
Reuters' position on covering Trump - anjalik
http://www.reuters.com/article/rpb-adlertrump-idUSKBN15F276
======
owenversteeg
Reuters is consistently my favorite news source. What I love about them is how
they sell news to everyone, so they've got to make it as factual and unbiased
as possible. Of course, like any news organization, they have a few biases,
but I think that purely because of the position that they're in they are the
least biased news source today.

They might sell the same article to Russia Today, the New York Times, Fox, Al
Jazeera, and the Times of India, so they can't cater to one crowd's political
biases. I'm serious; all these news sources pay for Reuters articles.

And even if you don't like Reuters, you've got to respect the speed at which
they get out correct news. Before the Twittersphere erupts, before CNN loses
its mind, before the alerts on the radio, Reuters has it. And if they don't
know something, they say that they don't know it. It can make for
frustratingly light articles, but any time I'm annoyed how empty the article
is I realize that if it was bigger it'd be fluff or unverified claims.

~~~
malnourish
I almost exclusively read Reuters and have turned all my friends onto Reuters.
If I could read the AP feeds I would read those too.

I'm not looking for what to think, I'm looking for what happened, and Reuters
tends to give me that, even if I miss out on some stories.

~~~
akeck
I read AP here: [http://hosted.ap.org/](http://hosted.ap.org/)

~~~
malnourish
Excellent! Thank you very much

------
a_humean
So Reuter's position is that the media environment in the US is rapidly
becoming like illiberal democracies in Egypt, Russia and Iran, and so its time
to use skills applicable when operating within typically third world
authoritarian regimes. What heart warming times we live in.

~~~
ufmace
I should note that if you lean to the Right and/or don't worship the Clintons
and the Democratic party, then most of the US media has seemed like a third-
world Party Line news for a long time.

~~~
mwfunk
If you view people who don't agree with you politically as strawmen who
"worship" your least favorite politicians, then you've already failed at
understanding the world. Everyone disagrees on stuff, but if you want to
understand people and the world, the only way to do that is to see things from
other peoples' perspective. They have plenty of reasons for voting the way
they do that have nothing to do with being brainwashed or worshipping false
idols or whatever. You may or may not agree with those reasons, and those
reasons may be based on true or false premises, but if you don't understand
your opposition you will never defeat them, if that's your goal. You might
even find that better government is a higher goal than beating whatever group
you've lumped into a single hate bucket. What you said is no different from
how you think "those people" view you.

~~~
ufmace
I don't object to people disagreeing with me politically. Yes, the "worship
the Clintons and Democratic party" part is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Are you sure
your own political position isn't blinding you?

I do object when those who disagree with me politically smear my side, or even
anyone on their side who doesn't agree with them enthusiastically enough, as
racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, ignorant, redneck, while they claim to be
the most intelligent people in the world and the sole source of compassion and
tolerance.

I'm happy to have a reasonable discussion with anyone who has at least put
some thought into their position and doesn't devolve to slinging insults
around when they see facts they don't like.

------
williamle8300
I'm a Trump supporter so take this with a grain of salt.

When he said the media was dishonest, he was referring to CNN, WaPo and the
mainstream media (excluding Fox News). Anyone who follows Trump know these are
the folks he's referring to. If he didn't like ALL of the media, he wouldn't
even have a press corps. Reuters isn't really engaging with what Trump's
saying.

Are Trump's claims substantiated? I would say, Yes.

During the last election cycle, anybody who knows anything about the DNC
leaks, Podesta emails, CNN feeding Hillary questions during townhall meetings
against Sanders, Hillary's gliding past the FBI investigations, "bleaching"
her email servers (which were under subpoena), Bill Clinton's unprofessional
meeting with Loretta Lynch... knows that there's some serious corruption
happening at the top of these major news companies.

As a litmus test... the fact that almost every liberal in America is yelling
at Trump more than they're yelling at the DNC (and Debbie Wasserman Schultz)
shows the state of mainstream media. The DNC sabotaged Bernie Sanders
nomination, and he was the only candidate that would have a chance of beating
Trump (a very high chance since he had young vote). When the DNC sabotaged
Sanders' nomination, and doubled-down on Hillary the loss wasn't just
technical––it was a landslide[1]

Mainstream media is really broken in America. There really needs to be a
breakup of corporation-owned news companies. It really is a swamp in Trump's
idiom.

