{"id":335300,"date":"2017-11-16T21:57:37","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T20:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-pathological-refusal-to-report-the-simple-truth-about-presidential-lying\/"},"modified":"2017-11-16T21:57:37","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T20:57:37","slug":"the-pathological-refusal-to-report-the-simple-truth-about-presidential-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-pathological-refusal-to-report-the-simple-truth-about-presidential-lying\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pathological Refusal to Report the Simple Truth About Presidential Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a truism to say that everyone lies to someone. Since public officials entrusted with power in our democracy are no exception to this human trait\u2014as historical research<\/a> documents\u2014it should be exceedingly acceptable to point out that all politicians, from your local city council right up to the White House, lie as well. The Framers afforded the press special constitutional protection in large part to ensure that such lies would not reach the public unchallenged.<\/p>\n

Tragically, one of the most honest rhetorical tools that journalists have in the fight for truth has been struck from the lingua franca <\/i>of US journalists. Within the stilted framework of mainstream news \u201cobjectivity,\u201d the simple act of calling out \u201clies\u201d or \u201clying\u201d by a politician\u2014especially a president\u2014is now taboo. It imputes impossible-to-determine motives to those accused, the thinking goes, so the use of these words to identify a documented falsehood is now considered controversial, partisan, inflammatory, unfair. <\/i><\/p>\n

Last fall, NPR<\/b> editorial director Michael Oreskes constructed his own Orwellian logic <\/a>to defend his news organization\u2019s refusal to use \u201cliar,\u201d asserting that the word constitutes \u201can angry tone\u201d of \u201ceditorializing\u201d that \u201cconfirms opinions\u201d (FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/1\/17<\/a>). \u00a0In January, Maggie Haberman, one of the New York Times<\/b>\u2019 preeminent political reporters, said much the same, claiming<\/a> that her job was \u201cshowing when something untrue is said. Our job is not to say \u2018lied.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The absurd lengths to which corporate media will go to avoid calling presidential lies what they are has been readily apparent in the past month. After four US soldiers were killed in combat in Niger at the beginning of October\u2014under still mysterious circumstances\u2014Donald Trump and then his White House team issued a series of escalating and contradictory false claims to cover for their bumbling, belated response.<\/p>\n

To its credit, the mainstream press did push back against Trump\u2019s grossly untrue claims\u2014at least initially. When Trump, in a Rose Garden press conference, boldly said he makes condolence calls to military next of kin unlike other presidents\u2014namely, his predecessor\u2014NBC News<\/b> reporter Peter Alexander followed up and publicly disputed<\/a> it with facts.<\/p>\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

“Falsely claims” is often the default alternative to directly accusing the powerful of lying (New York Times<\/strong>, 10\/16\/17<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In any other walk of life, reasonable adults would recognize his statement as a pack of lies, spoken in a panic, with evident bad faith. But the closest that \u201cstraight news\u201d journalism got to actually calling them \u201clies\u201d was a New York Times <\/b>headline (10\/16\/17<\/a>) that stated, \u201cTrump Falsely Claims Obama Didn\u2019t Contact Families of Fallen Troops.\u201d<\/p>\n

This phrasing, \u201cfalsely claims\u201d\u2014or \u201cfalsely asserted\u201d\u2014has become corporate media’s default alternative to directly accusing the powerful of lying. But the journalistic instinct to vary a story\u2019s language also works in favor of the powerful, allowing euphemisms for official lies to multiply throughout coverage. And rarely do these replacements do anything but weaken the indictment against the liar.<\/p>\n

For example, the same Times <\/b>story referenced above went from \u201cfalsely asserted\u201d to a much more passive, even less forceful description just a few paragraphs later (all emphases added): \u201cMr. Trump\u2019s assertion belied a long record of meetings <\/b>Mr. Obama held with the families of killed service people.\u201d As for the president\u2019s embarrassingly obvious attempt at covering up his first lie with a bunch of others, the paper wrote: \u201cMr. Trump was pressed later in the news conference about his claim that Mr. Obama had never called bereaved families. This time, he seemed to soften his tone<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/b>\u2019s take (10\/16\/17<\/a>) on the real-time factchecking of the president\u2019s condolence claims was similarly credulous: \u201c<\/b>Later in Monday\u2019s news conference, when asked about his statement on the former presidents, Mr. Trump appeared to backpedal<\/b>.\u201d Yes, the Journal <\/b>wasn\u2019t even willing to report that Trump \u201cbackpedaled\u201d without hedging. For its part, Politifact<\/b> (10\/17\/17<\/a>) called Trump\u2019s claims \u201cmisleading,\u201d but decided the issue was too fraught with caveats to render an official judgment as to whether they were true or false.<\/p>\n

