• breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Having read them both, the Post does put a lot of focus on former colleagues, though I think they come across as having an agenda more than legit criticism. I don’t really get the beef with the Times’ coverage at all though. They cover literally the same points as TPM. No idea what leads them to say that the coverage is “more egregious and spurious than you’re probably able to imagine.”

    TPM:

    The attacks aren’t just “like” the Swift Boat attacks from 2004. They’re literally the work of the same guy. Chris LaCivita was the strategist who ran the Swift Boat attacks in 2004 and cut the commercials. He’s now the co-manager of the Trump campaign.

    NYT:

    But Mr. Vance’s comments were also reminiscent of the “Swift boat” attacks in 2004 that effectively cast doubt on the military exploits of Senator John Kerry, then the Democratic presidential nominee. A key strategist behind those attacks, which helped doom Mr. Kerry’s bid for the White House, was Chris LaCivita, who is a senior strategist for the Trump campaign.

    TPM:

    The overriding point here is that Walz didn’t just say, well, I might get deployed. I’m outta here. It is well-documented that he was already planning to run for Congress, had been discussing with fellow guardsmen for some time whether he would retire as part of his plans to run for Congress and in fact had already announced his run months before he retired.

    NYT:

    But Joseph Eustice, a 32-year veteran of the national guard who led the same battalion as Mr. Walz and served under him, said in an interview on Wednesday that the governor was a dependable soldier and that the attacks by his fellow comrades were unfounded . . . Mr. Eustice recalled that Mr. Walz’s decision to run for Congress came months before the battalion received any official notice of deployment, though he said there had been rumors that it might be deployed.

    • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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      3 months ago

      The NYT repeats the lie in the headline, but buries the truth down in the article. The result is that people see the lie, and not the truth.

      Very few people encountering an article on social media actually read it; something like 2% do so much as click through.

      This pattern basically guarantees that a huge numbers of people will have a false belief.

      • krellor@fedia.io
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        3 months ago

        The times headline is stating what the news is, which is that a claim was made:

        Vance Attacks Walz’s Military Record, Accusing Him of Avoiding a Tour in Iraq

        Which is a factual statement of the news. The times piece presents the claim made, and the refutation of it and the evidence without ever making a direct claim one way or another. I e , unlike an opinion piece, the times isn’t making a subjective assessment or value statement.

        Given that, what other headline can they give? Adding adjectives like “spurious” or “misleading” would be editorializing unless they are quoting an independent authority on the subject.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          3 months ago

          Making a decision on the truthfulness of a claim is not “opinion”. Paperwork was filed before his unit was given notification they were going to Iraq. Saying he left to dodge a deployment is a false accusation. No opinion necessary.

          News reporting is not stenography. JD Vance has press releases and web sites to just broadcast his BS.

          • krellor@fedia.io
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            3 months ago

            In the general course of reporting news, most traditional news outlets don’t make those sorts of determinations. Sometimes the editorial board will do specific fact checks of claims, but most NYT, AP, Reuters, etc, articles don’t make those sorts of determinations. They do present verified claims from other authorities or named parties, which is why they included rebuttals from those sources.

            And a campaign press release is not a news outlet. Proper news outlets have reporting guidelines.

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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              3 months ago

              In the general course of reporting news, most traditional news outlets don’t make those sorts of determinations.

              Whether you that’s common or not, that’s not good journalism and worthy of criticism. And a pattern that’s changing, with a greater emphasis on both fact checking and making clear in the headline that a claim is false.

              NYT: A Timeline of Trump’s False and Misleading Statements on the Mar-a-Lago Search

              AP News: Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race

              Reuters: US Republicans target noncitizen voting, as Trump keeps up false voter fraud claims

              And a campaign press release is not a news outlet.

              Yes, that’s the whole point. Don’t elevate a press release to news unless you’re willing to do some journalism and note where the statements are false. They have a free speech right to post their opinions on their campaign sites or social media, but news sites are supposed to be informing their readers and blindly repeating a false claim is not doing that.

              • krellor@fedia.io
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                3 months ago

                Let’s expand that quote:

                “The job of journalism is not stenography. It is getting the full story and the meaning of that story,” said Woodward, the author of 11 best-selling books, including All the President’s Men (with Bernstein), and, most recently, State of Denial: Bush at War Part III.

                So in what way does that argue for reporters to make their own independent assertions, and in what way did the NYT article fail to capture the meaning of the story?

