{"id":102345,"date":"2017-11-27T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=102345"},"modified":"2017-11-22T10:00:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T10:00:13","slug":"the-lost-journalistic-standards-of-russia-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/11\/the-lost-journalistic-standards-of-russia-gate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Journalistic Standards of Russia-gate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Russia-gate hysteria has witnessed a widespread collapse of journalistic standards as major U.S. news outlets ignore rules about how to treat evidence in dispute.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

20 Nov 2017 – <\/em>A danger in both journalism and intelligence is to allow an unproven or seriously disputed fact to become part of the accepted narrative where it gets widely repeated and thus misleads policymakers and citizens alike, such as happened during the run-up to war with Iraq and is now recurring amid the frenzy over Russia-gate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For instance, in a Russia-gate story<\/a> on Saturday, The New York Times reported as flat fact that a Kremlin intermediary \u201ctold a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, that the Russians had \u2018dirt\u2019 on Mr. Trump\u2019s rival, Hillary Clinton, in the form of \u2018thousands of emails.\u2019\u201d The Times apparently feels that this claim no longer needs attribution even though it apparently comes solely from the 32-year-old Papadopoulos as part of his plea bargain<\/a> over lying to the FBI.<\/p>\n

Beyond the question of trusting an admitted liar like Papadopoulos, his supposed Kremlin contact, professor Joseph Mifsud, a little-known academic associated with the University of Stirling in Scotland, denied knowing anything about Democratic emails.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with the U.K. Daily Telegraph, Mifsud acknowledged meeting with Papadopoulos but disputed having close ties to the Kremlin and rejected how Papadopoulos recounted their conversations. Specifically, he denied the claim that he mentioned emails containing \u201cdirt\u201d on Clinton.<\/p>\n

Even New York Times correspondent Scott Shane noted<\/a> late last month \u2013 after the criminal complaint against Papadopoulos was unsealed \u2013 that \u201cA crucial detail is still missing: Whether and when Mr. Papadopoulos told senior Trump campaign officials about Russia\u2019s possession of hacked emails. And it appears that the young aide\u2019s quest for a deeper connection with Russian officials, while he aggressively pursued it, led nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shane added, \u201cthe court documents describe in detail how Mr. Papadopoulos continued to report to senior campaign officials on his efforts to arrange meetings with Russian officials, \u2026 the documents do not say explicitly whether, and to whom, he passed on his most explosive discovery \u2013 that the Russians had what they considered compromising emails on Mr. Trump\u2019s opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cJ.D. Gordon, a former Pentagon official who worked for the Trump campaign as a national security adviser [and who dealt directly with Papadopoulos] said he had known nothing about Mr. Papadopoulos\u2019 discovery that Russia had obtained Democratic emails or of his prolonged pursuit of meetings with Russians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missing Corroboration<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the journalistic question is somewhat different: why does the Times trust the uncorroborated assertion that Mifsud told Papadopoulos about the emails \u2014 and trust the claim to such a degree that the newspaper would treat it as flat fact? Absent corroborating evidence, isn\u2019t it just as likely (if not more likely) that Papadopoulos is telling the prosecutors what he thinks they want to hear?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.<\/p><\/div>\n

If the prosecutors working for Russia-gate independent counsel Robert Mueller had direct evidence that Mifsud did tell Papadopoulos about the emails, you would assume that they would have included the proof in the criminal filing against Papadopoulos, which was made public on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n

Further, since Papadopoulos was peppering the Trump campaign with news about his Russian outreach in 2016, you might have expected that he would include something about how helpful the Russians had been in obtaining and publicizing the Democratic emails.<\/p>\n

But none of Papadopoulos\u2019s many emails to Trump campaign officials about his Russian contacts (as cited by the prosecutors) mentioned the hot news about \u201cdirt\u201d on Clinton or the Russians possessing \u201cthousands of emails.\u201d This lack of back-up would normally raise serious doubts about Papadopoulos\u2019s claim, but \u2013 since Papadopoulos was claiming something that the prosecutors and the Times wanted to believe \u2013 reasonable skepticism was swept aside.<\/p>\n

