(Newswire.net — November 15, 2017) — On Tuesday, the US media outlet ran a ‘breaking news’ story “Secret Finding: 60 Russian Payments ‘To Finance Election Campaign of 2016’”.
Buzzfeed published an article on alleged smoking gun proof that Russia financed elections in the US focusing on a money transfer report from Moscow to the embassy in Washington. Indeed, this money was to finance the election campaign; however, it was for a Russian election.
The “secret” Russian financing of a 2016 election turned out to be not so secret after all, Russia Today reports.
The article states that more than $380,000 of these “2016 election” payments was sent via Citibank from Russia’s Foreign Ministry. The main story was revealing a memo suggesting it was intended “to finance the election campaign of 2016.”
The hysteria surrounding alleged Russian ‘guilt’ that Hillary lost the election led a Buzzfeed journalist to fire up breaking news findings, but he buried deep within his article the FBI press release that the money was for the Russian elections held on the same year.
The FBI investigation concluded that the funds were spent on organizing elections for Russians that live in the US, but this report was well buried under an ‘explosive’ headline and six paragraphs of claims that Russia was meddling with the US elections.
The “Evidence” on financing the US elections in 2016 instantly spread across the US mainstream media. BuzzFeed UK investigations editor Heidi Blake labeled the story a “bombshell” revelation unearthed by “scoop machines” Jason Leopold, Anthony Cormier and Jessica Garrison.
In an overall anti-Russian campaign that aims to cover up the real facts on why the Democrats lost the elections, some journalists have heavily criticized Buzzfeed’s reporting. LA Times writer Adam H Johnson claimed BuzzFeed’s reporting style for the story was “cynical as sh*t.”
“A qualifier buried in paragraph seven 100% undermines the sensationalist headline,” Johnson said. “if you’re going to run a thin FBI press release that buries exculpatory details… tell your editors to not oversell the sh*t out of it,” he added.
Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky also slammed the Buzzfeed story. “Idiots. The Russian election of 2016, not the US one, you exceptionalist morons…,” Bershidsky tweeted.
Wire transfers from the Russian Federation mentioning a 2016 election were also sent to almost 60 other Russian embassies around the world.