[Peace-discuss] The Real News

Thu Jan 31 05:03:48 UTC 2019

I’ve listened to the contretemps between Maté and Jay, and was disappointed with Jay. I’ll stand by what I said, without disagreeing that TRNN has been doing valuable reporting and analysis. Speculation that Maré may have left for pecuniary reasons have little merit without confirmation.

On Jan 30, 2019, at 10:01 PM, David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com<mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com>> wrote:

As far as Israel/Palestine, at least, I think that Shir Hever, a regular guest, is among the most insightful around; they also utilize Ali Abunimah on a regular basis, and have had the As'ad Abu Khalil lately as well; the series of interviews that Paul Jay did with Norman Finkelstein was, of course, excellent. I've had no problems with the Venezuela coverage, even Larry Wilkerson is pretty adamant about opposing regime change. Aaron  Maté did great work for quite a while, especially with hard-nosed interviews of people such as Marcy Wheeler, Michael Izikoff, Luke Harding, and Craig Unger; and of course more harmonious interviews with Stephen Cohen.  He is missed in that regard, but I'm not sure what more there is for him to do about all the Russiagate nonsense.

Also, Paul Jay's series of interviews with Alexander Buzgalin, a Russian professor, were excellent in terms of both historical context and the current situation.

I do wish that  Maté  was still at TRNN, because I don't follow the Nation closely; but this might also have to do with $ and his career trajectory, which is understandable since everyone has to eat and young people like to feel they might have a better future.

Ben Norton is now doing some good basic documentation for TRNN. And one can also listen to the excellent programs he does with Max Blumenthal on the podcast and youtube program Moderate Rebels.

I'm not anywhere close to withholding the $5 per month I give to TRNN.

DG

On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 9:28 PM Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
Pau Jay evidently does not like disagreements with his interpretations of the events he discusses, Russiagate, Israel-Palestine, now Venezuela. As to the latter, he gives credence to the failures of Maduro for the present situation, some of which may be valid, without sufficiently emphasizing the pernicious  effects of U.S policies to undermine the government.  In the present situation, this is not for the good, where solidarity against U.S. depredations are needed.

my 2¢.

> On Jan 30, 2019, at 5:36 PM, J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>
> 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<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<http://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<http://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.
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