"The media no longer has the luxury to NOT publish rumor/innuendo." - Ben Smith, Buzzfeed Sr. Ed.

Don't bother to verify? CNN reporting stated that the report could not be verified. They did not present it as fact. Really the only difference is that they linked to the Buzzfeed article, which linked to the report, which others did not.

Then why report it ?!

If some obscure right wing website claimed Hillary had a secret lesbian affair based on the words of an unnamed source, would CNN have pushed it all night on tv or their website ?
 
Same shit. Some of us read everything as if it came with a disclaimer of "take this with a grain of salt as it could be pure bs", but most don't. This kind of "journalism" is aimed at the latter. It's a type of poisoning the well strategy.

Aimed at the latter while stating that the report could not be verified?
 
Then why report it ?!

If some obscure right wing website claimed Hillary had a secret lesbian affair based on the words of an unnamed source, would CNN have pushed it all night on tv or their website ?

They did so because the report had been circulating around for awhile. At some point in today's age it was going to come out. Would it have been better to come out an reported as fact, or just come out without any context?
 
Was reading something about how media outlets can spread rumors and technically not be called on it directly.

The common workaround is to publish 'the reaction' to rumors. So "People outraged over X allegations!". So the story is about people reacting to something, which then provides the context to publish all the rumors and anything else they want. I'm sure there are tons of little technicalities that are used like that.

Good point, I've noticed they do this a lot

Same with posing it as a question so they can say it

Did x do y?
Raiders to LA?

If a headline ends in a question mark, the answer is no
 
They did so because the report had been circulating around for awhile. At some point in today's age it was going to come out. Would it have been better to come out an reported as fact, or just come out without any context?

there's plenty of rumors out there about Hillary and other people that have been there for a long time that never gets linked by reputable media because there is no valid proof.
 
Glen Greenwald just said on WNYC/NPR's The Takeaway that it's extremely troubling intelligence even decided to brief Trump on this document, and he believes it was released to the public in order to get Trump back for disparaging the agencies.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/takeaway
 
there's plenty of rumors out there about Hillary and other people that have been there for a long time that never gets linked by reputable media because there is no valid proof.

Rumors yes...reports floating around the intelligence agencies and congress, no. That is the difference.
 
They did so because the report had been circulating around for awhile. At some point in today's age it was going to come out. Would it have been better to come out an reported as fact, or just come out without any context?

There have been people online saying Hillary is secretly a reptilian, why not report that?

It wasn't a report "circulating around for awhile". It was 4chan specifically making a fake news report to bait the leftist media into exposing themselves
 
Aimed at the latter while stating that the report could not be verified?
Yes. It's the same strategy as conspiracy theory folks use.

"According to my sources the CIA was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. I have no proof, and can't verify so take it with a grain of salt, but here's a dossier outlining the events."

Those inclined to lean a certain way will gobble that stuff up.
 
There have been people online saying Hillary is secretly a reptilian, why not report that?

It wasn't a report "circulating around for awhile". It was 4chan specifically making a fake news report to bait the leftist media into exposing themselves

Check again. The report was going around, Trump was even briefed on it.
 
Yes. It's the same strategy as conspiracy theory folks use.

"According to my sources the CIA was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. I have no proof, and can't verify so take it with a grain of salt, but here's a dossier outlining the events."

Those inclined to lean a certain way will gobble that stuff up.

Those people will gobble anything up they like and disregard what they don't. We can't really worry about them.
 
A real news channel can arise from this mess. Sherdog News.
 
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