Reporting and Then “Reporting”: All the News That’s Fit to Spin

This past weekend, Americans discovered the identity of the man who provided most of the information for the Steele dossier. This salacious, poorly sourced, and now discredited document—according to a report from U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz—provided the “central and essential role” in allowing the government to conduct electronic spying on a Trump campaign official and keep alive the debunked conspiracy theory that Donald Trump’s election campaign had colluded with the Russian government.

A pair of headlines show how two purportedly investigative news sources covered the revelation of important information that the American people deserved to know:

• “The F.B.I. Pledged to Keep a Source Anonymous. Trump Allies Aided His Unmasking.,” New York Times, July 25, 2020.
• “Meet the Steele Dossier’s ‘Primary Subsource’: Fabulist Russian From Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI Ignored,” RealClearInvestigations, July 25, 2020.

Fun Quiz: Guess which one of these two shared a Pulitzer Prize with the Washington Post for its role in amplifying a lot of the now debunked rumors from the Trump-Russia hoax.