[Peace-discuss] The Real News

[J.B. Nicholson]

I wrote:
> I asked TRNN the following:
> 
> Aaron Maté insisted on evidence-based justifications for the stories
> which collectively make up "Russiagate": the narrative that Hillary
> Clinton isn't to blame for her 2nd presidential loss to a political
> novice (I doubt many people knew who the junior Illinois Senator was
> when he ran for US president), but instead Russians are somehow to blame
> for her loss against Donald Trump. Maté interviewed people who pushed
> this narrative and those who challenged Russiagate. Now he's gone from
> TRNN. His reporting is missed and it appears that there was a difference
> of opinion between Maté and Paul Jay.
>
> Why is Aaron Maté not with TRNN now?
>
> And will TRNN make an offer to bring Aaron Maté back?
>
> If not, why not?

I thought I'd follow up to this since I received a response and give some 
thoughts of my own. Here's the response I received from TRNN:

---begin quote---
Hi there,

Thanks for asking about Aaron’s departure and our editorial approach to the
Russia election interference stories.

TRNN took a position against Russophobia long before Aaron started working
for us. Aaron’s work on Russiagate was worked out together with our
editorial team, and we were in full support of the approach. Paul Jay has
done numerous editorials and commentaries denouncing attempts to revive
Cold War fear mongering. TRNN has always refused to take anything US
intelligence agencies say on faith and remain profoundly skeptical of the
information that’s in the public domain about election interference and
such.

Paul has gone further to say even if some or most of the accusations turn
out to be true, it’s very secondary when compared to how the American
oligarchy undermines what little democracy there is here.

This issue has been blown up to defend the Cold War narrative and for
partisan advantage.

We’ve opposed the demonization of Putin, and our series with Buzgalin gives
the whole issue historical context.

We’ve said it’s up to Americans to oppose the American oligarchy and the
Russian people will decide what to do with theirs. TRNN does not side with
either of the elites.

No doubt, we’ve lost some capacity to follow these events on a daily basis.
That said, we maintain a firm stand against narratives that promote war and
mostly serve arms manufacturers.



Aaron left over contractual and HR issues that we shouldn’t discuss in
public.



Best wishes and thanks for your interest.


Rosette Sewali
Producer & Membership Relations Manager
The Real News Network <http://www.therealnews.com>
---end quote---



I'll attempt to review the referenced interviews and see how well this 
description matches the interviews. The most recent discussion I've seen 
TRNN give on Russiagate -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaaZYuU9X4I -- 
features 3 TRNN hosts, two of which have something substantive to say on 
Russiagate. https://therealnews.com/stories/is-trnn-soft-on-russia is a 
transcript of this video.

Dharna Noor didn't have much to say in the entire video, and virtually 
nothing to say on Russiagate. I don't come away with a clear understanding 
of her take on this 2+ year ongoing issue.

Marc Steiner seems to be to be a Russiagate believer who doesn't believe 
that Russiagate issues decided this election but does buy the idea that 
ascendant racism is a critical issue that "people are worried about".

TRNN head Paul Jay said he didn't know what to believe in Russiagate but 
found Russiagate claims believable and of minor importance. I take this to 
mean that Jay believes that Russia had "dirt" on Mrs. Clinton, Trump is 
awash in corrupt Russian money, and there were meetings between Trump 
campaign people and some Russians.

It would have been good to have Maté on this program to ask for evidence to 
back the Russiagate stories or point out how all of the Russiagate stories 
people have looked into fall apart suggesting there's good reason to be far 
more skeptical of Russiagate stories and the Russiagate claims than what 
showed up in this piece.

As of today, the Mueller investigation has provided no "smoking gun" and no 
story of significance to back up Russiagate claims and certainly nothing of 
importance to justify another year of investigation, hearings, indictments, 
and media distraction. But you won't hear that opinion aired on the above 
TRNN segment either. I don't see how anyone can come away from 2+ years of 
Russiagate not knowing what to believe about Russiagate.




Aaron Maté left Democracy Now in part over Russiagate disagreements.

An article showed up at https://ghionjournal.com/aaron-mate-is-a-beast/

> He [Aaron Maté] left DN in 2016 to join the Real News Network, just as 
> Goodman was starting to embrace some fairly destructive establishment 
> viewpoints (where previously she’d played footsy with them) in her 
> coverage of key events, particularly around Russiagate and the U.S.
> proxy war of aggression in Syria.

Also, in what is now a deleted tweet, Aaron Maté wrote:
https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/985980643971608576 on Apr 16, 2018 
20:37:58 UTC

> I was a producer at @democracynow for 10 years, until early 2016, and 
> even before I worked there it was hugely formative for me. I disagree 
> with where it's gone on two crucial issues, Russiagate and especially 
> Syria.

And this got a thread of discussion on reddit.com in 
https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/8dex0z/aaron_mat%C3%A9_critique_of_democracy_now_what_do_you/ 
including:

> I still listen to DN and support them, but their coverage of Russiagate 
> went from reasonable moderation to MSNBC-lite around mid 2017, and
> their Syria coverage has been about as poor as the MSM, though they do
> not actively champion military activity. See also issues tacitly related
> to Russiagate and Syria, like their sudden lack of coverage of
> Assange's situation and the Al-Nusra presence among Syrian anti-Assad
> forces.

Democracy Now strikes me as pro-Russiagate or at the very least tacitly 
supportive of Russiagate because DN repeats Russiagate story claims without 
critical examination or debunking. This is sharply different from how DN 
reported the claims about Iraqi WMDs during the run-up to the 2003 US 
invasion of Iraq. Then DN would repeat a claim from, say, the New York 
Times and then immediately tell the audience what Hans Blix's group had 
found when they were on-site doing their investigation -- there was no 
evidence to back the NYT's claims.



I know nothing of the alleged "contractual and HR issues" between Maté and 
TRNN.

Also, in some longer pieces (which were posted to youtube.com both in full 
and in pieces) Maté and Jay talk and sometimes argued at length. We learned 
that the two had off-camera disagreements. At some point they thought 
having these disagreements on-camera would make for good discussions, hence 
their segments together.