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How Republicans Bootstrap Lies And Conspiracy Theories To Gain Power At The Expense Of Functioning Democracy
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How Republicans Bootstrap Lies And Conspiracy Theories To Gain Power At The Expense Of Functioning Democracy

We saw it ahead of the insurrection, through Trump's first criminal trial, and again with the conviction of Hunter Biden.

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Brian Beutler
Jun 12, 2024
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How Republicans Bootstrap Lies And Conspiracy Theories To Gain Power At The Expense Of Functioning Democracy
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(Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial was the rare on-location reporting assignment that exemplified the value of beat journalism as a craft, not just as a backstage pass to history. 

Unlike most political events in the Trump era, the Trump trial was neither televised nor secret, which made attending it live the only way to interpret developments without a filter. If you couldn’t be there in person, you were reliant on reporting and official transcripts, which gave journalists working in the year 2024 unusual sway over how news consumers understood the proceedings and the case itself.

My workaround, as always when tracking far off events, was to lean on updates from a select group of reporters and analysts who showed up every day and have proven themselves to be trustworthy. Without applying some discernment, it was easy to be misled—not necessarily because other journalists and commentators had nefarious motives, but because it was hard to be certain they were reliable narrators.

Some seemingly allowed their desire for a particular verdict cloud their coverage. Others lacked the experience in legal affairs, or background understanding of the case itself, to distinguish between important and unimportant developments. Yet more applied the narrative tics of campaign journalism to courthouse reporting, promoting dramatic plot lines over relevant facts. Remember Todd Blanche’s supposed “Perry Mason moment”? 

In general, though, readers and viewers who got their news from mainstream or liberal outlets—that is, outlets with some standards of professionalism—came away with a decent sense of how well the prosecution had made its case, how poorly the defense had countered it, and (thus) the likeliest combination of potential verdicts. 

Then there was right-wing media. 

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