Are those letters crooked?
What a difference just a couple of hours make.
When everyone woke up Friday morning to the news that Buzzfeed had EXCLUSIVE reporting that Donald Trump had told his lawyer at the time to lie to Congress, the only question the media had was how long until Trump was impeached. When everyone was tucking themselves in later Friday night the question everyone had was, how many times can Buzzfeed get away with this crap and should anyone watch their cat videos anymore?
Well, at least one member of the 4th estate had the guts or just lost his marbles long enough to say this whole incident was a bad day for the news media. That person was Jeffery Toobin from CNN.
Yes, that CNN. The one that features Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo.
According to Newsweek
On Anderson Cooper 360, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin said the statement was damaging for the media.
“What the reaction here may be is ‘the press screwed up. They should apologize. The media isn’t as great as it thinks it is.
“This is a bad day for the news media. Let’s not kid ourselves. That statement is at least a partial repudiation of an enormously important story,” Mediaite reported him as saying.
As most people now know, Buzzfeed was given a rare rebuttal from the special counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday night about their reporting that Trump had told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress and that was part of the Mueller investigation.
From CNN…
“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, in a statement.
This never happens. Like ever.
Special counsels and federal investigators rarely give a comment other than “no comment”. That the Mueller team felt compelled to come out and release a statement is amazing. With all the abuse President Trump has heaped on Mueller, no one would have batted an eye had the former F.B.I. director just sat on a no comment and let that fester.
So when the all-day media frenzy of how this was the silver bullet to sink Trump was manifesting itself, some people were questioning very basic things about the story. My colleagues here at Red State, Joe Cunningham, and Brandon Morse wrote these stories which started to ask some serious questions about the narrative.
WATCH: Buzzfeed Reporter Admits They Haven’t Seen Documents Supporting Their Bombshell Cohen Report
There’s A Big, Glaring Question In BuzzFeed’s Trump Report
This is something you would expect all media outlets to be doing.
Kudos to Brandon and Joe for filling the void and doing the critical thinking so many in the mainstream press refused to do because their feelings of hate for Trump pretty much trump good reporting.
Jeffery Toobin from CNN had the rare moment on live T.V.and said something on a panel of people who were pushing this story and praying for it to be true.
“This is a bad day for the news media. Let’s not kid ourselves.”
He nailed it.
Now, I’m no fan of Toobin. I thought his commentary on the Kavanaugh hearings and the clown show during it was flat out embarrassing for someone with a “Legal Analyst” tag after his name on CNN. However, if you criticize you should also compliment. Toobin standing up and calling this feeding frenzy of crap reporting and saying it was a bad day for the news media, in general, was spot on.
Some people since Mueller statement has come out have said it was just a bad day for Buzzfeed. Except that the vast majority of those people were breathlessly reporting what the Buzzfeed report had said earlier in the day as fact. Something that everyone in the press knew was coming finally arrived and it was time to celebrate.
Those people who jumped the gun on this were wrong and Jeffery Toobin was right. Screw your feelings on the subject and report the facts and you will have less bad days in general for the media folks.
The media, in general, has done just as much damage to the country as Trump and his antics have. Report the facts first and give your opinion on those facts later. If you don’t have facts, go report the weather. You get to be wrong at least 50% of the time and keep your job.
You just gave Trump a ticket for the rest of his term to use the #Fakenews moniker with something he can point back on over and over and over. He will enjoy this with the excitement of a child on CHRISTmas morning.
The press had a very bad day and they earned every bit of it.
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