https://taibbi.substack.com/p/another-all-time-media-faceplant?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNDA2NjM5LCJwb3N0X2lkIjo0ODg2NTY1NiwiXyI6IlNwNXFDIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ1MDk3MTg1LCJleHAiOjE2NDUxMDA3ODUsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.K5f-cYWXdlKBXWCiARWXpONbyelD5425PQptKWxO7S4&r=210kvAnother All-Time Media Faceplant
After the Biden administration and the press wrongly predicted a Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 16th, they kept compounding the error in spectacular fashion
Matt Taibbi4 february 17, 2022
“It was a joke, you idiots.”
If cluelessness can be art, American journalists unveiled their Sistine Chapel this week, in a remarkable collection of misreports and hack stenography surrounding a predicted invasion of Ukraine.
The mess began last Friday, February 11th, when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan gave an address warning American citizens to evacuate Ukraine. “If a Russian attack on Ukraine proceeds, it is likely to begin with aerial bombing and missile attacks that could obviously kill civilians without regard to their nationality,” he said. “I will not comment on the details of our intelligence information,” he added, before doing just that: “I do want to be clear: It could begin during the Olympics,” i.e. before the Beijing games end on February 20th.
Around the time of Sullivan’s comments, American reporters began telling audiences a curiously detailed story about upcoming Russian invasion plans. PBS NewsHour’s Nick Schifrin cited “three Western and defense sources” in saying Vladimir Putin had already made up his mind to invade. He then cited six sources — “US and Western officials” — who told him the U.S. expected an invasion of Ukraine the following week. These voices left little to the imagination, saying the invasion would be a “horrific, bloody campaign,” with two days of aerial bombardment, followed by electronic warfare and possible regime change:
That afternoon of the 11th, Politico cited “a person familiar” (not even “a person familiar with the matter,” just “a person familiar”) in reporting that Joe Biden held an hourlong call with Western leaders pegging February 16th as a possible invasion date:
NatSec Daily was told by a person familiar that President JOE BIDEN told Western leaders about the Feb. 16 date on an hour long call today.
Russia will start a physical assault on Ukraine as soon as Feb. 16, multiple U.S. officials confirmed to POLITICO, and Washington communicated to allies that it could be preceded by a barrage of missile strikes and cyberattacks. One person said the leaders’ call indicated that cyberattacks are “imminent” and another said the intelligence is “specific and alarming.”
This produced the following header:
“Could” headlines are always interesting. Last year’s inspired effort from the Washington Post, “Contacting aliens could end all life on earth. Let’s stop trying,” showed the difference between the full-pucker paranoia of pandemic America and the goofy optimism of the Close Encounters days. Technically anything “could” happen, so these stories aren’t wrong. The issue is what message they send. In this case, the two obvious PR imperatives were 1) Putin is a menace, and 2) we’re still one step ahead of him.
It does seem Biden held a call with world leaders, as the same story about a detailed invasion prediction began appearing all over. Der Spiegel on February 11th wrote about info the U.S. had given European diplomats and military officials. “Routes for the Russian invasion were specifically described, as well as individual Russian units and what tasks they were to take on,” the Germans reported, adding, “February 16th was given as the possible date for the start of the invasion.”
The Daily Mail took things further. Their story, which referenced how “the plans were passed on to Biden's government and discussed in a series of secret briefings with NATO allies” — apparently they weren’t that secret! — turned into another memorable headline that seemed to imply there was something about invading on a Wednesday (as opposed to a Tuesday, Saturday, etc.) that was important to Putin:
It should be clear to any reporter that a national security source who whispers not only the alleged date of a coming invasion, but the number of days of aerial bombardment and the war’s expected level of horror and bloodiness, is either yanking your chain with a fairy tale, or using you, or both. Reporters on this beat nonetheless repeated this tale over and over, as if it were patriotic duty.
Perhaps, as the Daily Mail wrote, the “the US Secret Service, CIA and the Pentagon” really did receive an “exceptionally detailed” Russian invasion plan. But none of the reports that leaked out of that secret-but-not telemeeting hinted at the source. We knew the Americans claimed to have details, and told lots of people about them, but there wasn’t much on the backup front. Since no one in Western politics or the press picked up on this, and instead as usual swallowed the story without skepticism, it was left to the person perhaps most directly affected by the news, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, to try to pop the panic balloon.
On February 12th, Zelensky addressed the media in a half-sarcastic, half-seething monologue. “I think there’s too much out there about a full-scale war from Russia, and people are even naming dates,” he said, with undisguised contempt directed at the West. “All this information only creates panic, it doesn’t help us.”
