https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/954739322388930562
Not enough facepalms in the world. I don’t know what’s worse: that after a US Senator was informed he was personally helping spread Russian propaganda, the Senator’s first instinct was to pretend he wasn’t just personally implicated and yell “Fake News!” at the media, or that, for his followers, that’s probably a good enough reaction.
Favorite Twitter response to his suggestion that “the Press” in particular needs to work to avoid spreading so much Russian propaganda on Twitter:
Funny. Most people only use one “s” when abbreviating “president.”
😮
Right, NewsBusters: “Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias”. Let’s see how that works, shall we? So Russia sets up TWO opposing rallies, one in support of Trump, and one against him, in an attempt to cause tensions or violence or some such thing. So far, so good, that much is in the Mueller indictments. News organizations cover both events as “large political rallies in the middle of New York around a major US election” are newsworthy items, and nobody yet knows the Russians helped set them up. What’s missing from this set of facts is some sort of controversy OTHER than Russians meddling with US political affairs.
So NewsBusters comes in retroactively for the scoop–by showing that the media reported on the Russian-backed anti-Trump rally, and completely glossing over their coverage of the pro-Trump rally. Yep, typical NewsBusters. Manufacturing a liberal bias so they can posture against it. The takeaway? Big political rallies are considered newsworthy. Covering Charlottesville doesn’t make you a Nazi, covering a big Russia rally doesn’t make you a Russian, even if the Russian ambassador is right there up front claiming credit. News is still news. Certainly the media had a role in over-credulously spreading disinformation around the election, particularly on the subject of voter fraud, but this covering big rallies as they happen doesn’t seem like anything atypical.