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Conspiracy Theories and Flawed Journalism
In case you haven’t been paying attention, Donald Trump has once again stirred up a hornet’s nest with one of his tweets, this time concerning the death of Lori Klausutis, an employee of then-Congressman Joe Scarborough. The story in a nutshell is that Klausutis, an otherwise fit young woman of 28, died in Scarborough’s Fort Walton Beach office from a head injury she sustained when passing out due to an undiagnosed heart condition. It has been a favorite topic among conspiracy theorists for almost 20 years.
The medical examiner’s report should have been the end of it. After all, the outcome of the autopsy was perfectly reasonable. But then several things got in the way. One, the medical examiner that made the ruling turned out to be a bit of a crackpot, arrested a decade later for illegally keeping stolen body parts in a South Florida storage facility. Secondly, Scarborough himself hasn’t helped. Here he is joking about the incident on Don Imus’ nationally syndicated radio show while pushing the launch of a show on MSNBC:
That was in 2003. Laughter is a strange reaction from someone who said it was outrageous rumors that caused him to resign his seat in Congress.
The reactions to Trump’s tweet has been predictable enough. But like so many of the other outrages of the Trump era, the anger is either misplaced or counterproductive. Like the political class that wishes to ignore their own complicity in Trump’s rise to the Oval Office, likewise the press wishes to ignore their own complicity in making the truth a rare commodity in the so-called “age of information.” If you spend three years rumor-mongering about Russia collusion theories and the backgrounds of Supreme Court nominees it’s difficult to take your objections to the President’s tweets seriously. In the end the reality of your headline is “Noted Victim of Conspiracy Theories Shares His Own Conspiracy Theories.”
Someone on Twitter framed the situation thusly: There is no difference between a “conspiracy theory” and “fake news.” That, of course, is nonsense. Conspiracy theories are partly based on the experience that the application of the law is too often double-tiered, with one set of rules for ordinary citizens and another for the well-connected. This is universal. Those on the right see privilege born of political power, those on the left see it as being the result of wealth and race.
In that regard, most conspiracy theories are organic, born of curiosity and mistrust, and perpetuated because the ordinary citizen doesn’t have the resources to disprove them. That makes “fake news” ten times worse. It’s not amateur bumbling, it’s professional malpractice. They have the resources and the skill but lack the motivation and therefore the effort to provide the most truthful reporting possible.
All good reporters and the best stories begin with theories and the simple question, “What if…” It’s the ability to follow through and the willingness to be convinced that dead ends aren’t wasted that makes a good journalist.
But there is also a basic flaw in journalism that needs to be addressed: the two source rule. In an era where elements of the Federal Government are actively trying to undermine and overturn the results of elections the standard for printing or broadcasting, an item needs to be higher than that. As the folks at Fusion GPS demonstrated, finding two or more people to tell the same lie in order to get that lie into the papers and on-air is an awfully easy thing to accomplish.
Fundamentally, a functioning press would be able to able to throttle conspiracy theories without breaking a sweat. But that takes trust from the public-at-large, something that the profession of journalism has willingly abandoned in the pursuance of political goals.
Published in Journalism
Yes, I’ve never understood why Ted Cruz and his family have resisted turning over all the rocks regarding his father’s involvement in JFK’s assassination.
#AnalogyFail Gumby
If it is so disreputable, it should be easy for you to refute the points.
A “murder”?
Did I stutter?
https://wjla.com/news/local/read-new-report-released-on-seth-richs-murder-investigation
Knowing now what Comey, McCabe, Mueller, Brennan and Clapper did to the President of the United States, you’re perfectly comfortable with D.C. police, both federal and local as being completely honest?
Let’s pretend you are right.Here’s what I will say. You NeverTrump Republicans caused this or at least helped. This is why I will work tirelessly to defeat every last remnant of your ilk. Your team, whatever you call yourselves, will never win another election. You might say Trump caused the downfall of the GOP. I will say it was you and your faction. We can fight it out in the streets.
But if Trump loses, there’s no redemption for the GOP. Sadly, also our country will probably go through a cold, or possibly hot, civil war.
Anyone who thinks conservative-leaning voters are going back to voting for the likes of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, or taking advice from the likes of Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg or Peter Weiner, is a political moron.
I think it’s mainly fear.
