So Trump was entitled to look to Russia to even up the coverage? Interesting.
The press was having a field day with Comey's announcement that it might reopen the emails investigation. But remember that fairness does not require the press to be complimentary about Trump half the time. His campaign received more than its fair share of coverage. It's also the role of the media to critique the policies he put forward and anything that might suggest a candidate is unfit to be President.
On the other hand, Russia was putting out fake news and disinformation as well as trying to capitalise on the stolen Podesta emails.
One story was that Clinton was associated with a paedophile ring operating from the basement of a Pizza restaurant. This was supposedly revealed by Wikileaks emails. It's now known as "Pizzagate" and was pushed by Alex Jones and others. You'd think that people would be too smart to be sucked in by this. But some people swallowed it hook, line and sinker. One armed man stormed the Pizza restaurant and demanded to see the basement where the child sex was happening. Eventually, he discovered that there was no basement at all and he surrendered to police.
WaPo reported that:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/piz...d1b5fc53bf
Whether the Russians created the story and fed it though right-wing conspiracy theorists isn't known, but it's fair to think the Russians had a hand in whipping up the "story" on social media.
That's the sort of propaganda (together with the Podesta emails Russia stole from Podesta and channelled through Wikileaks) that riled up some Trump voters.
The press was having a field day with Comey's announcement that it might reopen the emails investigation. But remember that fairness does not require the press to be complimentary about Trump half the time. His campaign received more than its fair share of coverage. It's also the role of the media to critique the policies he put forward and anything that might suggest a candidate is unfit to be President.
On the other hand, Russia was putting out fake news and disinformation as well as trying to capitalise on the stolen Podesta emails.
One story was that Clinton was associated with a paedophile ring operating from the basement of a Pizza restaurant. This was supposedly revealed by Wikileaks emails. It's now known as "Pizzagate" and was pushed by Alex Jones and others. You'd think that people would be too smart to be sucked in by this. But some people swallowed it hook, line and sinker. One armed man stormed the Pizza restaurant and demanded to see the basement where the child sex was happening. Eventually, he discovered that there was no basement at all and he surrendered to police.
WaPo reported that:
Quote:Over the next couple of days, the wild accusations against Clinton gradually merged with a new raft of allegations stemming from WikiLeaks’ release of Podesta’s emails. Those emails showed that Podesta occasionally dined at Comet Ping Pong.
On Nov. 7, the hashtag #pizzagate first appeared on Twitter. Over the next several weeks, it would be tweeted and retweeted hundreds or thousands of times each day.
An oddly disproportionate share of the tweets about Pizzagate appear to have come from, of all places, the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Vietnam, said Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University in North Carolina. In some cases, the most avid retweeters appeared to be bots, programs designed to amplify certain news and information.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/piz...d1b5fc53bf
Whether the Russians created the story and fed it though right-wing conspiracy theorists isn't known, but it's fair to think the Russians had a hand in whipping up the "story" on social media.
That's the sort of propaganda (together with the Podesta emails Russia stole from Podesta and channelled through Wikileaks) that riled up some Trump voters.