Unscrupulous reporting: BuzzFeed’s ‘Russiagate’ stories were constant source of controversy

Actually there is no need to imagine. It's happening already.

Dateline: 19 Jan, 2019

Unscrupulous reporting: BuzzFeed’s ‘Russiagate’ stories were constant source of controversy

Who the hell are these people? Obviously none of them appear to know a thing about the impact or purpose of the site they labor for. Peopled apparently by millennials, they would be hard put to explain the real world beyond the fake history parameters pushed by Democrat Russiagaters, hip comics like Colbert or Maher, and other plutocratic shills. They do generate a lot of harmless, sometimes funny, videos; do advertising campaigns, and so on, but their poisons relate directly to their political work, what they euphemistically call "investigative reporting." (See sidebar for more)

BuzzFeed’s credibility has been seemingly dented by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent dismissal of one of its ‘Russiagate’ stories. However, it is not the first time its stories on Russia raised flags or were proven false.

The New York-based news outlet has been holding nothing back over the recent years as it diligently pressed the so-called ‘Russiagate’ narrative about a supposed collusion between the US President Donald Trump and Moscow. Its recent exploits, which claimed Trump told his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress to cover up some of his dealings with Russia, however, apparently led it a bit too far, as it earned a rebuke from the office of Robert Muller – the man in charge of the investigation into the very same alleged collusion, among other aspects of perceived Russia’s meddling into the 2016 elections.

The news sparked a wave of criticism on the social media, with many people saying that the news outlet’s credibility is now discredited.

But was it that flawless before?

SIDEBAR

Editors' Note: It's a fair assumption that BuzzFeed is a willing asset of the Deep State and probably gets funding there, although, doing the bidding for the corrupt ever warmongering Neocon establishment it surely has no trouble securing plenty of advertising and grants, who knows. Just observe this video with a bubbling idiot for guide showing the posh offices BuzzFeed has in Los Angeles alone. And, as the Cosmo piece points out, the outfit is expanding, and it already has pods in many major cities, in the US and abroad. Knowing how poor genuine anti-establishment sites are, it proves that the powers shine their warm approval on this longstanding fake news disseminator. More details about what this entity is all about are offered after the video, via excerpts from a Cosmo piece.

Cosmopolitan magazine reporter HEATHER WOOD RUDULPH took a look at BuzzFeed in August 2014. Below an excerpt from her piece. Form your own opinions:

"If you have spent any time on the Internet, you have likely interacted with BuzzFeed. content. The rapidly growing social news and entertainment company has amassed a global audience of more than 150 million people in just eight years. It's known for its viral lists, witty lifestyle quizzes, and open door for user-generated content, much of which has something to do with cats.

But you don't get to be one of the biggest media companies on the planet just with cat videos. BuzzFeed's operations include custom advertising, investigative journalism, and a newly announced motion picture studio based in Los Angeles. Earlier this month, BuzzFeed received a $50 million investment from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which boosted its estimated worth to $850 million. The company has offices in New York; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Paris, France; São Paulo, Brazil; and Sydney, Australia, and plans to expand to India, Germany, Mexico, and Japan this year.

BuzzFeed is hiring like mad right now. Joel Greengrass, senior vice president of talent, reveals what it takes to join the team.

What would people find most surprising about the work culture at BuzzFeed?
People have this vision of us being a chaotic environment of 22-year-olds running around creating lists about cats. We also have Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and some of the top engineers in the world. We run kind of like a laboratory. Given the amount of things we publish on a daily basis, we're forced to experiment and try new things all the time. It challenges people to take intelligent risks. We put a lot of trust in our employees, and they surprise themselves with the results."

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]uzzfeed was the first to publish the infamous Steele dossier – a report by an MI6 spy-turned-private investigator – which contained unverified allegations that Russia held information on Trump which it was using to blackmail the US president. It also alleged sustained and close working contacts between Trump aides and Kremlin representatives.

None of these allegations, which were used by the FBI as a reason for obtaining a spy warrant against Trump adviser Carter Page, have been proven as of now. Instead, it was revealed that the report was based on information fed through people close to Hillary Clinton – Trump’s rival at the 2016 presidential elections.

ALSO ON RT.COMWhat evidence? BuzzFeed fuels ‘Russiagate’ with bombshell report on Trump and CohenMeanwhile, some of the reporters, who worked with the dossier, admitted that the document’s claims are “likely false.” Christopher Steele himself also revealed that one of his goals in compiling the report was to provide Clinton with a legal basis to challenge the 2016 election results.

The publication of the dossier has brought a string of defamation lawsuits not only against Steele but against BuzzFeed as well. The news media outlet was sued by the owners of a Russian Alfa Bank and a Russian tech expert Aleksey Gubarev who were all mentioned in the infamous dossier. At the same time, Trump’s personal lawyer also filed a defamation lawsuit against the company for pushing the Steele report.

However, Buzzfeed apparently does hope to get away with it. In case of Gubarev, a US court already ruled in favor of the news outlet in December 2018, citing a “fair report privilege.” The businessman earlier scolded the publication as “one of the most reckless and irresponsible moments in modern journalism.”

Steele was the source of another controversial episode in the history of BuzzFeed’s attempts to propagate the ‘Russiagate’ narrative. In March 2018, it claimed that the FBI was covering the true causes of the death of a Russian media tycoon in Washington in 2015.

Citing a “secret report” by Steele, it claimed the man was allegedly killed by associates of a Russian oligarch, who happens to be close to the Kremlin, the news outlet said. A sheer coincidence, apparently. It also did not bother to give any plausible explanation as to why the FBI, which did not hesitate to point a finger at Moscow in the past, would hide such information at all.

Anyway, the whole story was debunked just days later when the Metropolitan Police said the death of the tycoon was an accident. This fact did not get much attention in the West, though. Neither did it cool BuzzFeed’s ardor in stirring up anti-Russian hysteria.