Before the 2016 election, most Americans trusted the traditional media and the trend was positive…Today, the US media has the lowest credibility—26 percent—among forty-six nations.
The above is an excerpt from the Columbia Journalism Review’s thorough postmortem on the Trump-Russia saga. The piece, written by veteran New York Times journalist Jeff Gerth, offers a detailed look back at the many unforced errors committed by the news media leading up to and throughout Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of then-President Trump.
Gerth’s meticulous review, published on Monday, January 30, was the result of years of interviews and research that he conducted following Mueller’s report, which found insufficient evidence to conclude that the Trump campaign had ever colluded with Russia. It is a searing indictment of the American news media’s handling of the story, and of their continued refusal to “walk down the painful road of introspection,” as Bob Woodward put it.
It’s nearly impossible to compile all of the dud “bombshells,” failed scoops, and wild speculative guesses that came out of the corporate media during the height of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory. But here’s an embarrassing recap of some of their most incompetent moments: