politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Making a decision on the truthfulness of a claim is not "opinion". Paperwork was filed before his unit was given notification they were going to Iraq. Saying he left to dodge a deployment is a false accusation. No opinion necessary.
News reporting is not stenography. JD Vance has press releases and web sites to just broadcast his BS.
In the general course of reporting news, most traditional news outlets don't make those sorts of determinations. Sometimes the editorial board will do specific fact checks of claims, but most NYT, AP, Reuters, etc, articles don't make those sorts of determinations. They do present verified claims from other authorities or named parties, which is why they included rebuttals from those sources.
And a campaign press release is not a news outlet. Proper news outlets have reporting guidelines.
Whether you that's common or not, that's not good journalism and worthy of criticism. And a pattern that's changing, with a greater emphasis on both fact checking and making clear in the headline that a claim is false.
NYT: A Timeline of Trump’s False and Misleading Statements on the Mar-a-Lago Search
AP News: Donald Trump falsely suggests Kamala Harris misled voters about her race
Reuters: US Republicans target noncitizen voting, as Trump keeps up false voter fraud claims
Yes, that's the whole point. Don't elevate a press release to news unless you're willing to do some journalism and note where the statements are false. They have a free speech right to post their opinions on their campaign sites or social media, but news sites are supposed to be informing their readers and blindly repeating a false claim is not doing that.
Let's expand that quote:
So in what way does that argue for reporters to make their own independent assertions, and in what way did the NYT article fail to capture the meaning of the story?
In the case of the election denials, the media has numerous independent authorities to cite to bluntly state the fact. They have court cases, independent panels, etc, all as independent authorities with no contrary position by any real authority.
Additionally, in the case of the NYT article you link, that is exactly the retrospective editorial I said is done, but not for breaking or developing stories.
But back to the NYT article about Vance's claim. They report that the claim was made, the investigated and found primary sources, they fleshed out the context, and appear to have fairly reported the facts which indicate Walz's prior intent to run for office. I don't see how that is stenography. In fact, stenography would have been simply reporting that Vance made the claim, without the associated leg work.
This is just as objective as election denial. It's pure factual records. And the problem is that the title doesn't indicate the claim is false. You need to read the article to know that, which many people don't do.
It's a really weird claim to say they shouldn't say that's something's untrue in the title, but it's not stenography because they say it's untrue in the body. Either you want stenography, where even statements of which thing came first can only come from outside experts, or you don't and the title should convey the result of the journalistic effort to verify claims so as to not mislead the public.
The person I replied to led their comment with this:
Which is just not true. The NYT headline is that the claim was made by Vance. I do think reasonable people can disagree over the quality of the headline, but barring an authoritative source and factual record, inserting the word "untrue" would be editorialized. There isn't some validated record of Watz's intent; rather, there is first hand accounts from seemingly trustworthy individuals saying he verbalized his intent months in advance of deployment orders, and his motivating story regarding the Bush campaign. I believe that version of events. But that is very different than having a court ruling from a fact finding trial court, or an independent house panels findings to justify something being objectively untrue. We can quibble over this, but that's just what journalism standards are for news reporting agencies.
Regardless of the title, the NYT article is pretty clearly not a simple parroting of Vance's claim, or even that the claim occurred. They found past sources, they ran details to ground, and they reported the facts to their audience. Additionally, the NYT is a pay walled news source, which I subscribe to, and I suspect the majority of their subscribers do actually read the article. And obviously, they are writing articles with their subscribers on mind, who, like me, want objective reporting with primary sources.
A false claim. You don't wash your hands of responsibility by just noting who said it. And few subscribers actually read every article the NYT puts out. I'm sure you don't. What goes in the title matters.
And holy crap you're still acting like whether it was false is an opinion. Courts didn't rule for any of those things you claim justify journalistic description of falsehood! There are cases for some, but no rulings. And those court cases are based on "first hand accounts from seemingly trustworthy individuals", the same evidence you claim cannot be used to come to a conclusion in a news story. Nevermind that in this instance there's also actual documentation that shows the claim is bullshit. This idea that because Vance is speculating on his mental state that it's just impossible to call it false is just an insane way to approach the world.
And the NYT didn't just stop by saying who said it; they did into the background and reported on the details and the context.
What records? Maybe I missed it, but the TPM, NYT and other sources have only reported statements made by people from his unit saying he shared with them his intent prior to receiving deployment orders. That is not an objective, factual, contemporaneous record to unequivocally establish the truth of the claim around intent. It's credible, and compelling. But not the same as having releases a date stamped form to start out processing, etc, that would be unequivocal.
I have no objection to calling it a false claim. I think it is a false claim. I don't need my news source to make that decision for me, unless they have unequivocal records or proof.
And no, I don't read every article, but I also don't parrot the headlines without reading the content and I don't miscomprehend the titles. I don't read the NYT headline as giving any credence to the claim from Vance. I read it as a factual statement, and being interested in the topic, I read the article. That might not be the norm on social media, but I suspect people who pay for objective news sources are similar in that regard.
And I already said that the title could be debated. Here's an alternative that I don't think is editorializing inappropriately:
But critically, it avoids making a direct determination by the reporter on the absence of objective records.
Exactly. I would think it's relevant to mention the fact that Walz has 20 more years of military experience in the first or second paragraph.
Just present the (obviously false) claim and add "the Times asked the Trump/Vance campaign about the 20 year difference in military experience. We have yet to hear back from them at the time of publication.