Time to learn from 2016 by @BloggersRUs

Time to learn from 2016

by Tom Sullivan

For all the hard-to-quantify damage Russian disinformation did during the 2016 presidential campaign, it is wise to remember Americans were willing accomplices. In one case at least, a profiteer of fake news who didn't live long enough to enjoy his profits. Others spread disinformation from Macedonia. Still others from New York.

Jennifer Rubin last week cited a study published in the Columbia Journalism Review that analyzed how American news outlets covered the 2016 campaign. Aready infamous for its promotion of the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, The New York Times comes in for criticism of how it contributed to the disinformation melee. The Times itself admitted, “Every major publication, including The Times, published multiple stories citing the D.N.C. and Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks, becoming a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.” CJR documented how much the press added:

The research team investigated this question, counting sentences that appeared in mainstream media sources and classifying each as detailing one of several Clinton- or Trump-related issues. In particular, they classified each sentence as describing either a scandal (e.g., Clinton’s emails, Trump’s taxes) or a policy issue (Clinton and jobs, Trump and immigration). They found roughly four times as many Clinton-related sentences that described scandals as opposed to policies, whereas Trump-related sentences were one-and-a-half times as likely to be about policy as scandal. Given the sheer number of scandals in which Trump was implicated—sexual assault; the Trump Foundation; Trump University; redlining in his real-estate developments; insulting a Gold Star family; numerous instances of racist, misogynist, and otherwise offensive speech—it is striking that the media devoted more attention to his policies than to his personal failings. Even more striking, the various Clinton-related email scandals—her use of a private email server while secretary of state, as well as the DNC and John Podesta hacks—accounted for more sentences than all of Trump’s scandals combined (65,000 vs. 40,000) and more than twice as many as were devoted to all of her policy positions.

These reports were not generated by Russian bots, but by U.S. news organizations ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Wall Street Journal, CJR observes.

To the extent that voters mistrusted Hillary Clinton, or considered her conduct as secretary of state to have been negligent or even potentially criminal, or were generally unaware of what her policies contained or how they may have differed from Donald Trump’s, these numbers suggest their views were influenced more by mainstream news sources than by fake news.

Viewing a New York Times front-page story highlighting the racial components of Joe Biden's legislative history, Rubin wonders if anyone has learned from 2016:

For example, the article persistently references Biden working with segregationists in overhauling crime legislation. However, it neglects to put in information that appeared in a prior article (notice the repetition of the same negative story) on June 21: “Mr. Biden accurately noted that he presided over the renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 1982 for 25 years as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, and fought for years to extend and expand the law, which protected racial minorities from discrimination at the voting booth. He was a liberal on most civil rights issues, but he was also a leading opponent of integrating schools through busing from the 1970s to 1980s, though his efforts largely failed.” The most recent article omits that critical context.

Also missing is the overwhelming support that the crime bills garnered. You’d think from the piece it was just Biden and those segregationists toiling away. But the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, for example, passed the Senate 97 to 2. The 1984 bill cited to illustrated that Biden was buddy-buddy with Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) was co-sponsored by “liberal lion” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). And that bill initially passed the Senate on a voice vote.

There is more in that vein, including a quote last week from former senator Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) who served with Biden. She described the hits on him as "opportunistic." Rubin's warning is history may be repeating itself here.

There may be a generational component to the Biden-segregationists stories. That is, what may not have been as big a deal then is a bigger deal now. Nicholas Kristof writes about a disagreement with his daughter over a college professor helping in the defense of Harvey Weinstein. Of course, Weinstein deserves a proper defense, he argued. But a house dean has no business being the one to do it, his daughter argued back. She had a point, Kristof admits.

"Progressives of my era often revere the adage misattributed to Voltaire: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.,'" Kristof writes. "For young progressives, the priority is more about standing up to perceived racism, misogyny, Islamophobia and bigotry." The question is "how to live liberal values in an illiberal age."

The difficulty for legitimate journalism in the digital age is knowing how to prioritize between what generates clicks and what citizens really need to know to make informed decisions. The former lends itself to promoting fake news and catapulting the propaganda. In 2016, that tendency helped elect Russia's preferred candidate.

Biden himself may have delivered "the greatest self-own in debate history" when he uttered, “My time is up.” There is a sense in which Biden is out of his time like Billy Pilgrim. But the normal crucible of primary season will reveal that without slanted reporting or opponents spreading fake stories on social media. Rubin's concern is the press is again poised to do Vladimir Putin's work for him, and Donald Trump's. It is not clear news outlets have learned from 2016.

Nor Democrats, for that matter. Donald Trump wants to run against Biden. Trump won in a change election as an outsider running against a consummate Washington insider. He wants that scenario again. Biden is the closest thing in the Democrats' lineup he gets to running against Hillary a second time. Judging by early polls showing Biden with a comfortable (and comforting) lead, nervous Democrats may not have figured that out.

Democratic primary voters are 3-6 on picking winning presidential candidates over the last 50 years. They are 3-7 if you include Kennedy's challenge to Carter in 1980. Not an inspiring track record for conventional wisdom.