time, we've seen very little hard-nosed defense of Trump's open collusion with Ukraine. Republicans clearly don't want to get into the weeds on this story, where revelation after revelation has pointed to Trump wrongdoing. Instead, we've seen incessant conservative attacks on the impeachment "process": It's too secretive, it's too restricted, and there are no cross examinations allowed, etc. The attacks are comically thin and the press ought to be saying so and being upfront about it in the news coverage, instead of suggesting that ‘Both Sides’ differ on how the impeachment inquiry is unfolding.

Indeed, the Beltway press often prefers to focus on whatever is making Republicans angry, and reporters love pretending that's the real news. When Republicans recently broke House rules and staged a protest by pushing past Capitol Police officers in order to barge into secure rooms occupied by the House Intelligence Committee, where impeachment investigators have been conducting private interviews, the press took the bait, playing it up as a huge event.

From The New York Times: “This is a Soviet-style process,” Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, charged Wednesday of the closed-door deposition for a Pentagon official. “It should not be allowed in the United States of America. Every member of Congress ought to be allowed in that room.”

But heated rhetoric like that isn't the news. What is news is that Republicans are completely fabricating claims about how Democrats are handling impeachment. It's news that Republicans now routinely lie about everything—and that's how the story ought to be covered.

Eric Boehlert

Community

Monday October 28, 2019 · 9:21 AM PDT

2019/10/28 · 09:21

COSTA MESA, CA - JUNE 05: The Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, 48th District, campaign headquarters is seen decorated with a Breitbart sticker on election night on June 5, 2018 in Costa Mesa, California. California could play a determining role in upsetting Republican control the U.S. Congress. Democrats hope to win 10 of the 14 seats held by Republicans. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) — Former Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's campaign headquarters is seen decorated with a Breitbart sticker on election night on June 5, 2018, in Costa Mesa, California.

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Here we go again: Facebook just became the latest traditional media player to enable the right-wing hate of Breitbart News.

Unveiling its news tab initiative last week, on which Facebook is partnering with outlets such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, the company also confirmed that the far-right conspiracy bastion Breitbart News is being included in the prestigious online rollout, even though Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg can't give a straight answer for why the social media giant is partnering in a "high-quality" news initiative with a site that featured a "Black Crime" watch and publishes well-known white nationalists. “Part of having this be a trusted source is that it needs to have a diversity of views in there, so I think you want to have content that represents different perspectives,” Zuckerberg said last week.

"Perspectives"? Really? As Facebook was announcing its news tab cooperative last week, Breitbart was "cheering a right-wing campaign to spread revenge porn photos of Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA)," Media Matters noted, adding, "Breitbart is currently in ‘24-7 campaign mode’ for Trump, and its sham polling has been cited extensively by the president to push back against the impeachment inquiry." It’s disgraceful, but hardly surprising. Breitbart editor in chief Alex Marlow has gone on the record saying that "rape" is just "sex a woman regrets." Facebook must be so proud.

By the way, this Facebook situation could get worse, and very quickly. The company refuses to release the full list of media partners it has chosen to work with, leading to speculation that the complete roster will include a lot more Breitbart-type GOP swamps, thereby making a mockery of Facebook’s "quality journalism" initiative.

"Facebook wants to win over Republicans, including lawmakers who have grilled Zuckerberg in Congress over shaky claims of ‘anti-conservative bias,’ as well as President Donald Trump, who has threatened tech companies with new laws and antitrust action," The Verge noted. "Leaving out Breitbart might earn Facebook condemnation from these quarters."

It's all very sad, and it's alarmingly common, as traditional media outlets, often fearful of offending conservatives, eliminate all commonsense guidelines and embrace the hateful, disreputable, and destructive work of right-wing media peddlers. Simultaneously, they often lock out thoughtful liberal players from gaining the same access.

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It's almost 2020 and New York Times editors are still debating if Trump's a racist

John Solomon and The Hill's Ukraine reporting debacle: What it tells us about the D.C. media

Roger Stone and the media's shame of 2016

Impeachment hearings confirm Republican Party is detached from reality. What does the press do now?

Memo to media: Don't screw up the impeachment hearings

Michael Bloomberg and the media privilege for billionaire candidates

Ukraine floodgates open and Fox News tries to discredit everyone—but it won't work

Trump's reelection campaign spreads lies online—and the press touts it as savvy

Stop doing this: CBS News hires Fox News reporter who constantly peddled Obama, Clinton conspiracies

CNN's Sean Duffy problem is only going to get worse

The GOP's 'process' attacks on impeachment are a joke—and the press should say so

Facebook and the shameful media tradition of enabling Breitbart hate