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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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"Lied" implies intent, which is a very squishy subject. I'd prefer they stick to just the facts, please. I'm no lawyer, but I suspect you might be asking for libel suits if you claim somebody lied and can't actually prove that they did so intentionally.
They accuse them of bad journalism. Supposing intent you can't prove is the definition of bad journalism. People need to temper their instinctual emotions a bit. I'm upset about Trump being a serial liar too (which I can say, because I'm a nobody who can totally infer his intent) but cmon, can we not leave the very foundations of factual journalism in the dust in our quest to right that wrong?
If you can’t call a liar a liar that is not good journalism either
Why does journalism need to spoonfeed people? Why can't we take accountability? They report the facts. Facts are provable, with evidence. You can only very, very rarely prove intent with evidence. A lie is an untruth delivered with intent. They cannot prove that and as such should not report it. We, as readers, should then piece the facts together. They're giving you facts, not teaching you how to think. It's not their job.
Because most people are NPCs. They've been spoonfed their information for a century, and before that they just knew nothing. There has never been, and likely never will be, a period in history where the average person actually is an independent rational actor. Most people are proles
What? You are suggesting they can’t prove Trump said lock her up?
Of course you can prove he said that. That's the untruth. Can you prove he knew he lied? You and I know that because it's clear as day and we don't need strict evidence, but journalists do because their job is to report facts and not assumptions, even obvious ones. It's your job as a reader to take those facts and the surrounding context to construct what happened. They should not have to spoonfeed this to us in the exact verbiage we want just because we want to score a few more points because CNN said "lie".
And you should genuinely be ashamed of your reading comprehension. Your response does not make sense considering what I wrote above. I addressed that directly.
I call bs
You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to find reasons to preposterously believe that Trump accidentally lied. We all know this is an outrageous lie. We all know he's an outrageous liar. I'm not asking CNN or you to say so, though, I'm asking you not to overcomplicate a very simple, very obvious lie which has a very obvious motivation. No sane or rational judge or jury is going to believe that Trump was mistaken or that he told this untruth for anything other than self-serving reasons, and Trump isn't going to sue CNN for libel on this open-and-shut case lie because he's neck-deep in legal costs and court cases already.
Just gonna say it again, yall need to learn to fucking read. Nobody is "trying to find reasons to proposterously believe Trump accidentally lied". Let me clear since yall are genuinely scarily bad at reading comprehension: Trump lied. He lies a lot and we all know it. I know it. He lied this time, just like he lied all the other times. Easy for me to say, because I will not be sued and I am not in a position of power, which allows me to play whatever game I want and say whatever I want.
Journalists are journalists. They do journalism. There are rules to proper journalism. One of those is having evidence. Do you have hard evidence that Trump knowingly told an untruth in this case? Texts from him? Documents? Not assumptions, even perfectly solid ones, but actual evidence. No, you don't. Nobody does. The journalists don't either. They can be sued for defamation and, more importantly, it's not CNN's job to tell us how to fucking think, period. Telling us shit based on assumptions, even good ones, is telling us how to think. I'm not okay with that and you shouldn't be either.
Journalists are getting played. By a serial liar and conman (and rapist, and traitor, fwiw).
Use the word. Get sued. WIN. This is bullshit.
And I get the "respect journalism" and I get the "don't throw out the facts with the bathwater" and you "people know what they're doing" crowd, I understand where you're coming from too. It's just wrong now.
In 2024 it's wrong. We're done. Journalism as it is practiced in corporate newsrooms has failed epically. A russian-backed conman who couldn't preside his way out of a wet paper reality show is poised to destroy democracy in all but name because they cant say "lied". It's bullshit. It's long past time to change.
No, they're not. You're just willing to undermine the foundations of journalism to get at Trump, which is not conducive to the long-term health of our democracy. Hell , let's just scrub the first amendment while we're at it! Then we can throw him in jail for lying! WOOOOO!
