In the previous blog, I talked about the implications of President Trump declassifying material about the mueller investigation that, if known to the public, would damage his opposition.
Well, it has started. And so has the overt media bias that, based on over two years’ experience, is sure to color how it will be reported.
Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs of Zeke Miller and Eric Tucker’s article for the Associated Press:
Trump moves to escalate investigation of intel agencies
President Donald Trump on Thursday granted Attorney General William Barr new powers to review and potentially release classified information related to the origins of the Russia investigation, a move aimed at accelerating Barr’s inquiry into whether U.S. officials improperly surveilled Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Trump directed the intelligence community to “quickly and fully cooperate” with Barr’s probe. The directive marked an escalation in Trump’s efforts to “investigate the investigators,” as he continues to try to undermine the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe amid mounting Democratic calls for impeachment proceedings.
Let’s start with the factual material. Then we’ll get to the overt media bias implicit in how the AP has presented them.
The facts: President Trump has declassified information that would explain how the mueller investigation got started, and this allows Attorney General Barr to release this information.
Let’s stop there for a moment and reflect on those facts:
-Isn’t this good news? Don’t we have a right to know the genesis of a two year, $35 million dollar investigation of the President of the United States?
-Assuming there is no national security issue involved with the declassification, all it means is that we, the public, will now gain insights into why the collusion/obstruction investigation was started. What’s wrong with that?
If the investigation is legitimate, the people who moved it forward should be thrilled at the release of this information. It clears them of any wrongdoing. Why weren’t they demanding its release all along?
Now let’s look at how the Associated Press has framed this.
-The release of this information is called an “escalation”. Escalation of what? This is not an escalation of anything, this is the releasing of existing documents.
-And then there is the claim that “The directive marked an escalation in Trump’s efforts to “investigate the investigators,” as he continues to try to undermine the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe…”?
Is this a news story or an editorial commentary?
If it’s an editorial commentary, we can argue about whether releasing information is undermining anything or just informing us of what actually happened, and we can argue about how ludicrous it is to frame this as an effort to undermine mueller’s findings, given its conclusion that Trump didn’t engage in collusion and there was insufficient evidence to support charges of obstruction.
But this is supposed to be a news story. A news story. No editorial commentary, no partisan lean in any direction, just straight news.
Can anyone seriously look at these paragraphs and call them a no-editorial presentation of straight news?
My advice to you is that, as information about how this “investigation” started comes out, you should get ready for a tidal wave of “straight news” coverage just like what you just read.
Media have spent two years diligently looking the other way about how the mueller “investigation” started. They have ignored the increasing, now-voluminous body of information indicating it was an intentional, deep-state effort to undermine, and overturn, the 2016 presidential election.
And it’s not like the information has not been available to them. People like John Solomon, Sara Carter, Gregg Jarrett and Sean Hannity, among others, have produced enormous amounts of factual, verifiable evidence to support this reality…virtually all of which has been ignored and buried by the networks, the major newspapers in this country.
This leads straight to mainstream media’s self-created problem: now they’re in too deep.
Now, if they honestly report about the fraudulent beginnings of the mueller “investigation”, they inherently raise the issue of “where was your reporting for the over two years this has been going on”. How come that information was available to you and you didn’t look for it or report it?
What possible answer can they have to those questions?
So you can count on a continuation of exactly the kind of “news reporting” in the above-referenced Associated Press report.
Pathetic.
