The "Damn E-Mails" And The Damn Media

Matthew Yglesias delves into the media's coverage of the Clinton e-mail SCANDAL! nothingburger and how the media has badly served our country (again).  He concludes that the media has promoted "a bullshit scandal amidst a serious election":

Network newscasts have, remarkably, dedicated more airtime to coverage of Clinton’s emails than to all policy issues combined. 

Cable news has been, if anything, worse, and many prestige outlets have joined the pileup. One malign result of obsessive email coverage is that the public is left totally unaware of the policy stakes in the election. Another is that the constant vague recitations of the phrase ‘‘Clinton email scandal’’ have firmly implanted the notion that there is something scandalous about anything involving Hillary Clinton and email, including her campaign manager getting hacked or the revelation that one of her aides sometimes checked mail on her husband’s computer. 

But none of this is true. Clinton broke no laws according to the FBI itself. Her setup gave her no power to evade federal transparency laws beyond what anyone who has a personal email account of any kind has. Her stated explanation for her conduct is entirely believable, fits the facts perfectly, and is entirely plausible to anyone who doesn't simply start with the assumption that she's guilty of something. 

Given [former Secretary Colin] Powell’s conduct, Clinton wasn't even breaking with an informal precedent. The very worst you can say is that, faced with an annoying government IT policy, she used her stature to find a personal workaround rather than a systemic fix that would work for everyone. To spend so much time on such a trivial matter would be absurd in a city council race, much less a presidential election. To do so in circumstances when it advances the electoral prospects of a rival who has shattered all precedents in terms of lacking transparency or basic honesty is infinitely more scandalous than anything related to the server itself.  (our emphasis)

Of all the malign elements in this election year (neo- fascist Donald "Rump" Trump, white supremacists, misogyny and sexual assault, xenophobia, etc., etc.), the role of the corporate media in enabling the rise and (perhaps) succession to power of the most unfit, unqualified, compromised, plainly evil candidate ever to be nominated by a major party ranks near the very top of the list.  That they often knew better and yet allowed their mercenary desire for ratings and revenue to subsume any sense of duty to their alleged profession, their country or the truth, makes this among the worst betrayals of this or any other political season.  Damn them all.

BONUS:



(h/t Washington Monthly)