What the Times seems to have done is to accept a bald assertion by Mueller\u2019s prosecutors as sufficient basis for jumping to the conclusion that this disputed claim is undeniably true. But just because Papadopoulos, a confessed liar, and these self-interested prosecutors claim something is true doesn\u2019t make it true.<\/p>\n

Careful journalists would wonder, as Shane did, why Papadopoulos who in 2016 was boasting of his Russian contacts to make himself appear more valuable to the Trump campaign wouldn\u2019t have informed someone about this juicy tidbit of information, that the Russians possessed \u201cthousands of emails\u201d on Clinton.<\/p>\n

Yet, the prosecutors\u2019 statement regarding Papadopoulos\u2019s guilty plea is strikingly silent on corroborating evidence that could prove that, first, Russia did possess the Democratic emails (which Russian officials deny) and, second, the Trump campaign was at least knowledgeable about this core fact in the support of the theory about the campaign\u2019s collusion with the Russians (which President Trump and other campaign officials deny).<\/p>\n

Of course, it could be that the prosecutors\u2019 \u201cfact\u201d will turn out to be a fact as more evidence emerges, but anyone who has covered court cases or served on a jury knows that prosecutors\u2019 criminal complaints and pre-trial statements should be taken with a large grain of salt. Prosecutors often make assertions based on the claim of a single witness whose credibility gets destroyed when subjected to cross-examination.<\/p>\n

That is why reporters are usually careful to use words like \u201calleged\u201d in dealing with prosecutors\u2019 claims that someone is guilty. However, in Russia-gate, all the usual standards of proof and logic have been jettisoned. If something serves the narrative, no matter how dubious, it is embraced by the U.S. mainstream media, which \u2013 for the past year \u2013 has taken a lead role in the anti-Trump \u201cResistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

A History of Bias<\/strong><\/p>\n

This tendency to succumb to \u201cconfirmation bias,\u201d i.e., to believe the worst about some demonized figure, has inflicted grave damage in other recent situations as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations on Feb. 5. 2003, citing satellite photos which supposedly proved that Iraq had WMD, but the evidence proved bogus.<\/p><\/div>\n

One example is described in the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s 2006\u00a0study<\/a> of the false intelligence that undergirded the case for invading Iraq in 2003. That inquiry discovered that previously discredited WMD claims kept reemerging in finished U.S. intelligence analyses as part of the case for believing that Iraq was hiding WMD.<\/p>\n

In the years before the Iraq invasion, the U.S. government had provided tens of millions of dollars to Iraqi exiles in the Iraqi National Congress, and the INC, in turn, produced a steady stream of \u201cwalk-ins\u201d who claimed to be Iraqi government \u201cdefectors\u201d with knowledge about Saddam Hussein\u2019s secret WMD programs.<\/p>\n

Some U.S. intelligence analysts \u2014 though faced with White House pressure to accept this \u201cevidence\u201d \u2014 did their jobs honestly and exposed a number of the \u201cdefectors\u201d as paid liars, including one, who was identified in the Senate report as \u201cSource Two,\u201d who talked about Iraq supposedly building mobile biological weapons labs.<\/p>\n

CIA analysts caught Source Two in contradictions and issued a \u201cfabrication notice\u201d in May 2002, deeming him \u201ca fabricator\/provocateur\u201d and asserting that he had \u201cbeen coached by the Iraqi National Congress prior to his meeting with western intelligence services.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Defense Intelligence Agency never repudiated the specific reports that were based on Source Two\u2019s debriefings. Source Two also continued to be cited in five CIA intelligence assessments and the pivotal National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002, \u201cas corroborating other source reporting about a mobile biological weapons program,\u201d the Senate Intelligence Committee report said.<\/p>\n