Donald Trump has not one bit of interest about what really happened in this case. He was ticked off, justifiably, at Scarborough’s attacks on him and picked up whatever was handy to smack him with. His doesn’t care at all about the victim or the family. That always been his mode; he was like this well before the media turned on him. And no, nutcases make every case seem suspicious and thrive on keeping cases open forever (as with the JFK assassination) so it is perfectly understandable why families don’t go along with it. And you are wrong that the only explanation is they’ve been threatened or paid off by the guilty. In today’s world, stuff like this brings out paranoid sicko conspiracy theory nuts from across the political spectrum who harass families with stupid theories.
Here is a problem with where we are in politics and the press: We have become overly invested in narratives, not reality. It’s why so few people not named Salena Zito saw 2016 happening in real time. The media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) pre-wrote the script: Blue Firewall, Crashing the Glass Ceiling, A bold new day for identity politics… and then it came crashing down around them.
The anti-Trump forces are doing the same thing now: Repudiation of fighting back, Civility will carry the day, America will tack back to the Center and return to us, etc. etc. And if the election actually hinges on the economy and the response to Covid-19 then they will have learned all the wrong lessons and felt “vindicated” for all the wrong reasons leading to a future of more defeat.
Let’s set aside the concrete case and talk in generalities for a second.
Suppose someone you love gets mixed up with a really scary crowd, then dies in suspicious circumstances. Suppose he or she witnesses a crime committed by a drug gang. Suppose a family member died in a shameful way.
These are all cases that might naturally incline you to not want an investigation. You might beg and plead with journalists and cops and curious onlookers to go away and leave you in peace.
It’s humanly understandable. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong for those journalists or cops or onlookers to press for an investigation. On the contrary.
Maybe that’s true. It’s an interpretation of his character. My own interpretation of his character has changed dramatically for the better over the last three years. I still don’t imagine he’s faultless. I don’t even think he’s particularly good in the conventional moral sense. I do think he’s proven a remarkably strong and effective chief executive of the U.S.
I will certainly vote for him in November. And I’ll be praying for God’s protection over him between now and then. He is under a shocking amount of pressure. I don’t know how he’s holding up. Takes some serious moral stuff, imo.
I want to hear about how Joe Biden is despicable for blaming his son’s death on a truck driver who did nothing to cause the accident saying falsely that he “drank his lunch”.
This falsehood wasn’t uttered out of frustration or retaliation, it was just said to enhance sympathy for Biden. He doesn’t care about the reputation of the truck driver or his feelings.
Can you imagine being the truck driver who had to deal with a horrific accident that wasn’t your fault and then get publicly blamed for it by a US Senator and Vice President?
I think the President (and his family and Gen. Michael Flynn’s family) are also tired of being harassed with conspiracy theories that have been fully investigated with a microscope and with no convictions and may like some symmetry to the banning of such conspiracy theories about him being promoted in the media.
We shall see. If given the choice of losing with Trump, or winning with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, what would you choose?
Ironically, it was Neilia Biden, not Curtis Dunn, who might have been at fault.
In October 2008, Dunn’s daughter, Pamela Hamill, had had enough of Joe Biden’s lies about her father. As reported by Carl Hamilton for Newark Post on Oct. 30, 2008:
Justice for Curtis C. Dunn!
Meaningless hypothetical. We don’t and can’t know before the vote who will win.
One reason I couldn’t vote for Trump last time is that I was sure he couldn’t win. I was wrong about that. Since then, I’ve gained a lot of respect for those who saw before I did what has come out clearly since: he’s way, way better at fighting and winning than any Republican I’ve known since Reagan. (Probably Grenell would give him a run for his money on that score.) This has a lot to do with his fearlessness and his willingness to say and do things the whole establishment class says you’re not allowed to say and do.
That brings memories of the French Davidian running in 2016.
As I’ve said above, I’m voting for him, and my observation is Trump is remarkably consistent in his behavior over the years for better and for worse. It looks like some people are taking my problem with this and some of his other stuff, as not wanting to fight back. Trump destroyed the remnants of the old GOP, which deserved it, and one of my problems was that so many of its leaders were afraid to fight back and inept when they did so. I like Trump’s attack on fake news but there’s a part of him that will say anything, and sounds (and is) stupid, reckless and, I think counterproductive. I follow Trump’s official and personal twitter. There’s a lot on there I like (good stuff going on that even many outlets favorable to him rarely mention). There is also a small, but steady, stream of what I think is nutty stuff. I saw this particular tweet and did what I usually do, shrug and move on because I’ve come to accept it’s part of the whole package and not going to change. I didn’t write a post about it or mention it but if someone is going to try to excuse it or place the blame on someone else, I’m going to object.
