Cont: All things Trump + Russia Part 2

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Mueller's team is 'keenly focused' on figuring out if Trump tried to hide the purpose of the Don Jr. meeting.

Federal investigators working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller are keenly focused on President Donald Trump's role in crafting a response to a published article about a meeting between Russians and his son Donald Jr., three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The sources told NBC News that prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting and whether he sought to conceal its purpose.

The meeting occurred at Trump Tower in June 2016 and was attended by Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. The meeting, which was first reported by The New York Times, also involved Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and former Soviet intelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin.
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I honestly don't understand how some of these bits don't make you step back and question them some.

The most solid allegations in that story are from:

three sources familiar with the matter
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...and...
A person familiar with Mueller's strategy
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Wouldn't that sort of ambiguous language make you a bit skeptical in pretty much any other context?


ETA: Consider a person with a microphone interviewing four people on the street:

Persons 1, 2, and 3...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with the investigation into Trump being led by Meuller?
Random person on the street: Yes, I'm familiar with the matter.
Interviewer: Do you think prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting between his son and the russions in June?
Random person on the street: Yes, I think prosecutors want to know that.

Person 4...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with Meuller's strategy regarding his Trump investigation?
Random person on the street: Yeah, I think so.
Interviewer: Do you think it's now of interest to prosecutors whether or not Trump made a knowingly false statement?
Random person on the street: Oh totally, I think they totally are interested in whether he made a knowingly false statement!

Interviewer: That's a wrap boys, we've got all the quotes we need, let's print this sucker!

++++++++++++++++++

Maybe, maybe not. But since all we have is essentially "someone said something", it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence, wouldn't you think?
 
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Emily's Cat said:
since all we have is essentially "someone said something", it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence, wouldn't you think?
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You can argue that, but be warned; when the reports are confirmed you will look pretty silly.

Or it may be that NBC have it wrong and their sources are lying, in which case you will be vindicated! But that scenario leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I honestly don't understand how some of these bits don't make you step back and question them some.

The most solid allegations in that story are from:


...and...


Wouldn't that sort of ambiguous language make you a bit skeptical in pretty much any other context?


ETA: Consider a person with a microphone interviewing four people on the street:

Persons 1, 2, and 3...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with the investigation into Trump being led by Meuller?
Random person on the street: Yes, I'm familiar with the matter.
Interviewer: Do you think prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting between his son and the russions in June?
Random person on the street: Yes, I think prosecutors want to know that.

Person 4...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with Meuller's strategy regarding his Trump investigation?
Random person on the street: Yeah, I think so.
Interviewer: Do you think it's now of interest to prosecutors whether or not Trump made a knowingly false statement?
Random person on the street: Oh totally, I think they totally are interested in whether he made a knowingly false statement!

Interviewer: That's a wrap boys, we've got all the quotes we need, let's print this sucker!

++++++++++++++++++

Maybe, maybe not. But since all we have is essentially "someone said something", it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence, wouldn't you think?
Click to expand...


I suppose that if I had never read a newspaper in my life and hence didn't know how they used terms like "familiar with" when citing unidentified sources, then I'd be about as puzzled as you pretend to be.

ETA: Here's an article about Kaczynski (the unabomber) using the phrase "sources familiar with the investigation". Here's an article about the Hillary email investigation which repeatedly uses similar phrasing. Here's an article using the same phrase discussing the Martha Stewart insider trading investigation. Did your spidey senses tingle on each of these articles too?
 
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Emily's Cat said:
I honestly don't understand how some of these bits don't make you step back and question them some.

<snip>

Maybe, maybe not. But since all we have is essentially "someone said something", it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence, wouldn't you think?
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I don't think it's the vague and anonymous sourcing which is the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is the subject matter. For some reason it's newsworthy that federal investigators are keenly focused on a nothing burger of an issue. It's only a small step closer to a crime than lying about farting in an elevator.

"According to several sources familiar with the matter, federal investigators are keenly focused on President Trump's role in deflecting attention from the source of a particularly fragrant gaseous emission of the lower colon by a human being in an elevator who was allegedly involved in the campaign.

"These same sources say that when the gaseous emission was first detected by the olfactory organs of several human beings present at the time, Trump repeatedly claimed that 'whoever smelt it dealt it.'

"Federal investigators had previously uncovered evidence that Trump's claim is untrue in general, although it may have been true in this specific case. Sources say that investigators are still unsure about Trump's motives. Whether he 'dealt it' or was covering up for somebody close to him who did, or even whether he actually holds such scientifically unsound beliefs is unknown at this time."
 
Emily's Cat said:
I honestly don't understand how some of these bits don't make you step back and question them some.

The most solid allegations in that story are from:


...and...


