NEW YORK—In the hours since Michael Flynn resigned as national security adviser late Monday, two narratives emerged.
One, embraced by many in the traditional legacy media, centred on what Flynn had done that led to his resignation: discussed sanctions against Russia in a conversation with the Russian ambassador and then misled Vice President Mike Pence about it.
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The other, which developed among the more right-leaning news media, focused on the leaks from Washington that had put pressure on Flynn to step aside and whether these leaks were intended to damage President Donald Trump.
One narrative holds Flynn, and others who knew about his discussions, accountable. The other portrays Flynn more as a victim.
Which narrative does Trump ascribe to? On Tuesday morning, he attributed Flynn’s resignation to “illegal leaks.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump again denounced the leaks in a blizzard of tweets.
It is not unusual for news media to promote different angles. And the division between left-leaning and right-leaning news organizations is certainly not new. But the rift between the mainstream media and more partisan news organizations has grown starker in the nearly four weeks since Trump took office, reflecting a widening political and ideological rift.
The growing division means that some readers are getting their news through an ever-narrowing prism. Americans who get their information predominantly from Breitbart News, a right-wing news and opinion site, for instance, or from the conservative Fox News are getting a very different version of the news from Americans who read The Washington Post or watch CNN.
Breitbart raises questions
Late Monday, as the news broke that Flynn had resigned, news organizations rushed to publish articles.
Not Breitbart.
For roughly an hour after Flynn’s resignation letter began circulating, Breitbart did not change the main story on its home page, which was about immigration policy.
When Breitbart made the Flynn resignation its main story, around midnight, the account hewed closely to the facts of Flynn’s resignation and quoted heavily from his resignation letter. The site also put up a more analytical article that raised questions about the motives behind the government’s monitoring of communications between Flynn and the Russian ambassador.
“Democrats are clamoring for a deeper investigation of Russian ties to Trump,” the article said. “But the more serious question is whether our nation’s intelligence services were involved in what amounts to political espionage against the newly elected government.”
The article also raised questions about how the news media got its information, reinforcing a distrust of the press that Trump and his administration have assiduously tried to foster.
“The fact that the contents of Flynn’s phone conversation — highly sensitive intelligence — were leaked to the media suggests that someone with access to that information also has a political axe to grind,” the article said.
The emphasis on the leaks continued into Tuesday afternoon with an article at the top of Breitbart’s site on the White House briefing and the assertion by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, that the leaks were an overlooked part of the reporting on Flynn.
The narrative gained more steam on Wednesday morning, after the damaging reports Tuesday night: An article on the Breitbart home page seized on Trump’s early morning tweets attacking the coverage rather than the news about the Russian contacts.
Fox’s focus on leaks
Fox News also advanced this leak-focused narrative Tuesday.
Laura Ingraham, a conservative commentator and Fox News contributor, suggested on Fox & Friends that the leaks were politically motivated. “The long knives were out for Flynn almost the moment that he was announced,” she said.
“I think this really was the death by a thousand leaks,” Ingraham added. “The leaks that were coming out of this administration and the transition, before the administration, were at a level that I don’t remember seeing for quite some time.”
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson also focused on the leaks during an appearance on the channel.
“Who tapped the phones, who was listening to it, who leaked it? I think those are legitimate questions to ask,” he said.
“Let’s face it,” he said later, “leaks of this nature are incredibly damaging to America, to our national security, and we need to look into it.”
Tuesday night ended on a predictably outraged note, with Sean Hannity, a Trump supporter, suggesting on his show that the left was “willing to do anything to stop President Trump from draining the swamp and changing the status quo.”
“Impeachment of the president is clearly the end goal for the left,” Mr. Hannity added. “Facts, truth, it doesn’t really matter. Mike Flynn is just a small casualty of that bigger plan.”
On Wednesday, the main article on the Fox News home page highlighted the president’s condemnation of the leaks to the media.
Praise for journalism
Journalists at more centrist news organizations, including CNN and NPR, attributed Flynn’s resignation to the strong reporting and investigative journalism that had exposed details of Flynn’s talks with Russia.
Scott Detrow of NPR tweeted:
Evan Osnos of the New Yorker said, also in a tweet:
Rather than casting aspersion on leaks about Flynn, these commentators praised their contributions to accountability journalism. Joe Scarborough, a host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, went so far as to call the person who had leaked information “a patriot.”
“The only reason we’re finding out about it now is because a patriot did leak this to The Washington Post, did get this information out there, or else we wouldn’t have even known about it,” said Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida.
The Columbia Journalism Review, a publication that chronicles and analyzes the news media, was perhaps the most pointed. An article Tuesday — with the headline “Flynn resignation shows leaks under Trump are working. Keep ‘em coming.” — described how several recent leaks had forced the Trump administration to reverse course or make changes.
“Some of these leaks have halted a Trump appointment and controversial policies in their tracks,” the article said, “and it’s a lesson showing how whistleblowers and leaks to the press are vital for democracy.”
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