Neil Buchanan: Why Is The Press Ganging Up On Hillary Clinton?

[TomCADem]

If there is a question about why Trump is still in it, it is because the media still gives Trump 24/7 coverage and still indulges without serious challenge the most egregious lies that come from his campaign. Conversely, the rather unexciting e-mails that have been hacked by the Russians are spun in the most negative way possible.

Put another way, Trump's treasonous efforts to create unrest are portrayed as mere election strategy while the DNC's hacked e-mails are spun into minor scandals in a continuing effort at false equivalency.

http://www.newsweek.com/neil-buchanan-why-press-ganging-clinton-509084

Most importantly, I now worry about how the supposedly liberal press is going to treat the leaks of Democratic emails and Hillary Clinton's speeches. Although those leaks have been mostly ignored so far because of the Trump implosion, there is every reason to think that the press's "Clinton Rules"—the process of reporting news about Hillary Clinton in the most negative way possible—will be used to turn nonissues in the leaks into something nefarious.

* * *

All of which brings us back to my main concern going forward. The in-the-know crowd in the U.S. political press knows, just knows, that Clinton does not connect with American voters. They also amplify the conventional wisdom about Clinton supposedly being untrustworthy and all that.

And they do not merely fail to challenge that conventional wisdom. A few weeks ago, for example, one of those Times reporters actually validated Trump's claim that the breakup of the marriage between Anthony Weiner and Clinton aide Huma Abedin was somehow a campaign issue. It is all a matter of reading tea leaves, always with the background assumption that Clinton looks bad.

There was really no reason to be surprised, therefore, that the Times's coverage of the Clinton leaks is already being spun in the most negative way possible. A multi-authored piece, for example, referred to the "potentially damaging excerpts from private paid speeches Mrs. Clinton delivered to Wall Street executives in which she praised 'open trade and open borders' and lamented that her personal wealth made her 'kind of far removed' from the struggles of the middle class."

[Cakes488]

1. So far from what they are reporting these leaks are a big dud in the grand scheme of things.

I've heard nothing that is so horrible...the worst I've heard is the private/public position...but an answer can be massaged for that. Also thanks to Trashpot she could throw that right back at him. I think if something nefarious is really in the emails it will rise to the top and take on life...but so far there is no meat on these bones.

[TomCADem]

2. Yet, They Are Hyped As Equivalent To Trump's Scandals...

...in the news intros as a Clinton scandal when the real scandal is how the source of the hacks are the Russians, and the release e-mails is designed to hurt Clinton and help Trump.

[SharonClark]

3. Exactly!

[oasis]

4. The lamest attacks ever. Just wait until she's POTUS. Hill will never

put up with any of the media's bogus nonsense.