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Discussion: How would the election have turned out if someone else got the emails?
While reading a link provided by @chewinchawingum regarding the problems of the press in 2016, a thought came to mind:
Would as many of the hacked emails have been written about and covered by news outlets if they'd been given to an outlet instead of handed to Wikileaks?
That is, what if, say, the New York Times or ProPublica got the massive email dump? Would there have been a more conservative approach, rather than reporting on the contents of every email that came out?




Yeah, probably. I read the emails as everyone else did and was dumbfounded by their banality. I think @zhemao said something similar.
Had a newspaper with some well-credentialed investigative journos managed it, they would have probably been parsing the mass of boring office/campaign talk and known how to weight the importance vs. banality of what they were reading, to come to some useful, but probably more boring conclusion.
And they'd have probably not been so salacious in their delivery of it. I think it was the very way in which they were delivered that framed their receipt. And it's the manner in which they're obtained that's exciting for the public. They don't care how it might signify some damage done to their national interest.
It reminded me of some stories from 17th and 18th century Europe, where personal letters of aristocrats were copied and distributed to the public with much sensation, but not much substance. I guess there's a longstanding appetite for it.
The other thing you remind me of: someone else recently posted an article about Wikileaks' dwindling credibility and importance to journos - there are now a greater number of groups doing the same kind of work, like for instance, that group that shared the Panama papers. That might also be a factor in the timing and staging of it all.
Yep. My reaction to the outrage over the Podesta emails, especially from liberals and leftists, was that it was along the lines of "I'm simply shocked that she would do those things. Why, she's acting just like a politician."
Like, please, do you think anyone would turn down a well-paid speaking engagement to get some more campaign funds? If it was Trump, his supporters would just say that he's talking shit to get some money out of a bunch of gullible bankers. But if Hilary says it, she means it for real and is thus a Wall Street stooge.
The only thing mildly salacious in there was Donna Brazile leaking planned debate questions to Clinton's campaign. But Brazile said that part was doctored. Without any cryptographic signatures on the emails, we have no way of verifying that.
Honestly, I'm not sure the Podesta emails had that big of an effect. She already had a pretty terrible reputation due to decades of Republican smear campaigns. There was plenty other ammunition for Trump's campaign to use. The state department email fiasco for one. Just the fact that she was an "establishment" candidate was enough to hurt her. Americans sure like their "political outsiders" (AKA rank amateurs).
I think their presence alone had an effect. Some people I've talked to couldn't differentiate between the three different email stories (DNC, Podesta, server) and it all ran together as this cloud of distrust.
This was true even among people on the left, who felt the existence alone of the Podesta emails was evidence somehow that Clinton wasn't trustworthy, was scheming, etc. Then you have stuff like people on the left deciding she was two-faced, because they saw stories about the Sachs speeches in the emails and were outraged over the "private and public positions" one. I tried to explain to a friend how that's not scandalous in any possible way, and they were certain it was evidence she's a liar?
Then you have the people (who I constantly run into online) convinced the DNC and some Podesta emails proved the DNC rigged everything against Bernie (it didn't) who can never explain how it was rigged or cite evidence.
Yeah, but again, I think most people who found reason to distrust Hilary because of those emails would have distrusted her anyway. And I mean this about her detractors on both the left and the right.
Yeah, this is the kind of political naivete that I was talking about with my original comment. Is it evidence she's a liar? Possibly. But it's what literally every politician does, even the ones that are highly respected. Clinton even mentions Abraham Lincoln as an example in that speech.
Yep, exactly. I see this all the time, too. Mostly in the context of, "too bad, Dems, should have chosen Bernie." Look, I respect Bernie a lot, but he competed in a fair primary and lost, so maybe his popular support wasn't as great as his most ardent supporters thought it was. The DNC literally does nothing in the primaries other than organizing the debates and the convention.