This is the kind of meaningless speculation Bill Kristol engages in. I guess you like that kind of thing.
You’re arguing points not in evidence again, counselor. Maryland is not America writ large. Just as electability in Massachusetts meant nothing to Romney. Here in Ohio, Kasich misread state Democratic ineptitude and his mediocre FNC cable ratings and assumed they translated into a national base.
“A” does not equal “B” that allows you to assume “C.”
If there is going to be a post-Trump future for the GOP it will be someone who is close to Trump on immigration & trade, not a Chamber of Commerce Republican, optimistic and a fighter, without some of the rhetorical excess and personality attributes that make Trump so hard for some otherwise persuadable voters to accept. And the media will also hate that candidate.
John Hinderacker at Powerline doesn’t think much of Trump’s tweet–and puts it in context:
What exactly is an appropriately Presidential response to a serial liar and trafficker in disinformation?
I’ve quoted the late Steven Den Beste’s definition of Jacksonianism elsewhere, but it seems like a good description of Trump’s response.
I think the media operates from the same assumptions that Gary makes, namely that the Republican response will be Bulwarkian, i.e., that it will mirror Kristol, Last, French, et al.. They see this as a wedge issue which is why they keep pushing it. If you poll on just that you can prove it, too. But then if you ask them their top priorities for the election it never makes the list.
Gallup hasn’t polled this broader question of electorate priorities since January. How Trump responds to that will be more meaningful than anything he has or ever will tweet. If he makes the point that it’s a good thing we had the Trump economy to take the Covid blow in the first place and frames the Democrats as the party that put Covid into nursing homes he may be fine. (Not to mention what mental shape Biden shows in October.)
Do you want your unicorn to poop red M&Ms or orange Skittles.
That choice is just as available as the one you posited. Larry Hogan is not, and will not be on the ballot.
This is the kind of speculation that I engage in. Bill Kristol does not dictate my speculation. I will note that I had an open bet that the Democrats would take back the House of Representatives in 2018, which most members of Ricochet found laughable. I was right then. Maybe I will be right in 2020. We shall see.
Who in the world are you talk about being a serial liar and trafficker i disinformation?
And now there are three Republican elected officials who have called Trump out, the third ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, Liz Cheney. From The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-republicans-lawmakers-calling-out-trump-on-his-scarborough-murder-insanity?ref=home:
“Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a somewhat moderate Republican who has been fairly critical of Trump in the past, was the first Republican to push back on the president’s conspiratorial rantings.
‘”‘Completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop. Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us,’ the Illinois congressman tweeted on Sunday in response to one of Trump’s more heinous tweets, which in addition to accusing Scarborough of murder alleged the TV host may have had an ‘affair’ with Klausutis.
“Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), an outspoken Trump critic whom the president has recently labeled a ‘loser‘ became the first Republican senator to push back against the president.
“‘I know Joe Scarborough,’ Romney tweeted Wednesday. ‘Joe is a friend of mine. I don’t know T.J. Klausutis. Joe can weather vile, baseless accusations but T.J.? His heart is breaking. Enough already.’
“Shortly after Romney’s online condemnation of the president, the third-ranking member of the House, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), also called out Trump while speaking to reporters.
“‘I do think the president should stop tweeting about Joe Scarborough,’ she said. ‘We’re in the middle of a pandemic. He’s the commander in chief of this nation. And it’s causing great pain to the family of the young woman who died.’
“Notably, Cheney had been asked to comment about face masks, and she took it upon herself to add her opinion about Trump’s continued obsession with accusing a cable-news host of murder.”
Or do you consider Liz Cheney to be a RINO squish?
Adam Kinzinger
(Combine/IL)
Conservative Review score 33% (F)
Mitt Romney
(R/UT)
Conservative Review score 50% (F)
Liz Cheney
(R/WY)
Conservative Review score 58% (F)
You sure can pick them, Gary. Rock-ribbed, each one of them.
“Combine”? An Illinois Republican is considered to be a member of the “Combine” party?
Liz Cheney is the third ranked member of the House of Representatives. She is going to be the Speaker some day, I hope. She declined to run for the U.S. Senate this year when the incumbent was retiring.
Combine is Illini-speak for Republicans whose affiliation is, shall we say, negotiable. And as you can see, Adam isn’t much for driving hard bargains.