From there, Trump\u2019s phony allegations escalated and his White House staff doubled- then tripled-down, attacking a war widow and a Democratic congressmember along with the press itself. As it did, the coverage began to wilt. Evidently afraid to be seen as taking sides in an increasingly public, partisan fight, our neutrality-minded media stopped trying to scrupulously adjudicate facts.<\/p>\n

\"Roll<\/p>\n

Roll Call<\/strong> (10\/20\/17<\/a>) defanged its expose with circumlocutions like “undermines veracity.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a Fox News<\/b> radio interview the next day (10\/17\/17), Trump claimed that he\u2019d contacted \u201cvirtually everybody\u201d who had lost a loved one in the military since taking office. It was a reckless lie, since his own White House military office didn\u2019t have the necessary information to fulfill that task. In fact, only about half<\/a> of the families had been contacted. We know this because Roll Call <\/b>(10\/20\/17<\/a>) caught the White House dead to rights in an exclusive story. <\/b>Nevertheless, that same story pulled its punches, right from the headline: \u201cPentagon Document Contradicts Trump\u2019s Gold Star Claims: Email Undermines Veracity<\/strong> of President\u2019s Statement About Gold Star Contacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

This inanimate-object-affects-president construction is no coincidence. It\u2019s a staple of press coverage that wants to dance around White House lying without directly confronting it. (Contrast that with this clear, concise Vanity Fair<\/b>\u201410\/21\/17<\/a>\u2014headline about the revelation, which zeroes in on those really responsible and their actions: \u201cThe White House Panicked After Trump Lied About Calling Soldiers\u2019 Families.\u201d)<\/p>\n

After Trump\u2019s bungled condolence call with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson drew outrage from Florida Rep. Federica Wilson, the press\u2019s syntactic contortions multiplied. CNN<\/b> (10\/19\/17<\/a>) got downright creative with its linguistic workarounds in one report:<\/p>\n

\n

Trump’s reflexive boast<\/b> that he was more attentive to the relatives of war dead than his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush set off a cascade of consequences that has left his White House reeling…. The chain of events offers lessons in how a president walks a rhetorical tightrope<\/b> every time he speaks and underlines how Trump’s outspoken bluster<\/b> and relish for confrontation that was so successful on the campaign trail threatens to undermine his hopes for a successful presidency.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Trump laid down a clear marker for the press to check\u2014both on Twitter<\/b> and to TV reporters at a White House meeting\u2014when he claimed that Wilson\u2019s account of the call was \u201ctotally fabricated\u201d and he \u201chad proof.\u201d He did not hedge, and offered no outs for the press to give him the benefit of the doubt under the banner of a misunderstanding or partial error. But when the mother of Sergeant Johnson, who was present for the call, and then Trump\u2019s own proxies corroborated Wilson\u2019s story, the press folded like a cheap suit.<\/p>\n

To be fair, the press was partly distracted by White House chief of staff John Kelly\u2019s entrance into the saga. After a credulous, fawning review of his defense of Trump, it turned out he too was pushing false claims against Representative Wilson. From the White House press podium, Kelly recounted a story about her 2015 speech at the opening of a new FBI facility in her district, clearly meant to highlight her supposed penchant for crass self-aggrandizement. But within a day, the Florida Sun-Sentinel<\/b> (10\/21\/17<\/a>) uncovered video evidence that unraveled Kelly\u2019s story completely.<\/p>\n

\"CNN:<\/p>\n

News outlets often attribute the word “lie” to an interested source (CNN<\/strong>, 10\/20\/17<\/a>)–reinforcing the idea that calling something a lie is a partisan charge.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Another crutch corporate media use when they don\u2019t want to weigh in on the truth is the attributed \u201clie\u201d\u2014as in a CNN <\/b>story (10\/20\/17<\/a>) that ran under the headline: <\/b>\u201cRep. Frederica Wilson: Kelly Lied About FBI Ceremony.\u201d It\u2019s telling that the word \u201clie\u201d is not allowed to stand on its own, as an informed assessment by the reporter or editor.<\/p>\n

Soon the lies and the White House\u2019s stubborn denials of them were piling up on top of one another so fast that establishment press coverage took on an almost weary tone. The Washington Post<\/b> (10\/20\/17<\/a>) inflicted this lazy, garbled phrasing on its readers to describe the White House:<\/p>\n

