White House planted fake story to smear Politico reporter who wrote about leaks: reports

[DonViejo]

Source: RawStory


TRAVIS GETTYS
27 FEB 2017 AT 11:10 ET

The White House apparently attempted to smear a critical reporter by planting a story about him laughing at the mention of a Navy SEAL’s death.

Politico published a story Sunday morning by Alex Isenstadt and Annie Karni on a surprise meeting called by White House press secretary Sean Spicer to examine aides’ phones and other electronic devices for evidence of leaks.

When multiple sources leaked details of that meeting to Isenstadt and Karni, it appears other White House officials slapped back at one of the Politico reporters using the death of a Navy SEAL killed just days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in a controversial Yemen raid.

The Washington Examiner published a story Sunday evening, about six and a half hours after the “phone check” report broke, claims one of the Politico reporters mocked a Trump aide’s emotional reaction to the death of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/white-house-planted-fake-story-to-smear-politico-reporter-who-wrote-about-leaks-reports/

[dalton99a]

1. Trump is hell bent on destroying a free press.

"I love the First Amendment. Nobody loves it better than me."

[JenniferJuniper]

2. My money is on the press destroying him.

[dalton99a]

4. He will not succeed. The press will write his obituary.

But so much damage will be done while he's in power.

[mwooldri]

44. History tends to view favorably on people who try to do good.

The Press will definitely write his obituary. However it's the historians who will have the final say. Depending on how this thing turns out, history may view DJT unfavourably, or very, very unfavourably.

[PatSeg]

7. I'm thinking the same thing

It is not really wise to wage all out war on the press. He has given them so much motive to dig even deeper.

[JenniferJuniper]

14. "Never pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrel."

[mwooldri]

43. Or in today's language ... "with those who buy bandwidth by the Exabyte." nt

[KingCharlemagne]

25. The bourgeoisie are at each other's throats. I will

bet with you against Trump.

[Cheviteau]

29. Old Adage

Never pick on someone who buys ink by the barrel. Has always proven true.

[mpcamb]

24. " hell bent on destroying a free press." I think the press should be hell bent on destroying him.

This is some evil business and they ought to shred him for it.
It's clear this congress won't till their program of helping the wealthy is complete.
He needs to be stopped, like Nixon was, and the press and the court will have to do it.

[luvMIdog]

3. I now know that any news source he calls fake must be a good source for news ;)

[PatSeg]

5. Yes

He has really simplified it for us. Always looking for the silver lining.

[Botany]

6. And in Sept. 1939 Germany claimed that Poland had crossed the border to raid a radio station.

Trump and company need to be stopped.

[Eliot Rosewater]

8. Each day more and more it is clear what is happening, but fuckface

almost won this election by appealing to over 60 million racists.

These racists love NOT trusting legitimate news sources, it plays right into their biases and immaturity.

This is gonna get way worse before it gets better, I am NOT putting my money on the truth and journalism and not for any reason other than hate is often stronger than justice.

[KingCharlemagne]

28. I agree that it's going to get worse before it gets better, but

we have had a free and independent press for 225 years. Trump and his fascist cohort have been around for 40-some years. Hate may be stronger than justice, true, but TRUTH is stronger than hate.

[PatSeg]

21. Every day

he is becoming more and more dangerous. Now he wants to increase spending on the military and Homeland Security. It is like he is following a fascist playbook.

[msongs]

9. original source politico. rawstory is like the national enquirer of the interntet nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. The Washington Examiner

The Washington Examiner

The Washington Examiner is an American political journalism website and weekly magazine based in Washington, D.C. that covers politics and policy in the United States and internationally. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is owned by Philip Anschutz.
....

Editorial stance

When Anschutz first started the Examiner in its daily newspaper format, he envisioned creating a competitor to The Washington Post with a conservative editorial line. According to Politico, "When it came to the editorial page, Anschutz's instructions were explicit—he 'wanted nothing but conservative columns and conservative op-ed writers,' said one former employee." The Examiner's writers have included Michael Barone, Tim Cavanaugh, David Freddoso, Tara Palmeri, Rudy Takala, and Byron York.[5]

The Examiner endorsed John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and Adrian Fenty in the Democratic primary for mayor in 2010. On December 14, 2011, it endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, publishing an editorial saying he was the only Republican who could beat Barack Obama in the general election.

[iluvtennis]

11. Wow, enough is enough...this has got to stop.

[Mr. Ected]

12. This is getting complicated

Is it fake news when a fake report is planted by a fake President in a real news source? Is this different than a real story being reported by a real news source, or a fake story being planted in a fake news source?