Moving from there to salo-thick sarcasm, the former actor and comic made a faux request to reporters for help with the sourcing on the invasion claim. “If you or anyone else has extra information about the 100% invasion of Russia starting on the 16th, please, give it to us,” he said. Zelensky all but read out an 800 number as he spoke.
After the weekend, Zelensky doubled down, taking a more direct shot at the U.S. invasion rumors. Via a post on Facebook, he wrote:
We are told that February 16 will be the day of attack. We will make it a union day. The decree has already been signed. This afternoon we will hang national flags, put on blue-yellow ribbons and show the world our unity.
Zelensky might as well have announced that he was planning to celebrate the Russian invasion with a Scottish log toss festival. Under massive stress, and clearly both peeved and suspicious about being left out of the informational loop on the prediction front despite being president of the would-be invasion target, he was mocking American messaging with as much venom as he could muster. Next to sending skywriters to spell REPORTERS FUCK OFF!!! over Kyiv, he couldn’t have been more clear in saying that whatever America was trying to achieve with the February 16th “prediction,” it wasn’t helping.
The message flew straight over the heads of our intrepid news hounds. One outlet after the next began reporting that Zelensky — by repeating information that, remember, originally came from them — had essentially just confirmed the date of the invasion. A chyron on CNN blared, ZELENSKY: UKRAINE HAS BEEN INFORMED THAT FEBRUARY 16TH WILL BE THE DAY OF THE ATTACK. International correspondent Matthew Chance even said later in the day that Zelensky’s remarks were “interpreted in some circles as confirmation” of an imminent invasion.
If you didn’t screen-grab headlines that day, you’ll need to whip out your Wayback Machine, since a few more embarrassing efforts have been scrubbed. The Hill’s initialstory, “Zelensky says Ukraine has been informed Feb. 16th is the day of the attack,” now reads, “Ukrainian president declares ‘day of unity’ amid fears of Russian attack.”
When one of Zelensky’s aides, Mykhailo Podoliak, was forced to make the should-have-been-unnecessary statement that Zelensky through his Facebook post was in fact taking a colossal dump on Western politicians and their media servants, journos huddled, kill-circle style, and came up with a new wrong story to explain his behavior. It was now claimed Zelensky had “walked back” his February 14th words.
“IMPORTANT UPDATE from @JoshNBCNews: Walkback from Kyiv,” tweeted NBC’s Tom Winter. Newsweek deadpanned, “Ukraine’s Zelensky Says Russian Attack is February 16, Adviser Backtracks.” Other outlets, like Forbes magazine, rushed up headlines saying things like, “Ukraine’s President Predicts Russia Will Attack This Week As Tensions Mount—But Aides Say He Was Joking.”
New York magazine wrote a piece called, “Ukrainian Leader Makes Confusing Joke About Russian Invasion” that’s almost breathtaking in its obliviousness. It began by offering a note of forgiveness to Zelensky for his poorly executed joke:
In a relatable moment for anyone who has struggled with tone, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, a former professional comedian, had to clarify that he was kidding when he claimed a Russian invasion was coming on February 16.
New York missed that Zelensky “had to clarify” that he was kidding only because he had severely underestimated the shocking levels of vainglorious stupidity and humorlessness among American politicians, reporters, and investors (who sent stock markets tumbling in the belief an invasion had been confirmed by Zelensky). New Yorkdid concede that after much study of Zelensky’s post, they were able to detect that “his joking remarks seemed to be making light of all the doomsaying.” Then, they concluded with a passage that almost defies description:
U.S. officials have identified Wednesday the 16th as a possible day Putin could strike, making Zelensky’s faux warning about that date even less clear.
Maybe he should stick to the classics, like “Take Crimea, please.”
Translation: despite the entire point of Zelensky’s broadside being his intense frustration with America’s February 16th invasion prediction, New York seemed to believe he’d accidentally picked the same date that “U.S. officials have identified” as “a possible day Putin could strike.” Didn’t he know how hard that would make it for people to see the joke?
The last line, about how Zelensky should stick to classics like “Take Crimea, please,” reads like Neera Tanden doing Noël Coward, which is to say it’s as close to the mathematical absolute of unfunny as you’ll see in print.
Meanwhile, instead of just writing that “Ukrainian President Zelensky Didn’t Say There Would be War on February 16th,” Vox did an explainer on “Why Ukrainian President Zelensky said on February 16 there would be war.” This piece included such revelations as, “Zelensky, a former comedian, was likely being sarcastic.”
Zelensky’s comments weren’t mysterious, and there had been no “backtrack” or “walk back.” Virtually alone among the major reporters, ABC’s Terry Moran got it right:
Stop misreporting what Zelensky said. He did not say a Russian invasion was coming on February 16. He said media reports claim the 16th is the date. So Zelensky, who is skeptical of US claims, told his people: Take that date back. It will be our Day of National Solidarity.
