IF characterization is in order — news aggregator Drudge does it all the time by renaming articles while employing active links to the original — AND if as communications theorist Marshall McLuhan maintained “media is the message” (and the massage),* THEN we wish Drudge would have either characterized the Washington Post article for what it was, bovine excretion, or included rebuttal articles. None of the latter have appeared on the site that we were aware. None of the headline articles relate directly or adequately to the veracity of “expose’s” about Sessions. The Daily Caller however printed a critique of the WaPo Sessions article.
The arrowed item reads: “LEAK: Sessions discussed matters related to Trump campaign with Russian Ambassador . . . “
Reading the article, the lead is only true if WaPo is allowed to get away with conflating anything to do with foreign policy positions with “campaign” which by well established innuendo perpetrated by WaPo includes nefarious electoral manipulations.
Drudge’s decision to include the matter might have introduced it as: WaPo distorts what is campaign and what is foreign policy discussion.” Or, “WaPo uses anonymous to cast innuendo, again”
So courageous the WaPo is. Advocate judgement based on anonymous accusers and even anonymous analysts interpreting the unverifiable by the target audience. It is “fake news”, certainly fake-able and they have no compunction, not to use it, indeed a banshee desire to use it. Why not just eliminate the right to confront ones accusers.
Now compare the gospel aura afforded these anonymous sources to the liberal media treatment of David Daleiden and his expose of Planned Parenthood through surreptitious but legal recordings. They ignore, cast aspersion as to accuracy, claim distortion when Daleiden stands up and says “I did it and here are the verifiable full unadulterated tapes.” Somehow he is not credible, but anonymous analysis of anonymous leaks is.
Back to the Daily Caller commentary about the WaPo article. Here are some excerpts:
WaPo Buries Glaring Caveat On Latest Sessions Scoop
The Washington Post’s bombshell Trump-Russia report Friday is just another example of the media placing incriminating information front and center while habitually burying mitigating information deep within the article.
The Post reports U.S. spy agencies intercepted Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak telling superiors he discussed Trump campaign related matters with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Readers, however, have to traverse eight paragraphs framing Kislyak’s account of the conversation with Sessions as demonstrably true. Some readers may come to the conclusion Sessions is guilty as charged.
It wasn’t until the ninth paragraph WaPo finally revealed:
Officials emphasized that the information contradicting Sessions comes from U.S. intelligence on Kislyak’s communications with the Kremlin, and they acknowledged that the Russian ambassador could have mischaracterized or exaggerated the nature of his interactions.
By the eleventh paragraph, the Post reported, “Russian and other foreign diplomats in Washington and elsewhere” are known “to report false or misleading information to bolster their standing with their superiors or to confuse U.S. intelligence agencies.”
. . .
The New York Times reported Friday that a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “said there was nothing automatically inappropriate about Sessions, then a U.S. senator as well as a Trump supporter, discussing policy matters…”
R Mall
*in our interpretation in part because busy or overly distracted people impart information at a glance
