Spiked

Sharyl Attkisson notes that many are expressing surprise that a venerable media outlet renowned for social justice—The New York Times—would have spiked the Weinstein story when it was first proposed a decade or more ago. After all, isn't sexual abuse something we can all condemn? Isn't misogyny the accusation du jour since the recent presidential election?

But Attkisson provides important context when she writes:

Many people seem shocked by claims from a former New York Times reporter who says the newspaper sat on her 2004 information exposing alleged sexual misconduct by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. (The Times told Newsweek they would have only withheld information for good reason.)

The Weinstein question aside, I can tell you that every day, in newsrooms around the country, stories are killed because powerful people know how to get them killed.

Recently, a former managing editor of Time magazine said that the only bias reporters have is their bias to get a great story on the front page. That may be true of good journalists — and there are many. But good journalists’ intentions are impacted by managers and editors with authority to shape and censor; by managers and editors who are lobbied, enticed, pushed, pressed, cajoled and threatened by PR companies, crisis management specialists, global law firms, super PACs, advertisers, “nonprofits,” business interests, political figures, famous people, important people, wealthy people, and their own corporate bosses.

An entire industry has been built around companies and operatives that work to get stories placed, discredited or wiped. They obfuscate, confuse and attack. Their targets include ideas they oppose, whistleblowers and advocates who are exposing the truth, journalists uncovering the facts, and news outlets publishing the stories.

They deploy every tool imaginable: fake social media accounts, letters to the editor and editorials, journalists, nuisance lawsuits, bloggers, nonprofits, online comments, Wikipedia, paid “articles” written by for-hire “reporters.”

One operative matter-of-factly described his strategy to me: “You call the [news division’s] attorney, you call the general counsel, and you say ‘Do you understand what you’re doing?’ … We’ve killed several stories by using that method.”

Although both the Left and the Right use the tools Attkisson describes, the Left has been far more effective. Why? Because the mainstream media has a decided and often overwhelming left-wing bias. For that reason, they are often more than willing to work with the smear merchants who "obfuscate, confuse and attack" with "fake social media accounts, letters to the editor and editorials, journalists, nuisance lawsuits, bloggers, nonprofits, online comments, Wikipedia, paid “articles” written by for-hire 'reporters.' "

Fake News is not a new phenomenon, but it has gotten much, much worse in the months following Donald Trump's election. Its purveyors include the most elite members of the media community. Their intent is to promote a specific narrative and destroy any competing content or people who question that narrative.

Donald Trump may be wrong about some things. But he is not wrong when he bluntly suggests that "fake news" is a serious problem, particularly when it comes from media sources that were once trusted by us all.