                In the case of the election denials, the media has numerous independent authorities to cite to bluntly state the fact. They have court cases, independent panels, etc, all as independent authorities with no contrary position by any real authority.

                Additionally, in the case of the NYT article you link, that is exactly the retrospective editorial I said is done, but not for breaking or developing stories.

                But back to the NYT article about Vance’s claim. They report that the claim was made, the investigated and found primary sources, they fleshed out the context, and appear to have fairly reported the facts which indicate Walz’s prior intent to run for office. I don’t see how that is stenography. In fact, stenography would have been simply reporting that Vance made the claim, without the associated leg work.

                • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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                  3 months ago

                  This is just as objective as election denial. It’s pure factual records. And the problem is that the title doesn’t indicate the claim is false. You need to read the article to know that, which many people don’t do.

                  It’s a really weird claim to say they shouldn’t say that’s something’s untrue in the title, but it’s not stenography because they say it’s untrue in the body. Either you want stenography, where even statements of which thing came first can only come from outside experts, or you don’t and the title should convey the result of the journalistic effort to verify claims so as to not mislead the public.

                  • krellor@fedia.io
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                    3 months ago

                    The person I replied to led their comment with this:

                    The NYT repeats the lie in the headline, but buries the truth down in the article.

                    Which is just not true. The NYT headline is that the claim was made by Vance. I do think reasonable people can disagree over the quality of the headline, but barring an authoritative source and factual record, inserting the word “untrue” would be editorialized. There isn’t some validated record of Watz’s intent; rather, there is first hand accounts from seemingly trustworthy individuals saying he verbalized his intent months in advance of deployment orders, and his motivating story regarding the Bush campaign. I believe that version of events. But that is very different than having a court ruling from a fact finding trial court, or an independent house panels findings to justify something being objectively untrue. We can quibble over this, but that’s just what journalism standards are for news reporting agencies.

                    Regardless of the title, the NYT article is pretty clearly not a simple parroting of Vance’s claim, or even that the claim occurred. They found past sources, they ran details to ground, and they reported the facts to their audience. Additionally, the NYT is a pay walled news source, which I subscribe to, and I suspect the majority of their subscribers do actually read the article. And obviously, they are writing articles with their subscribers on mind, who, like me, want objective reporting with primary sources.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Exactly. I would think it’s relevant to mention the fact that Walz has 20 more years of military experience in the first or second paragraph.

            Just present the (obviously false) claim and add "the Times asked the Trump/Vance campaign about the 20 year difference in military experience. We have yet to hear back from them at the time of publication.

        • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          They are the “Newspaper of Record”.

          They can do some reporting and say:

          Vance Falsely Claims That Walz is Was Not a Master Seargeant

          • krellor@fedia.io
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            3 months ago

            What does their tagline have to do with their reporting guidelines?

            And sure, they could run a headline like that and it wouldn’t be editorializing so long as they actually verify the record of his rank. I suspect that they felt the more dramatic claim of abandoning his unit was the bigger story. Whether that is true or not, or the right decision, is a subjective call.

            • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              It is not their tagline. They believe that they ARE the newspaper of record.

              They can figure out truth and say that instead of just repeating what they know to be lies.

              If they take themselves that seriously then they have a responsibility to do so.

              • krellor@fedia.io
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                3 months ago

                So interviewing Watz’s unit members and CO is just repeating lies?

                I mean, if you only want to read from sources that make decisions for you, you are free to do so. I value news organizations that report facts and context and let me make up my own mind.

                And many papers refer to themselves as papers of record. It is a term of art in the industry referring to breadth of circulation and independent editorial board. And it is precisely those editorial guidelines that prevent them from presenting one person’s claims against another as true verse false.

                • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  If, as in this case, the claims they are making are demonstrably false, then absolutely!!!

                  If you know the claims are not true and present them as plausible, then YOU are lying even more than the person you are interviewing.

                  You may not be able to prove their state of mind, but you know your own.

                  • krellor@fedia.io
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                    3 months ago

                    Did you read the NYT article in question?

                    The NYT interviewed members from the unit who corroborated Watz’s claim that he decided to run for Congress before deployment orders came through. The leg work I’ve described in this thread was presenting an account of events that contradicted Vance’s claim that he intentionally avoided deployment.

                    I’m absolutely baffled by some of the responses I’ve gotten, lol.

        • Snapz@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          “Discredited “Swift boat” author now questions details of Walz’s military record”