Thus, Source Two became one of four human sources referred to by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his United Nations speech on Feb. 5, 2003, making the case that Iraq was lying when it insisted that it had ended its WMD programs. (The infamous \u201cCurve Ball\u201d was another of these dishonest sources.)<\/p>\n

Losing the Thread<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the U.S. invasion and the failure to find the WMD caches, a CIA analyst who worked on Powell\u2019s speech was asked how a known \u201cfabricator\u201d (Source Two) could have been used for such an important address by a senior U.S. government official. The analyst responded, \u201cwe lost the thread of concern as time progressed I don\u2019t think we remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Washington Post\u2019s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt.<\/p><\/div>\n

A CIA supervisor added, \u201cClearly we had it at one point, we understood, we had concerns about the source, but over time it started getting used again and there really was a loss of corporate awareness that we had a problem with the source.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, like today\u2019s Russia-gate hysteria, the Iraq-WMD groupthink had spread so widely across U.S. government agencies and the U.S. mainstream media that standard safeguards against fake evidence were discarded. People in Official Washington, for reasons of careerism and self-interest, saw advantages in running with the Iraq-WMD pack and recognized the dangers of jumping in front of the stampeding herd to raise doubts about Iraq\u2019s WMD.<\/p>\n

Back then, the personal risk to salary and status came from questioning the Iraq-WMD groupthink because there was always the possibility that Saddam Hussein indeed was hiding WMD and, if so, you\u2019d be forever branded as a \u201cSaddam apologist\u201d; while there were few if any personal risks to agreeing with all those powerful people that Iraq had WMD, even if that judgment turned out to be disastrously wrong.<\/p>\n

Sure, American soldiers and the people of Iraq would pay a terrible price, but your career likely would be safe, a calculation that proved true for people like Fred Hiatt, the editorial-page editor of The Washington Post who repeatedly reported Iraq\u2019s WMD as flat fact<\/a> and today remains the editorial-page editor of The Washington Post.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Official Washington\u2019s judgment now is that there is no real downside to joining the Resistance to Trump, who is widely viewed as a buffoon, unfit to be President of the United States. So, any means to remove him are seen by many Important People as justified \u2013 and the Russian allegations seem to be the weightiest rationale for his impeachment or forced resignation.<\/p>\n

Professionally, it is much riskier to insist on unbiased standards of evidence regarding Trump and Russia. You\u2019ll just stir up a lot of angry questions about why are you \u201cdefending Trump.\u201d You\u2019ll be called a \u201cTrump enabler\u201d and\/or a \u201cKremlin stooge.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, basing decisions on dubious information carries its own dangers for the nation and the world. Not only do the targets end up with legitimate grievances about being railroaded \u2013 and not only does this prejudicial treatment undermine faith in the fairness of democratic institutions \u2013 but falsehoods can become the basis for wider policies that can unleash wars and devastation.<\/p>\n

We saw the horrific outcome of the Iraq War, but the risks of hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia are far graver; indeed, billions of people could die and human civilization end.\u00a0With stakes so high, The New York Times and Mueller\u2019s prosecutors owe the public better than treating questionable accusations as flat fact.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Investigative Reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the <\/em>Associated Press and<\/em> Newsweek. His book, <\/em>Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush<\/a>, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat. His two previous books are <\/em>Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq<\/a> and<\/em> Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’<\/a>.<\/em> You can buy his latest book, <\/em>America\u2019s Stolen Narrative, either in\u00a0print here<\/a>\u00a0or as an e-book (from Amazon<\/a> and barnesandnoble.com<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 consortiumnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 Nov 2017 – A danger in both journalism and intelligence is to allow an unproven or seriously disputed fact to become part of the accepted narrative where it gets widely repeated and thus misleads policymakers and citizens alike, such as happened during the run-up to war with Iraq and is now recurring amid the frenzy over Russia-gate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}