Politico reporter Adam Wren, while reporting on potential Trump attorney general Mike Davis, was subjected to ominous threats and intimidation from an unidentified Trump ally.As part of his lengthy profile of Davis, Wren wrote about an experience he had writing down notes about Donald Trump Jr. tell...

What in the world…

  • Lauchs@lemmy.world
    3728·
    2 months ago

    Did anyone read the article or are we just going off a fairly misleading headline?

    From the headline, it seems like a mafia style threat. From the article though:

    Davis tried to explain to the woman that he had to catch a flight to meet up with his family, to which she replied, “You should have thought about your kids before you did what you did.”

    The threat here isn’t that someone is going to come after his family, it’s that he might miss his flight. Which is annoying but absolutely not the same as “we know where you live and are coming after your family.”

    • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      703·
      2 months ago

      No, it was absolutely a Mafia-style threat. Here is the entire article, emphasis added:

      Politico reporter Adam Wren, while reporting on potential Trump attorney general Mike Davis, was subjected to ominous threats and intimidation from an unidentified Trump ally.

      As part of his lengthy profile of Davis, Wren wrote about an experience he had writing down notes about Donald Trump Jr. telling Davis that he wanted Davis to be Trump’s next attorney general for the next four years.

      At this point, an unidentified woman accosted Wren and demanded that he hand over his phone and delete the notes he had taken.

      Wren then tried to leave the area – but was subsequently blocked from the exits by four men who similarly demanded that he hand over his phone.

      Davis tried to explain to the woman that he had to catch a flight to meet up with his family, to which she replied, “You should have thought about your kids before you did what you did.”

      “After roughly 15 minutes of this standoff, I searched for another exit,” Wren continued. “I ran down a hallway into a stairwell. Two people followed me. When I was out on the street, Davis called me. By this point, Davis had confronted the aide near the elevators and dressed her down. You don’t ask a reporter to delete their notes, he told her, according to both Davis and a second person he recounted his remarks to briefly after. This isn’t North Korea.”

      The Trump campaign subsequently investigated and claimed to Wren that the woman in question was not formally involved in Trump’s campaign.

      5 people believed that they had a right to do any of that, on any level. It had nothing to do with a flight.

      • Lauchs@lemmy.world
        719·
        2 months ago

        Preventing someone from leaving, especially a reporter, is not a good look but the gulf between that and “we’re coming for your kids” as implied by the article is huge.

        Had the article headlined with reporter accosted, physically stopped etc, totally fine. But this clickbait crap is nonsense.

    • Reyali@lemm.ee
      191·
      2 months ago

      “What he did,” though, was just take notes as a reporter. He took notes then tried to leave with them, where he was accosted and threatened and told to delete the notes. When he continued to express a desire to leave and mentioned his kids, that comment came out.

      I agree that it’s not as bad as the headline makes it sound. But it also doesn’t seem like the reporter did anything that he shouldn’t have done which would have given him reason to be accosted…

      Charitable reading, this was just an off-the-cuff comment at the maturity level of, “I know you are but what am I?” where the aide used a quick comeback without thinking much about her words.

      • Lauchs@lemmy.world
        67·
        2 months ago

        Oh absolutely, he shouldn’t have been accosted etc. But I really hate this clickbait nonsense, it’s irresponsible and part of why things are as bad as they are. Most people will look at the headline and think these people really are targeting reporters’ children etc. It’s lazy, irresponsible and is helping make politics as bad as they are.

    • Soup@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      318·
      2 months ago

      Lemmy LOVES to be outraged. If the truth needs to be stretched into unrecognizable rage-bait, all the better.

      • Lauchs@lemmy.world
        38·
        2 months ago

        And judging from the downvotes, lemmy doesn’t like being being reminded of this fact.

          • Lauchs@lemmy.world
            53·
            2 months ago

            So you support people detaining journalists against their will and forcing them to delete their notes.

            No. Not at all.

            But to pretend that they were threatening the reporter’s family is disingenuous and makes it look like the media is blatantly spinning a story. This story’s headline and others like it are part of why people don’t trust the media, which is a dangerous state of affairs.

            • Soup@lemmy.cafeEnglish
              35·
              2 months ago

              I was saving them up to have one giant relevant post. Sadly, that’s not ping to happen now.

              • Lauchs@lemmy.world
                35·
                2 months ago

                I love that someone was so annoyed at either the idea that lemmy is addicted to outrage or making fun of downvotes that they downvoted your innocuous comment.

                Some fragile folks out there I guess?

                • Soup@lemmy.cafeEnglish
                  33·
                  2 months ago

                  It’s just how it is here. I barely take any of it seriously at all. When people go so far out of their way to be outraged by everything, there’s nothing you can ever say that will set them at ease.

                  They have no understanding whatsoever of any nuance at all.

                  So I just make fun of them.

                  • Lauchs@lemmy.world
                    33·
                    2 months ago

                    It just breaks my heart a little.

                    Places like this could be so awesome and so conducive to good public discourse but instead we get, well, this.