It used to be so easy. News was news, lies were lies, opinion was opinion, and life was good.

[erronis]

18. I totally agree with the complicated part, but

I don't think it has ever been "so easy".

Propaganda, newspeak, yellow journalism, leaks, back-stabbing (literal and figurative), set-ups, selective editing, censorship, .... the list does go on. These have been practiced may since Johnson (the first), or Caesar (whichever), or whoever invented words and feints.

Life could be good, if only for the entertainment value of watching it go down the cesspool created by the repuglicans and their bastard child.

[Mr. Ected]

19. The problem is discerning news programs from news entertainment programs

And in my mind, the distinction needs to be as crystal-clear as the warnings on cigarette packaging.

[erronis]

26. And not to be academic or argumentative: But who determines this distinction?

For some periods of the US history we have had breezes of openness and caring about the populace. These come and go with the vagaries of politics and personalities.

The warnings on cigarette packages should be the skull and crossbones with no conciliatory messages about "the surgeon-general says..."

Will we have a government agency of True Speak that tells us what can be printed/said? Or another that says what we can listen to, and if heard, report it to the Agency of Rehabilitation and Happiness.

For several years - going into decades - we have had access to reasonably unfettered information (and porn and alt-lies) via the internet. This will probably be controlled by the Department of Information (NOT). Practice your smoke signals, mirrors, tin-can string communications.

Practice not saying what you mean. Fortunately the thugs are not able to understand innuendo or irony.

[SunSeeker]

13. Wow.

[coco22]

15. He knows that...

many of his base will go along with it because a) They watch FOX (b)They hate everyone who talks against Trump(c),They don't want to admit that Trump is a narcissist,arrogant,childish,Conman(d)They are stupid.

[BeyondGeography]

16. A fine use of their time

Fucking goofballs.

[Achilleaze]

17. evil - and this is a freakin republican "family values" role model

[lagomorph777]

20. The more he does this, the more he pisses off the media

...and their anonymous sources. Little Donnie is used to dealing with the gossip columnists; he's totally out of his league.

[KingCharlemagne]

30. Trump is fixing to be served a big, heaping helping of

Woodstein. OMG, I cant wait!

[lillypaddle]

22. My blood pressure

is now through the roof.

[Kimchijeon]

23. It's not even surprising, they are professional trolls and charlatans

They don't give a shit about anything save promoting their own selfish fascist agenda.
Disgusting.

[NBachers]

27. " a trump aide's emotional reaction." Yeah, right- they're all broke up about it.

[alfredo]

31. Don't pick a fight with a man that buys ink by the barrel.

Don't know who said that, but he is right.

[drm604]

32. He wasn't laughing about the seal, or about Ditt's reaction to the seal's death.

He was laughing at Spicer's denial about what caused Ditt to cry.

[Smithm8686]

33. Efforts to marginalize reputable media are part of a much broader, darker attack.

I wanted to post this as a new topic, but i dont have enough replies.

Please read this article from The Guardian about the global, coordinated propaganda effort already in motion.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

[gopiscrap]

37. Welcome to DU

[blaze]

38. Welcome to DU

And there's another thread devoted to that Guardian article here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028716802

I hope people keep bumping it and encouraging others to read it. It's a long read but contains so many "holymotherofgawd" paragraphs.

[Brother Buzz]

39. Good stuff! DU's radar first spotted the snake, Robert Mercer, back in August

And he prefers to fly under the radar.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512348109

Welcome to DU

[Rhiannon12866]

45. Good article! Thanks! And it doesn't take very many replies

Welcome to DU! It's great to have you with us!

[Maru Kitteh]

46. very good article and welcome!

keep participating, you'll be able to post articles quite soon.

[Solly Mack]

34. I won't type what I'm thinking.

[agincourt]

35. Now is the time to protect our press

As Trump will try to do to US media what Putin did to Russia's media.

[lark]

36. Drumpf!

Fake News R US.

[AgadorSparticus]

40. Trump is hell bent on destroying the press...a month in and he STILL has how many positions to fill?

He just came out and said that fixing Healthcare is very complex. It is very hard. Oh so very hard to do....

And he is going to destroy the media? ??!?!!! Yeah. Right My money is on the media. The media and the IC that he has pissed off.

[world wide wally]

41. The ONLY thing Trumpface has got are his deplorables who won't believe his shit stinks

Until they share a public restroom with him

Sorry about that image.

[hollowdweller]

42. They tried to "Dan Rather" him!