Washington Post Columnist Rips Rachel Maddow for Promoting Steele Dossier Conspiracy Theories for Three Years

But he doesn't mention the Washington Post "journalists" and "experts" who pushed the same conspiracy theories.

But then, journalists are cowards. It is to be expected.

"As part of her Russianist phase, Maddow became a clearinghouse for news increments regarding the dossier," writes Post media columnist Eric Wemple in his fifth installment in a series reviewing the media’s coverage of Steele’s dossier.

...

According to the IG report, the FBI was unable to corroborate any of Steele’s allegations of collusion involving the Trump campaign. Steele’s primary source for the dossier also disputed key allegations in the document. Steele told FBI agents in October 2016 that one of the main sub-sources for the dossier was a "boaster" and "embellisher," the report further stated.

"When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them," wrote Wemple. "At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report."

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According to Wemple, Maddow touted reports from other news outlets that claimed parts of the dossier were corroborated. On May 3, 2017, she said on her show that "more and more" aspects of the dossier had been "independently corroborated."

On Oct. 5, 2017, she said that "a lot" of the claims in the dossier were "dead to rights." On April 16, 2018, she hyped a story published by McClatchy that the special counsel’s team had received evidence backing up the dossier’s allegation that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to meet Kremlin operatives. The IG report said that the allegation was "not true."

Brit Hume noted -- without naming names -- that many in the media still believe almost completely in this discredited, evidence-free conspiracy theory confabulation.

This supercut shows some of the worst media offenders in claiming that nonsense political opposition smearsearch (see what I did?) has been "largely verified."

CNN and superannuated bimbo Alysin Camarota play starring roles.

posted by Ace at 01:44 PM

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