Timing is everything in politics. As President Barack Obama gives his farewell address in Chicago, President-elect Donald Trump is responding via twitter, in his usual eloquent manner, to a new report from CNN alleging “compromising” information collected by Russia on the new World Leader.
The trouble with this timing and content in a polarised landscape in a post-truth world is anything can now be labelled “fake news” with many sides and factions having reasons to disseminate such “facts”. Indeed, confirmation bias and sensitivity to criticism is so rank amongst media watchers and political elites that even the source of the news is questioned first or as Obama put it in his address:
“Increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information …that fits our opinions”
Anyway, here’s Wonderwall via Reuters:
Classified documents presented last week to President-elect Donald Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising information about him, CNN reported on Tuesday.
The allegations were in a two-page synopsis appended to a report presented by U.S. intelligence officials to Trump and President Barack Obama on Russian interference in the 2016 election, CNN said, citing multiple U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the briefings.
The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider credible, CNN reported.
Beyond that dry stuff, there’s some shall we say, “hotter” material comprised in the report that only a few news sources are covering. Indeed ABC Australia isn’t covering the story at all, while Fairfax has it at number 2 and Rupert Murdoch’s mouthpiece, The Australian has it at number 1:
Get ready for four years of this stuff, true or not.
According to Buzzfeed here are the allegations about Trump (Pdf)