[1]
[http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president](http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president)

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
Can you point me to some concrete examples of times CNN or WaPo has been
dishonest? Not counting editorials.

> The fact that almost every liberal in America is yelling at Trump more than
> they're yelling at the DNC (and Debbie Wasserman Schultz) shows the state of
> mainstream media.

Plenty of liberals in my liberal social media bubble were yelling at the DNC
and DWS when they were doing news worthy things. But why should we still be?
Trump is now the one doing things we think harmful.

~~~
williamle8300
I listed several examples in my comment. CNN for sure did not cover these
issues proportionately to their gravity. These were serious issues that were
skirted by them.

Had they been responsibly covered, public sentiment would be more favorable
towards Trump... since he's really been rapping on this MSM corruption for a
while. If anything, Trump is at least an iconoclast and whether you like his
policies it would at least command respect.

~~~
cirath
>CNN for sure did not cover these issues proportionately to their gravity.

This is a very reasonable statement, but ultimately does not encapsulate the
rhetoric that has been levied against the media by Trump specifically, nor his
more ardent supporters.

Not covering proportional to gravity is not:

Anything similar to lies, fabrications, false news, misconstruing the news, or
presenting the topic with a completely false narrative.

While it does certainly affect the narrative, and while CNN gives far more
weight to articles favoring the left, this does not hurt Trump in any way as
far as his getting elected was concerned. At the very least, the song played
by the left leaning MSM (and that is a VERY IMPORTANT distinction, as Fox News
represents the right leaning MSM; their viewer numbers have them as a larger
body than CNN--how would they not be the true MSM?) lulled many Clinton
supporters into a false sense of security. The post-election meltdowns by
people who claimed they did not vote directly as a result of this false
security, while anecdotal, points directly at that narrative.

And even if you allow that CNN reports on left leaning issues in a positive
light while decrying conservative viewpoints, and Fox reports on right leaning
issues positively while pointing out the issues in progressive topics, one
cannot use them as direct opposition to each other, as neither tends to focus
both on the positives and negatives in an issue in a way that could be
considered equal. Equal airtime doctrines have also caused a negative skew,
but that is another topic altogether.

~~~
akvadrako
The amount of attention given to an issue is just as relevant as lying,
because it's even more responsible for which candidate someone will vote for.
People are more persuaded by what they see and what their attention is drawn
to than the cold facts.

Humans are not "rational" and pretending they are doesn't give you a moral
high-ground.

------
Bartweiss
I've seen several people suggest that covering Trump is an unprecedented
challenge which news orgs have no understanding of how to handle. This is a
good reminder that this isn't true; even a presidency which is exceptional by
American standards is well within the familiar scope of international news
organizations.

~~~
jerf
I realize that it may be a lot more fun and topical to blame Trump, but the HN
gestalt has been discussing the increasingly hollowed-out nature of American
news reporting for _years_ now. Public trust of the press has been dropping
for decades.

If this manifests as "hey, we've all got to get back to real reporting", then
it will be positive. (Not a mere rhetorical sop; that is genuinely my
preferred, best-case outcome.) If this is a socially-acceptable way of saying
"we've _really_ got to double-down on the things that have been making HN
discuss how crap most of the press' output is and has been causing our public
trust to notch down another couple of percent every year for the past couple
of decades", then it's just so many words on a screen. Given that people have
been commenting that Reuters seems pretty good, which I tend to agree with, if
this is a declaration that they're going to join the rest of the media, that's
not going to be a positive.

