Frittering Away American Democracy, One Tweet At A Time (UPDATED)

Many media outlets appear to have learned nothing from how Putin puppet Donald "Not Exonerated" Trump used them to amplify his rancid messaging in 2016, or perhaps they don't give a damn:

Major media outlets failed to rebut President Donald Trump's misinformation 65% of the time in their tweets about his false or misleading comments, according to a Media Matters review. That means the outlets amplified Trump's misinformation more than 400 times over the three-week period of the study -- a rate of 19 per day.

The data shows that news outlets are still failing to grapple with a major problem that media critics highlighted during the Trump transition: When journalists apply their traditional method of crafting headlines, tweets, and other social media posts to Trump, they end up passively spreading misinformation by uncritically repeating his falsehoods.

The continuing passivity of many major media -- whose truth- telling is supposed to be one of democracy's guardians against a would- be autocrat like Trump -- in clearly disputing Trump's Niagara of lies signals that the run- up to the 2020 election will be marked by the same both siderism and false equivalencies that gave us our "young, vibrant" presnut.

The worst offenders?  The Hill, with 3.25 million Twitter followers, which passes along Trump lies and misinformation without rebuttal or context 88 percent of the time;  the main Twitter feed for ABC News, with 14.3 million followers, failing to dispute Trump 74 percent of the time;  CBS News, with 6.71 million followers, failing to dispute 87 percent of the time; and NBC News, with 6.52 million followers, failing to dispute 52 percent of the time.  MSNBC?  Even the "librul" cable network's Twitter, with 2.41 million followers, failed to dispute 55 percent of the time.  With friends like them...

Among the better media:  the Washington Post Twitter feed, which failed to dispute only 11 percent of the time.

Not mentioned in the article was the New York Times, but we can offer some anecdotal evidence from the past week that would suggest placing them squarely in the offender camp:

"Instead of calling Trump’s lie a lie, the Times used the euphemism 'revived an inaccurate refrain' in a tweet that was widely mocked." https://t.co/6S5AFjVqXC Via @dangillmor

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 29, 2019

Then we have perhaps the most dogged flogger of the "Hillary's emails!" nothingburger inserting a phony Trump "spying" narrative in a tweet about why the FBI was alarmed at the Trump campaign's ties with Russia:

NEW: The decision to aim a US gov't investigator at a presidential campaign official shows the level of alarm inside the FBI during the '16 election and gives ammunition to Trump who claims the FBI spied on his campaign. w/@adamgoldmanNYT @MarkMazzettiNYT https://t.co/13n4mqjJXT

— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) May 2, 2019

These smug corporate media and their jaded "journalists" are the same ones Masha Gessen warned about, those that choose to fall in line to preserve their access.  The difference is that now we've seen the damage they've done, and they're being called out more forcefully and systemically.  Whether that's enough or not remains to be seen. But as Jonathan Swift wrote in 1710, "Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it" -- and he didn't say it on Twitter.

UPDATE:  Schmidt's tweet/ story pleased a certain "young, vibrant person." Mission accomplished: access protected.

Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved - too “hot” to avoid. Pulitzer Prize anyone? The New York Times, on front page (finally), “Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign.” @foxandfriends  This is bigger than WATERGATE, but the reverse!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019