Talking Points Memo

Media Matters published a story today with this headline:

"News outlets that trumpeted Hur's story now discover 'context' and 'nuance' in transcript"

Media Matters notes that according to a Popular Information report, the Washington Post published 33 stories about special counsel Hur's report in the four days following its release. The New York Times published 30 reports. The Wall Street Journal published 18. All three outlets published something today comparing and contrasting Hur's report to the transcript. All three outlets come away with the same impression: Hur's report was lacking context and nuance.

We haven't written much about this report at TPM. Before the report was ever even completed, hell before it was even being written — when United States Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur — TPM's Executive Editor David Kurtz wrote, "The appointment of Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate the Biden classified documents matter is another example of the extreme imbalance between Democrats and Republicans in the politics of national security and law enforcement."

David's a good journalist so of course, he noted that Hur wasn't necessarily a partisan hack or a conspiracy guy but that his appointment speaks to the "systemic and long-running dynamic that is so baked in that even sophisticated observers take it for granted now."

The breathless coverage by the media is part of that imbalance. Publications like TPM are critical because our starting point is context and nuance. That is what we exist to do. Yes, we break news about important things like all-male secret societies drawing up sinister plans for our democracy and doing other weird stuff. But at the end of the day, journalism is about helping readers understand what is going on. The mainstream outlets can publish all the stories they want but if it's all vibes-based — if they lack nuance and context and an understanding of history — what is the point? That doesn't help society in any way.

When Hur's report was first released, Josh Marshall published his initial thoughts, which proved prescient: "The descriptions in the report sound bad because they are designed to sound bad. These are from a five hour discussion the day after the October 7th attacks on Israel when I'm sure Biden was focused on that unfolding crisis."

It's good to get information from a variety of sources, but anyone who spent their time reading most of those 81 stories published by the New York Times, Washington Post or Wall Street Journal could have just read one or two things at TPM.