Even the more subtle responses to Zelensky were moronic. The New York Times ran with “Ukraine’s President Tries to Avert Panic as Pressure Mounts,” suggesting Zelensky’s skeptical take on the invasion prediction was the ill-considered but logical act of a man without options. “Supporters say he has little choice but to project calm whatever the circumstances, lest Ukrainians make runs on banks or grocery stores,” the paper wrote, downshifting into a typical Times-ian profile:
Mr. Zelensky’s optimism, while clearly intended to head off panic, has deeper roots.
Even as a teenager, growing up in a Russian-speaking Jewish family in an industrial city in central Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky took part in stand-up comedy competitions. He eventually founded his own studio, Kvartal 95, whose shows and movies became hits throughout the former Soviet Union…
If Zelensky had been trying to project “optimism,” and not openly expressing rage and impatience toward his would-be American partners, this schlock analysis might have made sense. But the Ukrainian was furious over the Americans’ moronic bull-in-a-china shop tactics, particularly the transparent February 16th prediction gambit that would inspire God knows what reaction from the Russians, and was essentially just middle-fingering all of us. In classic Times fashion, they decided this bluntest of insults was really a complex psychoanalytic mystery requiring a hunt for clues in Zelensky’s childhood.
Recapping: the U.S. made sure every blue check on earth heard about a “top secret” briefing last week, during which Western leaders were supposedly told of a mother lode of intel about a coming Russian invasion obtained by the Pentagon and the CIA. Not asking why, if the U.S knew the invasion date, they would want to broadcast it to the world, reporters all over repeated this anonymously sourced shaggy dog story without a grain of skepticism.
Not only is this the kind of self-serving tale intelligence sources love — “We have our fingers everywhere, nothing gets by us, we are wonderful at our jobs” — but such a specific prediction is effective at amping up panic levels. Zelensky himself said “panic is the best friend of the enemies of Ukraine” in his February 12th remarks. His statements were so unmistakable in their caustic tone toward the West, they were picked up by Pravda and other Russian outlets, setting the whole episode up as a diplomatic win for Russia.
It would be nice if even one mainstream reporter pushed back on the prediction story. It had been a breath of fresh air when NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe pushed back on American claims that ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi blew himself and his wife and kids up, as opposed to the United States being responsible for those casualties. Rascoe asked Jen Psaki:
Jen, will there be any, like, evidence or, like, release to support the idea — I mean, I know the U.S. has put out its statement that, you know, they detonated the bomb themselves. But will the U.S. provide any evidence? Because there may be people that are skeptical…
Psaki, sounding as outraged on the nation’s behalf as Otter was in his famed speech before Dean Wormer (RIP Ivan Reitman, by the way), immediately accused Rascoe of taking the word of ISIS over the United States of America. “Skeptical of the U.S. military’s assessment?” she snapped. “That they are not providing accurate information, and ISIS is providing accurate information?” To which Rascoe replied, “I mean, the U.S. has not always been straightforward about what happens with civilians.”
That’s exactly how unsourced official claims should be treated. From Bountygate to the existence of torture programs to WMDs and a thousand other things, officials routinely feed the press unverifiable stories for all sorts of reasons, almost always without press resistance. In this case, the notion that the United States had “exceptionally detailed” insight into an invasion they somehow already knew would be a “horrific, bloody campaign” went into print with zero consideration of a possible ulterior motive — like amping up fear levels to pressure fence-sitting European allies into a sterner Ukraine stance, for instance.
When the day passed without any of the outlets involved admitting that the February 16th prediction turned out to be a bogus provocation, it finished off an entire news cycle done in slapstick. The fact that Moscow did the obvious and announced withdrawals of forces from Crimea on the supposed date of the invasion — an utterly predictable move that’s probably still getting drunken laughs in the Kremlin — only added to the picture of incompetence. Three Stooges fans are familiar with episodes where no one knew how to end the story, so writers just had the Stooges start a pie fight before fading to black. This “invasion day that wasn’t,” ending abruptly after a blizzard of excuses and non-corrections, is about to become the news version of one of those pie fights.
Putin may very well still invade Ukraine, and it could still turn out to be a “horrible, bloody campaign.” This episode still exposed most American outlets as having forgotten even how to pretend to cover foreign news independently. Report after report reads like official press releases, to degrees not seen since the Iraq days. CNN even sank so low as to do a story about how slightly higher temperatures might be delaying an otherwise accurate invasion prediction, quoting a Rand analyst, Mark Milley, and Biden, who said of Putin: “He’s going to have to wait a little bit until the ground’s frozen.” Blaming the weather! If this weren’t such a serious business, it would be funny. Is it possible to misread things any worse?