Just because you suddenly like the political orientation of the press in the
last couple weeks doesn't mean anything has changed. It is still the same
shallow, click-bait-driven, hype machine it was last year, it's just that now
it's hitting you in a direction that many of you are less prepared to apply
skepticism about. That doesn't mean anything's gotten better in the past
couple of weeks... in fact as a whole, that is a sign the situation has gotten
even worse.

~~~
Bartweiss
Absolutely agreed.

Depending on whether that 'you' is actually me or a general reader, I think my
comment may have come off wrong. I'm not suggesting that the current tone in
US news is a clear improvement, I'm just rejecting the claim that with this
election we're in an unprecedented death-of-news situation.

The state of most media in the US is deplorable. 'Fake news' sites aside,
sources have been abandoned for access, and optimizing cost per click metrics
has been interpreted as a reason to run unverified nonsense and press releases
under the guise of actual journalism.

That's even without the complete failures of domain knowledge, context, and
objectivity; the NYT recently left my jaw on the floor with a piece about how
US involvement in Honduras is making "the most dangerous place in the world"
safer. The legacy of US coups there, and CIA backing of brutal paramilitaries,
was not mentioned even once - an unfamiliar reader was left to believe that
the country was hellish by its own efforts, and saved by American
intervention. Passing that sort of myopia off as a feature story is an ugly
reminder of just how bad "good" journalism gets.

Good journalism still exists, with some effort. There are sites like _The
Intercept_ which report thoroughly and carefully, and which approach stories
with a clear and predictable viewpoint - something I greatly prefer to the
mock-neutral tone many groups use to bury the inescapable ideological choices
of reporting.

If we're lucky, Reuters just means they're going to refuse a personal stake in
covering US political news. I wouldn't mind a movement towards a more distant,
anthropological style of coverage. If Trump's 'opponents' line reminds
reporters that good journalism _is_ adversarial to power, we might see some of
the old style come back.

~~~
jerf
"Depending on whether that 'you' is actually me or a general reader,"

My apologies for lack of clarity. Meant in general.

I often wish that was two separate words in the common English. ("Y'all" is
actually the correct word, but is dialect, so people who don't know that
dialect may not understand its nuances correctly.)

------
twoquestions
One item on the Do list tickled me pink: > Give up on hand-outs and worry less
about official access. They were never all that valuable anyway. Our coverage
of Iran has been outstanding, and we have virtually no official access. What
we have are sources.

I'm excited to read what they print using this policy.

~~~
smacktoward
Yes, me too. "Access journalism" has always seemed like a dead-end to me
anyway, as it gives the subject a powerful veto on stories they don't like
simply by threatening to limit or remove the access. Access feels like
privilege, but in reality it's just a gilded cage.

(I wrote a whole thing on this subject, a couple of years back:
[https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/01/rick-reillys-lance-
armstr...](https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/01/rick-reillys-lance-armstrong-
problem-is-all-of-journalisms-problem/))

Of course we'll see how this plays out in the coverage Reuters provides going
forward. And we'll even have an interesting example to contrast it with: Axios
([https://www.axios.com/](https://www.axios.com/)), the just-launched
operation from some of the big wheels behind the success of Politico, which
has positioned itself explicitly as an insider, access-oriented outlet.

------
fareesh
I remember being on Twitter on most of election day and seeing evidence of all
sorts of manufactured rhetoric from Reuters, and was really disturbed (proof
below). There are a lot of other explanations for why this happened, but I'm
not inclined to believe them given the reality of what happened on election
day.

It looked like Reuters' polling towards the 8th showed Trump taking the lead,
but they deleted the data and replaced it with Nov 1 data. Plenty of people
caught it and called them out - several people took videos as well so the
chance of them being a coordinated effort to doctor screenshots seems low. I
don't know if they ever responded to this issue, but it forever changed my
opinion of Reuters. If we're to assume the worst about this then it's pretty
disgusting if this is the kind of shady stuff the media is pulling. I
sympathize in principle, but in reality the question is whether _this_ breed
of media deserves anything but contempt.

Tweets with screenshots / photos (more in the same thread):
[https://twitter.com/Blazingcatfur/status/796071971700244480](https://twitter.com/Blazingcatfur/status/796071971700244480)
[https://twitter.com/ProtectthePope/status/796068457137733637](https://twitter.com/ProtectthePope/status/796068457137733637)

Also of note (posted elsewhere in the comments here, but downvoted): They
posted this article on the 8th, saying there was a 90% chance of a Clinton
win. Their data didn't support this claim.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-
idUSKBN1...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-
idUSKBN1322J1)

~~~
cirath
The linked Reuters article said their polls showed a 90% chance of a Clinton
win, but the polls across all boards proved to be unreliable after the fact.
What they did that advanced the idea of unbiased journalism is twofold:

First, they reported on early election numbers in North Carolina which
directly contradicted their poll numbers and showed Trump performing better
than predicted.

Second, they outlined a clear and realistic path to Trump winning. While their
own poll numbers did not support this fact, they ultimately included it. They
also did not rule out a Trump win in any way.

