Channel 4's coverage of American politics has been lamentable during the past year as I have documented many times. Kylie Morris was consistently awful but it was Matt Frei who served up the worst fake news nonsense. But the programme's anchor Jon Snow hit new lows last night as he was bested by Pulitzer prize winning Glenn Greenwald on the subject of the 35 page Trump dossier that CNN had "broken" that day.
The dossier is, of course, unverified and already big sections of it are proving to be clearly false. The rest will follow that path and reporting unverified allegations as fact is at worst just dreadful journalism and, in the view of a rational being, the ultimate in "fake news". that did not stop the BBC and C4 leading with it as if it was gospel. If it is Donald Trump the liberal media establishment just lives in the post fact era.
Greenwald is a liberal too but he is also a good journalist who rather likes facts. Snow started by comparing the Trump dossier to the leaked Clinton emails, arguing the former was fact and the latter "fake news". Greenwald pointed out correctly that the dossier was not verified so could not be described as fact while the emails were so genuine that they cad caused 5 senior Democrats to quit as their corruption was exposed. Those emails were not fake news.
Snow was having none of it. He accused Wikileaks of hacking the emails which meant they should have published. A rather startled Greenwald pointed out that Snow was the only person who had accused Wikileaks of hacking. Snow did not stand corrected. As a high priest of the liberal establishment he is never wrong.
So he continued with his assertion that the Russians had got the emails. Again this is not proven and - for what it is worth Wikileaks has said its source was not Russian. Snow said that if emails or information is obtained illegitimately they should not be published if they sway an election.
Really? Greenwald noted how Trump's tax returns were obtained illegitimately by the NY Times and published. C4 lapped that up saying it did not matter how such information was obtained it was in the public interest. Surely emails showing senior Dem staffers being corrupt, rigging polls, etc are also in the public interest. We on the right want to see the filth on both sides published. That is part of the idea of liberty and democracy.
Snow patronisingly dismissed that and said we will have to leave it there wuth some more condescending words. That was it. Snow got his facts wrong, he brands news as fake only if it does not fit his agenda and he regards it as acceptable to publish stolen information if it hurts a REpublican but not a democrat.
Snow has just lost the plot along with the rest of the liberal establishment press. Even by the low standards of C4 News this interview was a car crash.