Jack Shafer over at Politico has the typical defense of CNN's Fake News operation. Can't a guy just make a mistake.
Should Journalists Have the Right to Be Wrong? CNN screwed up. So have we all.
Etc... etc
As the Supreme Court noted in the landmark libel case Times v. Sullivan, the First Amendment is of little use unless we provide “breathing space” for controversial reports that end up containing unintentional mistakes—like the CNN story—as long as they’re made without malice. As I’ve written before, journalistic errors aren’t a modern thing caused by the 24-hour news cycle or stimulated by Twitter’s itchy trigger-fingers. Show me a famous set of historical stories—the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Normandy invasion, the Cold War, the civil rights struggle, the 9/11 attacks or the day-to-day coverage of past presidents, and I’ll show you grievous errors in the reporting. From Tucson to Abbottabad to Mumbai, breaking news routinely tosses off condemnable errors of fact, usually made by conscientious reporters doing their best under intense pressure.
Malice is the key word.
Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect. But there's a big difference between mistakes and motivated lying. The difference is good faith. It's ethics and integrity.
Does anyone on either side honestly believe that the media has any ethics and integrity when it comes to Trump? Or, for that matter, Republicans in general. Good faith works both ways. If you extend nothing to the other side, there's no reason for the other side to extends any to you.
Why should Republicans believe that CNN made an error rather than told a deliberate lie? It comes down to trust. And there isn't any reason for any.
Nor does Shafer provide any reason for trust by compulsively quoting ex-Gawker's John Cook.
Cook, who runs digital investigations at Gizmodo Media Group, provides an editor’s eye view of the challenges reporters face when tolerance for errors falls to zero.
Earlier this week, Cook wrote my kicker for me when he tweeted, “One good way to reduce the rate of production of good journalism is to engineer an environment where mistakes are viewed as catastrophic.”
Like running Hulk Hogan's sex tape. Just one of those errors that impede the production of hit pieces.
Journalism can’t exist unless we give reporters the occasional right to get it wrong.
Journalism can't exist when those outside their circle no longer trust in their integrity.