It was inevitable that the mainstream media would run for cover. BuzzFeed gave them a gem by publishing a confidential dossier detailing Donald Trump’s connections to Russia, and they were happy to base much of their reporting on it. But in this era of fake news, euphoria quickly turned into panic. The Trump dossier filled with salacious allegations of tapes supposedly held by the Russians is unverified—and BuzzFeed went ahead and reported it as such.
A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks.
The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.
Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.
Predictably, every major news outlet ran with the story, despite the various disclaimers. After Donald Trump vehemently denied the allegations and called out BuzzFeed and CNN for delivering “fake news,” the mainstream media panic started to set in.
The Atlantic's David Graham wrote, "Smith’s reasoning is sincere and considered, but the conclusion is highly dubious. Even more perturbing was the reasoning in the published story." Graham was referring to Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed.
The New York Times' Kelly McBride wrote, "By publishing an unverified report alleging the Russians have compromising information on President-elect Donald J. Trump, BuzzFeed made it less likely that truth will be journalists' only goal and less likely that when the truth surfaces, the public will believe it."
Chuck Todd interviewed Ben Smith and outright accused him of publishing fake news. Later in the same interview, Todd made a striking statement. He quoted Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, who said "it's never been acceptable to publish rumor and innuendo."
Hypocrites populate the mainstream media. BuzzFeed's release of the unsubstantiated Trump dossier is no different than Trump's unsubstantiated birther utterances that the press ran with throughout President Obama's presidency.The Trump dossier is still rumor and innuendo, while birtherism was always a verifiable lie that was given traction by the mainstream media.
The concern for press believability that the New York Times' Kelly McBride expressed is way too late. Much of the mainstream media just allows their airwaves and column inches to be taken over by those expounding lies to ensure that an ill-informed and confused electorate will continue to empower the few—the plutocracy that continues to pilfer them.
So what is fake news? How about allowing proponents of trickle-down economics to get on the airwaves and promote it as a policy that creates jobs and encourages wealth building for the masses, when reality and deterministic numerical analysis prove otherwise? That’s fake news. The mainstream media lies through their acquiescence and virtual silence.
Even with all of its flaws, Obamacare is provably mathematically superior to the laissez-faire, evil, and inhumane healthcare orthodoxy practiced by this country. Yet the mainstream media prostitute their airwaves to give a platform to those who lie and tear down Obamacare for ideological reasons.
In today's climate where very few have faith in the mainstream media, BuzzFeed's calculation to release the dossier was justified. In fact, they should have released it before the election.
Trump's irrational love for Vladimir Putin and his inability to accept that Russia was destabilizing our election justifies the publication of the dossier. Exploring why he would endanger Americans by adopting Putin's desired policies for NATO means examining all of the pertinent data in the public domain.
Trump's deafness to the Russian attack on our election, even with all our intelligence agencies agreeing on that reality, leads one to believe Russia just might have something on him. The ubiquitously circulated dossier thus deserves examination.
The mainstream media's condemnation of BuzzFeed on this issue is unjustified. First, they don’t have the credibility to pass judgment, given their inability to prevent their airwaves and other properties from being used for disseminating life-altering lies. Second, they continue to function as wards of the plutocracy by only promoting their ideology over what is best for Americans and humanity as a whole.
It‘s time for the alternative media to stand up. And as for mainstream media outlets: until they live up to their constitutional role, they will remain irrelevant.
