[vannevar]

Clearly Donald Trump influenced the degree to which the story got reported, even as unproven allegations. Had Mitt Romney been the subject, the media would probably have been more skeptical. But Trump had already said and done so many morally questionable things over his long career in the spotlight that it was easier to believe the dossier's accusations were credible.

[GenerocUsername]

Sure this media hit job turned out to be an obvious lie, but my convictions towards the others remains unshaken!

[Swenrekcah]

To be fair they weren’t reported as “unconfirmed” or “alleged”.

The bankruptcies are real, the scams are real (e.g. Trump University), the debts to foreign interests, the pay-for-play, the 9/11 phone call is real, etc.

But this Dossier seems to be a fabrication which is a condemnation for all the outlets that did report so extensively on it, even if the used some caveats. They implied there was a reason to believe its truth and I certainly thought that some of it must be true even if I didn’t know which parts. So shame on them as well.

[deltarholamda]

>Had Mitt Romney been the subject, the media would probably have been more skeptical

What do you base this on? Do you not remember the Romney campaign in 2008? He was "otherizing" Obama, and we all know that's crypto-fascist talk. Not to mention his "women in binders." Or his connections to the Mexican Romneys who were polygamists and otherwise unsavory. That's just 12-odd years ago.

Believing the media is, in any way, unbiased or otherwise independent is foolish. All you have to do is compare the Steele dossier with the Hunter Biden laptop. For the former, there were stories every week about how Trump was basically a Russian asset. For the latter, the laptop was ignored, and the NY Post deplatformed by tech companies for writing about it. Now imagine if the laptop had been Donald Trump, Jr.'s. Is there any doubt in your mind that we would have heard about every sketchy thing in it? How big would the NYT headline be? How many segments would Colbert do on Jr.'s peccadilloes?

Journalists aren't better people than the rest of us. They have their biases just like you and me. As I see it, the real problem has been the consolidation of media into large corporations, all of which work with the government to construct the narrative for their own benefit. You could probably fit every truly independent working journalist into a Winnebago.

It's always best to approach everything you read with a healthy dose of cynicism.

[landemva]

Romney and McCain both got the media light touch. Those two were favored RNC boys. They are part of the club, and I'm not in it. McCain's hands were on the dossier from Clinton.

[vannevar]

You're confusing two ideas. One is the garden variety criticism that all candidates get when they are running for the Presidency. That's what Romney received.

The dossier, on the other hand, contained specific allegations of wrong-doing. I don't think it would've gotten the same degree of play with Mitt Romney, in large part because, whatever his flaws, Mitt Romney has a much better reputation than Donald Trump. Believing that character and reputation don't matter to journalists is foolish. Just like the rest of us, they take past behavior into account when weighing allegations.

And certainly it's a good idea to approach the media with a healthy dose of cynicism. But it's worth noting that much of the Steele Dossier was in fact corroborated, including numerous meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian agents.

[deltarholamda]

>The dossier, on the other hand, contained specific allegations of wrong-doing

The dossier was opposition research, paid for by the Clinton campaign, and treated as serious allegations by the media and the FBI. And now we know that the FBI, and most likely the media as well, knew it was utter nonsense from the start. There isn't any confusion here, except the confusion how it seems that nobody involved in that disaster of a smear campaign--that was used for dodgy wiretaps of an opposition campaign--has been held accountable.

>One is the garden variety criticism that all candidates get when they are running for the Presidency

That's nonsense, and it's concerning that you seem to actually believe that. The point was that utterly anodyne Mitt Romney was cast as that season's Worse Than Hitler role, and you seem to have completely forgotten that. You are correct that it would have been somewhat more difficult to pin a pee tape on Romney, but if you can't see him being cast as a crypto Russian agent, if required, then you are terribly naive. The lack of any reporting of Hunter's laptop, outside of government officials, current and former, dismissing it as more Russian trickery, just proves the point that there is a manufactured narrative.

Our government doesn't work, and the sense-making organisms that we rely on to keep the government accountable, i.e. the media, seems to vary between corrupt and incompetent. That's the real problem.

[nathanaldensr]

So it's Donald Trump's fault that a group of people completely fabricated information. Got it.

[simonh]

If you build a solid reputation for something, that makes you vulnerable to future allegations along the same lines. It doesn't justify false allegations in any way.

[vannevar]

No, but it's Donald Trump's fault that the fabrications seemed plausible based on his past behavior.

And to be fair, many of the Steele dossier claims had some corroboration (eg, numerous meetings between the Trump campaign and the Russians).

[cpr]

No, the reason everyone salivated over and jumped on any ridiculous claim was that Trump was threatning to upset (and then starting to upset) the apple cart the deep state had been constructing and profiting from for decades.