. . . dog bites man is a front-page story; man bites dog goes on page A11.
The confirmation this week that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid an opposition-research firm for a "dossier" on Donald Trump is bombshell news.
So writes Kimberley A. Strassel (Potomac Watch: "The Coming Russia Bombshells," October 27, 2017, The Wall Street Journal).
This bombshell exploded last Tuesday. The Washington Post broke the story. The Chronicle subscribes, and has long subscribed, to the Post's feed. Back in the day, this meant that Woodward's and Bernstein's Watergate bombshells were regularly on the local newspaper's front page.
But that was then.
The Chronicle ran the Clinton/DNC story on page A11.(Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett, and Rosalind S. Helderman, "Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research on Russia dossier, The Houston Chronicle, October 25, 2017)
What went on page 1 instead? A forgettable one-day anti-Trump political story -- Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Flake slams Trump in fiery speech."
Real news was banished to the journalistic hinterland to make way for the day's juiciest anti-Trump rant.
There is, in fact, no faster expressway to the Chronicle's front page than the one reserved for angry words about our president. Another example, this one reprinted from The New York Times: Yamiche Alcindor and Mark Landler, "Slain soldier's mom blasts Trump's call," The Houston Chronicle, October 19.
How important was the Clinton/DNC story?
With one stroke it gave evidence of possible Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential campaign, but against the press's political allies -- the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party -- not against the hated Donald Trump.
Months and months of frenzied coverage, largely fact-free or fact-impaired, has done less damage to Mr. Trump than one jaw-dropping report on his adversaries.
Isn't that news?
And isn't it news to consider the implications of how this scurrilous "dossier" came to the attention of the FBI and the national security apparatus? And how what amounts to partisan campaign propaganda was used, so it appears, to justify the unjustifiable -- interference by agents of the state in an American presidential election? Snooping by the snoopers and lawless unmasking by the left's own insiders?
Let's end as we began, with Kimberley Strassel:
No, this probe of the Democratic Party's Russian dalliance has a long, long way to go. And, let us hope, with revelations too big for even the media to ignore.
Based on the evidence to date, sadly, no revelation is too big for The Houston Chronicle to ignore.
Comments