{"id":297316,"date":"2017-03-02T21:16:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T20:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/wapo-spins-its-scoop-to-minimize-damage-to-sessions\/"},"modified":"2017-03-02T21:16:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T20:16:00","slug":"wapo-spins-its-scoop-to-minimize-damage-to-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/wapo-spins-its-scoop-to-minimize-damage-to-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"WaPo Spins Its Scoop to Minimize Damage to Sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Washington<\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/strong> (3\/1\/17) plays down its scoop.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Washington Post<\/strong>, which broke the Jeff Sessions\/Russian ambassador story (3\/1\/17<\/a>), is framing it to minimize political damage to the attorney general. Here’s the headline:<\/p>\n

Sessions Met With Russian Envoy Twice Last Year, Encounters He Later Did Not Disclose<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But the problem is not that Sessions “did not disclose” his meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; it’s that he lied about them under oath<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As the Post<\/strong>‘s story notes in its sixth paragraph, when asked during his confirmation hearings about contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, he replied, \u201cI have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I did not have communications with the Russians”\u2014an unqualified denial of the kind of meetings he now acknowledges that he had.<\/p>\n

Given the impact of media perception on DC reality, if the Post<\/strong> had accurately headlined its story “Sessions Lied Under Oath About Meeting With Russians,” he might be in far more\u00a0 political (not to mention legal) jeopardy\u2014but that kind of forthrightness was reserved for partisan outlets like Think Progress<\/strong> (3\/2\/17<\/a>), whose story was headed “Sessions Lied to Congress About His Contacts With Russia During the Trump Campaign.”<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Post<\/strong> piece reports in the third paragraph that Sessions “has so far resisted calls to recuse himself<\/a>” from a hypothetical investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. In the 22nd paragraph, though, we learn that calls have gone far beyond recusal: “Several Democratic members of the House on Wednesday night called on Sessions to resign from his post”\u2014including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.<\/p>\n

It’s a mistake to think that the era of online news has eroded the power of the traditional media establishment. The fact is that with monthly visitors surpassing 80 million<\/a>, and 90,000 websites<\/a> linking to it, WashingtonPost.com<\/strong>‘s reach far exceeds what the print-only Post<\/strong> ever dreamed of.\u00a0 The spin the outlet that breaks a story puts on that story can be replicated across social media with the speed of a mouse click. And in this case, the spin seems designed to limit the threat to Sessions’ job\u2014let alone the threat of prosecution for perjury.<\/p>\n

\n

Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org<\/strong>. You can find him on Twitter<\/strong>: @JNaureckas<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Messages can be sent to the Washington Post <\/strong>at letters@washpost.com<\/a>, or via Twitter<\/strong> @washingtonpost<\/a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post (3\/1\/17) plays down its scoop. The Washington Post, which broke the Jeff Sessions\/Russian ambassador story (3\/1\/17), is framing it to minimize political damage to the attorney general. Here’s the headline: Sessions Met With Russian Envoy Twice Last Year, Encounters He Later Did Not Disclose But the problem is not that Sessions “did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-297316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}