\n

The ensuing debate has focused on attacks against Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D) that have proved to be inaccurate but that the White House has refused to back away from<\/b>, with the latest episode ensnaring Chief of Staff John F. Kelly…. Instead of backing down, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders piled on Friday and said Kelly was justified in accusing the lawmaker of grandstanding, despite erring on the facts<\/b>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Similarly, a New York Times <\/b>news analysis (10\/21\/17<\/a>) offered up an embarrassment of riches: <\/b><\/p>\n

\n

By attacking Ms. Wilson, Mr. Kelly amplified the controversy. And by citing past events that turned out to be false<\/b>, Mr. Kelly invited news media scrutiny and criticism even from his former military colleagues…. In another White House, a chief of staff might have followed up with an apology of his own, or at least an attempt to correct the record<\/b>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Associated Press<\/b> (10\/21\/17<\/a>) simply chalked Kelly\u2019s claim up to a bad memory: \u201cVideo of the speech contradicted his recollection<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

What these stories all failed to do, though, was fully connect the dots between Trump\u2019s and Kelly\u2019s demonstrably false claims, on the one hand, and the White House\u2019s stunning refusal to acknowledge or accept that as reality. When Trump or his White House proxies continue to stand by or repeat claims<\/i> that facts have proven are simply not true, that establishes an intent to deceive\u2014the very definition of lying\u2014by anyone, president or no.<\/p>\n

By the time Myeshia Johnson, Sergeant Johnson\u2019s widow, went public, again<\/i> confirming Rep. Wilson\u2019s account, the corporate media began treating the storyline much like any other political dispute, worthy of the full panoply of compromised, parsed phrasing. For example, a Washington Post <\/b>update on the story (10\/23\/17<\/a>) was a case study in how the press generously deploys euphemisms to cover for official lying. <\/b>In it, you\u2019d learn of Trump\u2019s \u201cover-broad boasts<\/b>\u201d and \u201cinconsistent official accounts<\/b>,\u201d as well as that \u201cTrump and Kelly disregarded\u2026fidelity to fact.<\/b>\u201d<\/p>\n

The press\u2019s fecklessness rumbled on, as the first charges from special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation\u2014two indictments, for Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, and a guilty plea for lying from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos\u2014came to light on the morning of October 30. That afternoon, Trump White House press secretary Sarah Sanders gave an Orwellian performance<\/a> for the ages. During her daily press briefing, she made a number of premeditated, demonstrably false statements<\/a> to the press about the Mueller probe that fit the very definition of a lie.<\/p>\n

Brian Stelter, in his daily CNN Reliable Sources<\/b> newsletter (10\/30\/17<\/a>), came the closest to directly calling out what were obvious, intentionally misleading claims as lies:<\/p>\n

\n

The Trump administration and its media allies want this to be foggy. When you say \u201cRussia,\u201d they say \u201cHillary.\u201d Sarah Sanders did it at Monday’s strange press briefing…after reading an old parable about taxes to promote Trump’s tax cut plan…. She said \u201ctoday’s announcement has nothing to do with the president\u201d (untrue) \u201cnothing to do with the president’s campaign\u201d (untrue) \u201cor campaign activity\u201d (untrue). This part was music to Fox<\/strong>‘s ears: \u201cThe real collusion scandal,\u201d she said, \u201chas everything to do with the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS and Russia.\u201d <\/i>This<\/i> \u201cchange the subject\u201d <\/i><\/strong>dodge<\/strong> has to be called out\u2026<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Still, Stelter couldn\u2019t bring himself to say Sanders was lying.<\/p>\n

Other news coverage was even more accommodating to Sanders and the White House\u2019s willful dishonesty. Stelter\u2019s colleague at CNN<\/b>, political analyst Chris Cillizza, ran a column (10\/31\/17<\/a>) that characterized her claims as a \u201cmassive exaggeration<\/b>\u201d and a \u201cvery bold claim<\/b>,\u201d before throwing in some false equivalence to conclude that Sanders\u2019 claims were \u201cpart and parcel of the political spin<\/b> all administrations engage in when trying to bury a bad story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

You’re doing something wrong when your headlines (New York Times<\/strong>, 10\/30\/17<\/a>)…<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Others in the mainstream media fell into the maddeningly negligent trap of granting her claims the privilege of running in their headlines unchallenged, further perpetuating her lies to the many readers who will only glance at their coverage.<\/p>\n