Wouldn't that sort of ambiguous language make you a bit skeptical in pretty much any other context?


ETA: Consider a person with a microphone interviewing four people on the street:

Persons 1, 2, and 3...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with the investigation into Trump being led by Meuller?
Random person on the street: Yes, I'm familiar with the matter.
Interviewer: Do you think prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting between his son and the russions in June?
Random person on the street: Yes, I think prosecutors want to know that.

Person 4...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with Meuller's strategy regarding his Trump investigation?
Random person on the street: Yeah, I think so.
Interviewer: Do you think it's now of interest to prosecutors whether or not Trump made a knowingly false statement?
Random person on the street: Oh totally, I think they totally are interested in whether he made a knowingly false statement!

Interviewer: That's a wrap boys, we've got all the quotes we need, let's print this sucker!

++++++++++++++++++

Maybe, maybe not. But since all we have is essentially "someone said something", it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence, wouldn't you think?
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Here's a shorter version you can post next time... I take issue with investigative journalism as relating to high profile scandals. Woodward and Bernstein be damned. Deep throat anyone?
 
Argumemnon said:
It does pose a problem though: how much skepticism of unnamed sources should we exercise?
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IMO it depends on the nature of the claim and the media through which it is presented.

If the National Inquirer claims that it has evidence of a Nazi moonbase from unnamed NASA sources then I think there should be considerable skepticism.

If the Washington Post carries a story relating to President Trump based on unnamed sources but where the claims are consistent with the President's known behaviour the some skepticism is still warranted (after all, the unnamed source could have their own reasons for making **** up) but rather less than for the first claim.

If the author of the story also has a string track record of reliably delivering from unnamed sources then whilst skepticism is still necessary, one again a lower threshold may be appropriate.
 
Argumemnon said:
It does pose a problem though: how much skepticism of unnamed sources should we exercise?
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We should proportion our trust in unnamed sources to the prior proven reliability of the news outlet and/or the individual reporter, especially their reliability with respect to unnamed sources. If they have a good record of quoting reliable sources who turned out to be correct, we have to factor that into our thinking.
 
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sunmaster14 said:
I don't think it's the vague and anonymous sourcing which is the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is the subject matter. For some reason it's newsworthy that federal investigators are keenly focused on a nothing burger of an issue. It's only a small step closer to a crime than lying about farting in an elevator.
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Keep telling yourself that. Your hero also lies to himself constantly, enough so that he believes what he's saying.

What is it exactly that led you to the conclusion that this is a "nothing burger"?

Edited by Agatha: 
Removed breach of rule 0 and rule 12
 
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d4m10n said:
We should proportion our trust in unnamed sources to the prior proven reliability of the news outlet and/or the individual reporter, especially their reliability with respect to unnamed sources. If they have a good record of quoting reliable sources who turned out to be correct, we have to factor that into our thinking.
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That seems to be the general consensus, then. We just need to know which stories turned out to be true.

Who's game?
 
Argumemnon said:
It does pose a problem though: how much skepticism of unnamed sources should we exercise?
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Here are two blogposts on 538 about this

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-anonymous-sources-are-worth-paying-attention-to/

The various investigations into the Trump administration and its alleged ties to Russia are hard to follow. The allegations are sometimes muddled, the probes are still ongoing, and all sides in the dispute are leaking information that favors their points of view. These stories are also hard to follow because few officials are willing to put their names behind their claims and comments, leading to a stream of stories rife with unnamed sources.

What’s a reader to do? Well, here’s a guide to unnamed sources in government/politics/Washington stories — who they are, how reporters use them, and how to tell if you should trust what they say. Having covered Congress, the White House, several presidential campaigns and briefly the Education and State departments, I have begged (usually unsuccessfully) many sources to allow me to use their names, written a fair number of stories with unnamed sources, and spent a lot of time trying to decode stories with unnamed sources written by other journalists. For this piece, I also consulted other journalists and political types who have served in senior staff roles on campaigns, on Capitol Hill and in presidential administrations.

This is part one of two. I’ll cover some general principles for reading anonymously sourced stories here and break down the different types of such sources in part two. I wrote this piece because of all the Trump-Russia stories, but the rules, terms and designations apply to other Washington stories as well.
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5. Watch for vague or imprecise “denials” of these kinds of stories. That often means they are accurate.In conclusion, we think you should continue to read stories with unnamed sources, but carefully and cautiously. Even major outlets like CNN and The New York Times occasionally get things wrong when relying on unnamed sources. On the other hand, this article and its follow-up should help you understand why everyone in Washington knew that in February, then-national security adviser Michael Flynn was in deep trouble. He was accused of something that either happened or did not — a factual claim (talking on the phone with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and discussing sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Russia) — in a story in a traditionally reliable outlet (The Washington Post) that was written by reporters known for covering national security and intelligence issues (Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima), with multiple unnamed sources making the claim (“nine current and former officials”).
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And the second part

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-anonymous-sources-are-worth-paying-attention-to/

In the first part of our guide to unnamed sources, we laid out some general tips for making sense of these kinds of stories. In this part, we want to get more specific, to help you to essentially decode these stories. We also want you to be able to know which stories you should rely on based on the different kinds of sourcing used.

