Under anything resembling normal circumstances, the news of the past few days regarding former National Security Advisor Susan Rice would be an unquestionably significant story.
As we all know by now, we no longer live under normal circumstances.
In case you missed it, the story goes like this: Rice claimed less than two weeks ago to have no knowledge of any sort of information-gathering around Trump or his associates. However, numerous sources have now accused her of not only knowing about information-gathering, but also attempting to “unmask” people caught up in “incidental” surveillance.
In a nutshell, people who are surveilled “incidentally” would normally have their names and identities withheld. Here, Rice allegedly asked for these identities to be made known and unredacted, possibly in order to gather more specific information from or about those close to Trump.
Certainly, in light of the accusations by President Trump regarding surveillance, this would seem to be a pretty important development. But the real unmasking isn’t the one for which Rice asked. It’s been the conduct of many mainstream media outlets in the wake of the Rice story.
Outlets including the New York Times have scoffed at the story as the creation of “conservative” news sources. CNN has gone a step further, unilaterally deciding that this story should not be covered. Don Lemon dismissed it as a mere diversion by nefarious mastermind President Trump. Jim Sciutto, a former Obama appointee, dismissed the story as “ginned-up” and a “distraction.” Chris Cuomo declared it a “fake scandal,” based on the claims of an “associate” of Susan Rice.
Declaring a story as “fake” because the associate of the subject of the story said so is mind-boggling. Imagine CNN extending that same courtesy if an associate of President Trump said, “Hey, all that Russia stuff is just nonsense.”
Would the word of a Trump associate stop CNN from investigating the Trump-Russia ties? Of course not!
Nor should it.
The brazenness of this approach is alarming.
The problem here is a simple one. CNN believes that this story shouldn’t be covered because it might detract (or distract) from coverage of possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign / administration.
The ideological battle lines that divide American political discourse are now so stark that an outlet presenting coverage that might help Trump is seen as mutually exclusive with coverage that might hurt Trump.
I’m guess I’m a heretic. I think both stories should be covered because they’re intrinsically newsworthy.
When Trump supporters dismiss legitimate criticism and fact-checks as “fake news,” mainstream media outlets (rightly) howl. Some even go as far as to create slightly absurd, self-aggrandizing slogans to remind us of how important they are.
Yet, we’re seeing the same thing in reverse, here—except those doing the dismissing are major media voices, not crackpots with blogs.
For CNN to decide preemptively that there’s no possibility that this might be a story of significance is journalistic malpractice. If CNN thinks there’s no truth to it, great: Prove it. But to declare at the outset that they’re not even going to try, because they think that the entire story may be contrived and intended to help Trump? That’s irredeemable.
Moreover, outlets that make those choices continue to erode what’s left of the rapidly dwindling public faith in their own institutions.
That’s a trend that won’t reverse itself until major media outlets can finally rediscover discipline and something approaching objectivity.