It is always important to note that a 90% chance of winning is in no way a
guarantee, and I do not believe Reuters ever truly ruled out Trump as a
contender. They used the only early data available, polls--and when every poll
is wrong, and psychics are still not a real thing, they did what they could
with the data they had. At least, in my reading of the article you linked.

Regarding the polls you linked, those are not the Reuters/Ipsos polls of
15,000 participants. Those are much smaller polls (850 users) with far larger
margins for error.

While I cannot speak to the censoring of the 11/6 poll mentioned in the second
tweet, having Trump leading in popular vote nationally (eg: what polls
generally check) was ultimately incorrect, regardless of what you believe.
Polls need to be carefully read, interpreted, and corrected for -- which is
why fivethirtyeight gave Trump a much higher chance to win than any other
body.

------
r00fus
I think what's been said is admirable. What is being unsaid?

"[covering Trump] is an opportunity for us to practice the skills we’ve
learned in much tougher places around the world"

Hint: they already recognize that Trump is an authoritarian in all but name.
Long live the King, I guess.

~~~
coldtea
"We always put out the official western establishment party line for those
places, and we'll do the same for Trump's administration".

~~~
sprafa
Do you actually think saying Iran is a repressive state is false? Do you
actually think Bannon's statements are normal?

It's at least Nixon level bullshit at the moment; I expect it to get worst.

~~~
coldtea
> _Do you actually think saying Iran is a repressive state is false?_

In a way yes. Some peoples (populations) are predominantly conservative an
religious, and want to be in a state that works that way.

Calling it conservative or backwards etc (and with a qualifier "according to
our standards" etc even better) is OK. Calling it repressive, as if the people
there do not want it, can be downright misleading if not calculated.

Not everybody has the "American dream" or western style democracy as their
operating vision. And of course, it's easy to find some minority that is in
opposition to the government everywhere, and present it such as it represents
the majority. But it doesn't always, and seldom in such states, where some
westernized affluent outliers (usually with twitter accounts) are paraded as
"the voice of the new generation" etc, when they are as rare as hipsters in
Salt Lake City.

Trump has the Presidential office, at least 30%+ of the voters, and some major
outlets etc supporting him, would you say he is the "real voice of America"? I
guess not, and that's fair. But people and media do it all the time with some
minority groups in arab states, latin america, etc., that don't reflect the
general sentiment in their country at all (but are convenient for foreign
interests).

Even worse when this misreading turns a relatively stable country (Iraq,
Libya) into a hell whole of civil war, chaos and fundamentalist muslim wackos
of different fractions. Because some big powers interested in destabilizing
the region or securing some natural resources for cheap convinced "do-gooders"
that they are a "repressive state" and they need to "fix it". Millions have
been murdered in fixing "repressive states" into far more repressive hellholes
with the aid of such media reporting...

------
JoshGlazebrook
Honestly I feel way overwhelmed by the administration related news and it has
barely been over a week. It's also a constant reminder that oh yeah this
really did happen and it continues to get worse.

~~~
camperman
This is entirely intentional. The God Emperor is overwhelming you with shock
and awe to make opposition seem pointless, which it is of course.

~~~
akvadrako
I don't know why you are downvoted, because it's clearly true. It's part of
his playbook, The Art of the Deal. Scott Adams continues to be an annoying but
fairly accurate narrator of the Trump narrative:

[http://blog.dilbert.com/post/156399716951/outrage-
dilution](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/156399716951/outrage-dilution)

~~~
camperman
Yep. I'm downvoted because anything even remotely right is on here.

------
Gargoyle
I was amused by this line-

>We try to avoid “permanent exclusives” – first but wrong.

Funny way to phrase it!

------
chetanahuja
I'd like to see reuters/AP etc. not only take the same approach, but even use
the same _language_ to US reporting as they do in other "regimes". Here's a
slate.com series that I thought was doing a great job but for some reason
hasn't continued into the Trump regime.

e.g. When Justice Scalia died:

 _WASHINGTON, United States—The unexpected death of a hard-line conservative
jurist on America’s constitutional court has exposed deep fissures within the
ruling regime and threatens to throw the country’s fragile political system
into months of chaos._

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/17/how_the_u_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/17/how_the_u_s_media_would_cover_the_supreme_court_nomination_fight_if_it_happened.html)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
"Deep fissures within the ruling regime"? Deep fissures, sure, between the
President and the majority of the Senate, who are of the other party. It seems
a bit of a stretch to call Democrats and Republicans together "the ruling
regime", though.