Some things are sacred for a reason. They're more important than Trump, than this moment in our history. You're trying to pull a reverse McCarthy where we just lower every bar to get at our enemies. It doesn't make us as bad as them, but it makes us something new that is also bad. I'm not okay with it, and I'm glad these news agencies are on that same page.
And really, let's zoom out for five fucking seconds. "These journalists are all getting played" By fucking what?? By saying "untruth" instead of "lie", which every person in this country is going to read nigh identically? Really, that's the big Trump win? Christ alive, yall are so politically weird and ineffective.
You got a lotta faith in that huh. Listen, media is not sacred and a “reverse McCarthy” is just McCarthy. (And Roy Cohn, which - nevermind)
Played how? Played by being told they can’t speak plainly about his constant - constant - lying. His fraudulent nature. His raping. His deep, deep ties to russia and that state’s constant and abiding support of him. They can’t - or won’t - speak plainly, openly, or frequently about these super disqualifying topics because they have a horserace to run. (There’s your sacred journalism - running the horse race.)
That’s how they’re being played. “Untruth”?? Good fucking god when was the last time you heard or used the word “untruth” in actual human conversation? ? Ever??
And they’re not even using that in the headlines. They’re using “falsely claimed” - a phrase probably never uttered at all by anyone ever, it’s so contrived.
You don’t understand that the ‘foundations of journalism’ were undermined in the 80’s. What we have today is a mutated form of advertising, mostly.
We've hit the 24 hour mark and I don't think this thread is going anywhere productive. I think you and I just have some deeply-held beliefs or ethics that are opposed here. For what it's worth, we completely agree on who Donald Trump is and the horrific actions he's taken over his lifetime. The lies, the fraud, the assaults, all of it. I do get frustrated that more people don't see that, but where we split is what we're willing to see society do to solve it. There's a lot of complexity there and I don't deny that there would be benefits to your more hardline approach. I just think it would have irreversible, terrible consequences for our media landscape, and subsequently the entire American constituency, after Trump is gone.
It's unfortunate that we weren't able to find common ground, but I respect your convictions, genuinely.
Fwiw it sounds like we did, in fact, find common ground. If we survive the weak, ineffective, republiQan-tilting media coverage of the election and somehow defeat the looming obvious destruction of all ethics and democracy, we’ll pick up again on how journalists can have a more authentic, less ‘corporatized’ voice. It’s a good discussion.
I'll take that! Here's to kicking his ass in November and hopefully fixing this clusterfuck of a society. 🍾
Agreed!
Let me get this straight: You're not sure whether Trump did deliberately claim that he didn't say, repeatedly, often, publicly, on the TV and on social media "lock her up"? You think he accidentally denied saying it, or you have come to doubt your recollection of "LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!"?
I'm thinking it doesn't matter what we think, it matters which one could accrue expensive court costs. Because "false claim" is specific and provable, "lied" is murky and general. When it comes to libel and slander lawsuits, the legal system runs on semantics and pedantry.
Why should they open themselves to that kind of legal system enabled retribution? After all, we all know whose pants are on fire.
Trump would most definitely lose a libel case trying to claim that his obvious lie with transparent self-serving motivation was accidental or correct. He's way too deep in legal costs and court cases to make an absurd suit like that, and there's no point doing it because he doesn't care that people know he's an out and out liar.
A libel case is different.
The problem is Trump could claim “oops I forgot that I agreed with the crowd in 2016” and that is different than intentionally lying. That’s why journalists have to split hairs here; George Santos can be called a liar but saying Trump lied this time is harder. It opens a can of worms; when Biden inevitably gets a detail wrong in another story of his should they call him a liar?
This isn't a detail, this was a campaign slogan. No one in their right mind would believe Trump didn't know exactly what he was doing both then and now. Stop trying to introduce doubt where there is none, it's absurd. (And no, he doesn't want to spend more time and money in court right now.)
In a weird way I agree with both you and the person you replied to. My own personal doublethink, I suppose.