So we’re going to divide anonymous sources into six general types and give the pros and cons of each, in terms of reliability. We ordered the types of unnamed sources, roughly speaking, from most reliable to least reliable (at least in my experience):
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Conclusions: Caveat lector
“The whole system of anonymous sources has a flaw,” said Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University. “Sometimes the name that is withheld is bigger news than the news the withheld name is offering. But there is no way for the readers to know because the name is … withheld.”

Rosen is right. But as a reader, you don’t have any other options. Washington stories have always been full of unnamed sources. But now, we are in a unique era: an administration with a lot of factions, often fighting with one another; a federal bureaucracy skeptical of its boss; a Republican majority in Congress leery of Trump but often not wanting to blast him with their names attached. So there are lots of people who want to talk to the press, but also lots of incentives for them to do so without their names attached. Heck, the former FBI director was essentially acting as an unnamed source, so you can imagine that others with fewer credentials (or more to lose) are even more afraid to go on the record.

So our advice is: Read all of these vaguely sourced stories with skepticism. But if you really want to keep up with Trump’s Washington, you probably don’t have a choice but to read some stories with unnamed sources.
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Emily's Cat said:
I honestly don't understand how some of these bits don't make you step back and question them some.

The most solid allegations in that story are from:

three sources familiar with the matter
Click to expand...
...and...
A person familiar with Mueller's strategy
Click to expand...

Wouldn't that sort of ambiguous language make you a bit skeptical in pretty much any other context?


ETA: Consider a person with a microphone interviewing four people on the street:

Persons 1, 2, and 3...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with the investigation into Trump being led by Meuller?
Random person on the street: Yes, I'm familiar with the matter.
Interviewer: Do you think prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting between his son and the russions in June?
Random person on the street: Yes, I think prosecutors want to know that.

Person 4...
Interviewer: Are you familiar with Meuller's strategy regarding his Trump investigation?
Random person on the street: Yeah, I think so.
Interviewer: Do you think it's now of interest to prosecutors whether or not Trump made a knowingly false statement?
Random person on the street: Oh totally, I think they totally are interested in whether he made a knowingly false statement!

Interviewer: That's a wrap boys, we've got all the quotes we need, let's print this sucker!

++++++++++++++++++

Maybe, maybe not. But since all we have is essentially "someone said something", it leaves a bit to be desired in terms of solid evidence, wouldn't you think?
Click to expand...

From those 538 links I posted earlier

1. Multiple sources add up.


When an outlet says “six White House officials” or “seven Department of Justice officials,” it’s providing a level of precision that makes me more likely to trust the story. This does not necessarily mean that the story is correct. But it does suggest it was thoroughly reported.
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Federal investigators working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller are keenly focused on President Donald Trump's role in crafting a response to a published article about a meeting between Russians and his son Donald Jr., three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The sources told NBC News that prosecutors want to know what Trump knew about the meeting and whether he sought to conceal its purpose.

The meeting occurred at Trump Tower in June 2016 and was attended by Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. The meeting, which was first reported by The New York Times, also involved Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and former Soviet intelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin.
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3. Specifics matter.


What information does the story give you about its sources? The more, the better. For example, trust “Department of Justice officials” more than “administration officials.” If a story includes claims from unnamed officials from the Justice Department, those claims are typically run by the department’s press office. I would interpret a story sourced to “Department of Justice officials” without a denial from the press team there to be accurate — and perhaps even leaked by the department’s press team itself. An “administration official,” on the other hand, covers a much bigger group of people with disparate interests and points of view. It’s easy for other reporters to call the Justice Department and verify the story, while it’s much harder to confirm a story attributed to administration officials, which could mean any agency or the White House.
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4. Consider the outlet and the reporters.
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Stacko said:
Looks like Mueller taking a long look at Fredo's meeting with the Russians to get dirt on Hillary.
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During Watergate the simple question was : What did the President know?

In this case the equivalent question is : what did Candidate Trump know?

If he "weighed in" on the original sketchy response when news of the Fredo meeting broke then he must have known all about it by then at least. Unless he was still being deceived, which is surely not a claim Trump would ever make. He might allow his lawyers to make it, but he'd tweet a denial right after and then bring it up at his next rally. "I so knew who was at that meeting, there were some great people at that meeting, on many sides, many sides".
 
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