slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Columbia Journalism Review

By Pete Vernon, CJR...November 13, 2017

Days after The Washington Post reported that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had initiated sexual encounters with several teenagers when he was in his early 30s, Moore’s media backers are working overtime to discredit the story. According to Axios’s Jonathan Swan, Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon has dispatched two reporters to Alabama to dig up dirt on the Post’s work. Breitbart’s latest attempt sees Aaron Klein catching the Post’s reporters red-handed in the act of committing journalism.

“The mother of Leigh Corfman, who says that Alabama Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore tried to engage in a sexual encounter with her when she was 14, told Breitbart News that The Washington Post worked to convince her daughter to give an interview about the allegations against Moore,” Klein writes. Of course, anyone who actually read the Post’s story would have known that “neither Corfman nor any of the other women sought out The Post….All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews.”

What Breitbart is doing with this type of reporting is, of course, in bad faith. But for those unfamiliar with the process of working with sources to go on the record or inclined to distrust anything written in the mainstream press, the story casts a sinister light on the hard work of Post reporters Stephanie McCrummen, Beth Reinhard, and Alice Crites.

A charged political race, allegations of partisan attacks, a national outlet viewed with distrust by many in the state (and around the country): the Moore story serves as a microcosm for our parallel media universes. In one, diligent reporting by a reputable outlet has led to serious concerns about the character of a potential US Senator, leading some within his own party to call for him to withdraw from the race. In another, a liberal billionaire has sent journalists on his payroll out into the country to discredit a politician disliked by the establishment. As Axios’s Swan writes, “This story is about to get even uglier, if that’s imaginable.”

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

I now side with his accusers but it is amusing to hear what is being proposed. Republicans are now proposing refusing to seat him if he is elected on ethical grounds. That would be a first and this from a group that did nothing to Ted Kennedy after Chappaquiddick.

working class stiff Loc: N. Carolina

There's really no battle for trust.

Anyone who trusts sources like Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and some of the other propaganda arms of the extreme right isn't interested in t***h anyway.
There's actually a simple way to tell if one side or the other is engaging in propaganda: if the stories engage the words f*****t or c*******t then the source should automatically be discounted as there are very few of those types of folks here in the USofA.

And besides, the 'news' sources that want to back the President and normalize his administration are starting out in a huuuuge hole: the President is a proven liar so trust is not an issue. While the MSM may not get everything totally correct all the time, I already know that the alt-right media doesn't care about t***h at all.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Yawn. Obama was a proven liar. Hillary is the queen of liars and the press loved them. When I see an article from Tea Party Patriots or the Huffington Post if I am going to refernce facts from the article either positively or negatively I look up as much information about the writer as I can find. I noticed you left out Vox, Salon, and Huff Po. so very non-partisan of you.

working class stiff Loc: N. Carolina

Are those MSM? So it's funny that you would hold Hillary and Obama to a different standard than our current President. You have no problem saying they are liars. So very non-partisan of you.

Besides, I've never claimed to be non-partisan. It's the double standard that is the issue. So when President Trump tweets that the unemployment rate numbers during the last administration were f**e, but a month later when he is in office the same numbers apparently prove his how well he's doing. Yeah...that's lying, out and out. And his backers of course are unable or unwilling to confront the duplicity in themselves.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Numbers are numbers. if using the same parameters shows improvement, well it shows improvement. I think his statement which was true, the numbers are basically f**e can also be used against him. In this case his f**e numbers are better than Obama's f**e numbers. I pay no attention to Trump's rhetoric. I think he sounds i***tic. Always have. His stated policies are working. I don't have to like him. good thing cause I don't.