"Fragile political system"? More fragile than it used to be, but not yet
fragile. We weathered that mess with barely a sweat.

"Months of chaos"? Not even.

That is: The language doesn't fit the reality in the US, whereas it often
_does_ fit the reality of the third world.

~~~
chetanahuja
" _That is: The language doesn 't fit the reality in the US, whereas it often
does fit the reality of the third world._"

Yeah... this is what we keep telling ourselves.

------
Clubber
The problem is that many of the people who voted for Trump don't read any news
other than news explicitly designed to make Trump or the GOP look good.

------
weberc2
If the media generally practiced the principles outlined in this post, the
criticisms levied against the industry wouldn't be credible. Not that Trump
has any moral authority to complain about anyone's integrity, but many have
been complaining about the increasing partisanship among the U.S. media for a
long time, and their complaints are largely valid.

------
coldtea
Isn't everybody in media and business making "position statements" and being
angry at you, the best way to show that you are "against the establishment"?

~~~
cirath
That is kind of a false statement, though. If he were to say that Freedom of
the Press is no longer protected, the press would be very angry with you --
but I don't think it would improve your image of being against the
establishment.

"The best" way to show you are against the establishment is to either a) prove
the media's criticisms wrong, or b) have several actions that would stand
against whatever "the establishment" is in our example.

What Trump has done is very seldom given examples of what is wrong, he has
just unilaterally declared that the MSM is crooked. He has not eroded trust in
an article or statement, or in most cases proving the left-leaning or
progressive media wrong, he has made declarations that reach far further than
his original aim. This is very in line with his character, which has been
largely reactionary and often quick to pass judgments without truly "aiming"
them first.

The parallels, for example, between his declarations of the media being wrong
having much broader effects than intended, and his immigration bill which
ultimately affected masses of people it shouldn't have, are difficult to
ignore. Both were made in haste, both were aimed at a specific goal, and both
had broad implications that were not originally intended.

------
MrZongle2
I think these are excellent guidelines. If Reuters adheres to them, they'll
continue to rise above the other mainstream media outlets. I suspect they'll
be unlikely to come under fire from the current Administration, whose feud
with the media seems to be concentrated on "info-tainment" organizations like
CNN that for years now have eschewed factual reporting for titillation and
talking heads.

~~~
BryantD
We can probably dial that in a little more: Fox News is certainly no better
than CNN as far as talking heads goes, but the Trump Administration isn't
feuding with them. Trump is feuding with talking heads who don't advance his
agenda.

~~~
MrZongle2
No disagreement about Fox.

But is the feud really because those media outlets aren't _advancing_ his
agenda? The tone from the press _started_ with mockery during the primaries
and advanced to hostility once Trump became the forerunner. Look at the
election night coverage from most of the networks: it looked like a _funeral_
, which is rather surprising given the supposed objectivity of these
organizations.

IMO the feud is about a _lack of objectivity_ rather than a lack of full-
throated support. _Nobody_ should want a complicit, docile press: that's what
we largely had for the last 8 years.

~~~
beat
I disagree. It's not about whether CNN and other outlets are "objective". It's
about scapegoating an enemy. Beating on the "liberal media" has been a cartoon
villain from the GOP ever since the rise of FOX News and right-wing talk radio
two decades ago, but this is a new level. They can discourage even believing
in facts, and focus supporters on "alt" media that isn't impeded by
inconveniences like having to report the actual truth.

CNN may be kinda dumb, but at least they have a bedrock of journalistic
integrity. Heck, I've started crediting FOX as a "legitimate" news source, if
only to counter arguments that the "liberal media" isn't covering whatever
crazy fantasy is floating through the "alt-right" at the time. If even FOX
isn't covering it, it's fake news, people! (And honestly, FOX has gotten a lot
better over the past year or so.)

This isn't about objectivity. It's about turning any journalistic outfit with
a shred of integrity into an Enemy of the People. This sort of nonsense is
_exactly_ what makes Trump/Bannon different, and dangerous.

~~~
VLM
"CNN may be kinda dumb, but at least they have a bedrock of journalistic
integrity."

