Is Our Media Learning Anything At All?
By 
Professional Republican cover-up artist Bill Barr is holding a press conference 90 minutes before he releases his redacted version of the Mueller Report…on CD-ROM:
Compact discs, for you young kids, are a storage medium we olds used before everyone posted right to the Inter-Toobz.
You know–from the era when Bill Barr was covering up Iran-Contra? https://t.co/VoFm39tQve
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) April 17, 2019
Of course, media organizations will covert these to PDFs, but it’s blindingly obvious that Barr is trying to buy as much time to use preemptive spin to establish a narrative as possible. Which sets up an obvious test for political reporters and editors:
The first Barr memo worked in terms of getting headlines. But if they literally run the same play again – but more boldly – and it works, then something is absolutely broken in our media. So, tomorrow isn’t just a test of the rule of law; it’s a test of the fourth estate.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) April 18, 2019
Fool me twice…well, at that point you’re not really being “fooled.”