You seem to have missed the email leaks. They cooperate exclusively behind the
scenes with the Democratic party to ensure the defeat of Republicans. They
have the journalistic integrity of cold war era "Pravda".

~~~
beat
If that's the case, then they're not doing a very good job of it, huh?

~~~
VLM
They seem to work really hard. Every obsolete / dead political movement in
history (religion, too) was staffed primarily by honest and genuine true
believers. I don't think they're lazy or stupid or unmotivated. They just
hitched their carriage to a dead horse, that's all.

People involved in current day ascendant political movements and modern
religions like to think they're somehow different than the dead past, but
sooner or later they find out the hard way they're not. (edited to add, in my
study of history I've never found an aspect of human nature quite as cross
cultural and universal as this, nothing, nothing comes close, not monotheism
or the golden rule or dualism or progressivism, nothing so universally human)

~~~
beat
See, when you start saying CNN (and every other major outlet, by extension) is
basically Pravda, devoted to carrying the water for the Democratic Party at
the expense of the GOP, I kind of assume you're totally blinded by
partisanship and incapable of rational discussion of the subject.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
See, when _you_ say that CNN has journalistic integrity, and ignore VLM's
counterexample, where they in fact _were_ carrying water for Hillary, _you_
seem to be incapable of rational discussion on the subject. They objectively
did that. Whether they did "a good job" of it or not is completely not the
point.

[Edit: I saw your parallel post where your definition of "journalistic
integrity" is "don't make up facts, even if you report them in a biased
manner". First, I think that's way too low of a bar. Strive for objectivity,
even if you can't perfectly achieve it. Second, though, what CNN did is like a
sideline reporter jumping on the field and tackling someone. It's totally
inappropriate, well outside of what is acceptable for journalists, even if
it's not creating "false facts".]

------
netcraft
> Give up on hand-outs and worry less about official access. They were never
> all that valuable anyway. Our coverage of Iran has been outstanding, and we
> have virtually no official access. What we have are sources.

I like this take, if nothing else because when you're being fed your
information theres always the chance to be less thorough. Its how propaganda
is made.

------
charred_toast
It's sad and unfortunate that considering the progress we've made as humans,
that those in power are utterly afraid of the truth. It makes me ashamed to be
a human being sometimes for this reason. We won't progress or 'evolve' unless
this fact changes.

------
grokkable
Fllllaaaaaaggggg

------
general_ai
Press will never be the same again. Over the past year and a half, most
mainstream press outlets have shown themselves to be nothing more than a
propaganda wing of the party their owners affiliate themselves with. This was
particularly obvious on the democratic side, where they worked really hard to
shove a pre-selected, cheating psychopath into the White House, and failed,
much to the chagrin of their owners.

If there was any doubt about the lack of impartiality and fairness, we're way
beyond it now. No matter what they "report" now, their reputation is gone and
only completely gullible idiots trust any of it.

This reminds me very much of Soviet Pravda newspaper, where you'd first read
the article, and then try to read between the lines and guess what really
happened.

------
protomyth
I'm not sure what they are going for with this statement. I really wonder who
is the audience. I just don't know what good they were hoping to achieve. I'm
not being cynical, I just don't understand.

Reaction wise this is basically signaling to most conservatives that Reuters
hasn't been doing their job. Its a positive reinforcement that they didn't
properly investigate or cover the scandals. I imagine #3 (Give up on hand-outs
and worry less about official access) is going to generate most of the
commentaries about what has been reported with the prior administration.

"Get out into the country..." was supposed to be your job. Maybe if they had
done it properly a lot of surprising things wouldn't have been surprises.

~~~
jeremywho
_U.S. president calls journalists "among the most dishonest human beings on
earth” or that his chief strategist dubs the media “the opposition party."_

I think their reason to respond is self-explanatory.

~~~
protomyth
Prior administrations have had some amazingly unkind things to say about the
press. I don't think those comments are any reason to respond.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
From my memory, what Trump said is unprecedented. If you have contrary data,
please share it.

~~~
protomyth
President Obama as his comments on Fox News (he went farther and included
comments on their viewers). For a bit of history, President Jackson was fairly
salty with his views of newspapers. Unprecedented has pretty much been they
insulted my guys instead of their guys.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Look, I'm not trying to argue with you, I just don't remember. What,
_specifically_ , did Obama say about Fox News? (I don't care about Jackson; I
hope that civility has improved since then, though recent evidence casts doubt
on that position.)

Remember, the statement to beat is when Trump called journalists "among the
most dishonest human beings on earth”.

~~~
protomyth
President Obama was a bit more elegant but:

[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obama-in-
command-b...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obama-in-command-br-
the-rolling-stone-interview-20100928)

[http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/18/media/president-obama-fox-
ne...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/18/media/president-obama-fox-news-rush-
limbaugh/)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Sorry to disagree, but I don't see "Fox has a definite point of view" and
"misinformation" as being comparable to "among the most dishonest human beings
on earth". The first Obama quote says they're biased; the second Obama quote
says they're lying; but the Trump quote attacks their _character_ , not just
their _actions_.

~~~
protomyth
I see you cherry-picked the least problematic quotes:

"If all you're doing is watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh and
reading some of the blogs that are churning out a lot of misinformation on a
regular basis, then it's very hard for you to think that you're going to vote
for somebody who you've been told is taking the country in the wrong
direction."

"It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term
growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the
world. But as an economic enterprise, it's been wildly successful. And I
suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it's that
Fox is very successful."

You might think there is a difference between "attacks their character, not
just their actions", but a person's actions are their character. President
Obama was more elegant but his behavior is no different.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I wasn't cherry-picking at all, though I should have said "a lot of
misinformation on a regular basis" rather than just "misinformation. I still
think that those quotes are considerably less harsh than Trump's, and that the
difference is not just that Obama worded it more politely. I also think the
second quote that you gave is actually _less_ of an attack than what I quoted
from the same article.

> a person's actions are their character.

Agreed, or at least their actions reveal their character. But I think it is
also true that, socially, questioning someone's character is a step past
questioning their actions. It doesn't make logical sense if character =
actions, but I think that it's true socially.

~~~
protomyth
> I also think the second quote that you gave is actually less of an attack
> than what I quoted from the same article.

A quote the says Mr. Murdock is peddling destruction for a tidy profit is less
destructive? This is one hell of an insult and a character attack beyond what
President Trump said to the press.

Questioning your actions is every bit a character attack when you imply the
actions represent a person of low character. Separating them is just a polite
head fake. If the person was not of low character they would not do evil
actions.

Separating actions and character gives us people saying "the end justifies the
means" which is basically the motto of evil people and the definition of evil.

------
SixSigma
No mention that Thomson Reuters, owner of the Reuters news service, donated
between $1m-$5m to Clinton.

[http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-
foundati...](http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation-
donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228)

~~~
BryantD
There's a slight inaccuracy here; by simply saying "donated to Clinton" you
imply that the donation was to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The donation was,
however, to the Clinton Foundation.

Given that the donations to the Clinton Foundation also came from conservative
media outlets such as Newsmax and Fox, I'm confident that donating to the
Clinton Foundation does not prove bias towards Hillary Clinton.

~~~
contergan
The Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative are just two fronts
the Clintons used over the years to receive bribes.

How else do you explain this:

[http://observer.com/2017/01/the-clinton-foundation-shuts-
dow...](http://observer.com/2017/01/the-clinton-foundation-shuts-down-clinton-
global-initiative/)

As soon as Clinton was out of the race, all those donations suddenly stopped
coming in. It's pretty obvious that the whole thing was pretty much just legal
bribery und the disguise of altruism.

Since the Global Initiative has already shut down, it's probably only a matter
of time until the Foundation shuts down, too.

~~~
dragonwriter
The diametrically opposed interpretation that donors were afraid of
retaliation by the Trump administration is frequently offered; and there are a
lot of subtle shadings in between that one might also reasonably believe --
e.g., donors perceived the power of the Clinton brand as a key advantage of
that organization over others, but the election defeat tarnished the brand and
eliminated the advantage.

------
genieyclo
"Clinton has 90 percent chance of winning: Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation"
\- Nov 8 - [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-
idUSKBN1...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-
idUSKBN1322J1)

~~~
iriche
Which news outlet didn't say that?

~~~
dragonwriter
The most well-regarded poll-based predictor, 538, gave Clinton a much lower
than 90% chance and pointed out the key error of those predictors giving that
high of a chance -- they used models which assumed, contrary to evidence, that
deviations from polling results in different states in the same Presidential
election are independent, when in fact they are strongly correlated.

