You're assuming it's a garbage story and that it's intended to influence the election based on absolutely nothing. Why not make counter-arguments to the actual piece, when it comes out?
I'd argue that all of the rampant censorship about any conceivable questioning or criticism of Biden is the thing that history is likely going to look back on in a few months, and perhaps years, as unethical and irresponsible journalistic conduct.
I disagree with some of Greenwald's stances, but he and Matt Taibbi seem to be the only actual journalists left in the country, that I'm aware of. It's mind-boggling.
I strongly dislike Trump as president and as a person, I think he's probably the worst president we've had from a domestic perspective, and I couldn't disagree more with him and his party's agenda, but as of the past few days I almost want to see him win due to all of this recent censorship tipping the scales. Almost like an Oedipus-style prophecy ironically fulfilled by the attempt to prevent it. I don't actually want him to win, but I want these people to have this blow up in their face.
The cover-up is probably a lot worse than the allegations (which don't seem that damaging, going by the leaked emails, but I'm curious to see Greenwald's analysis), and I bet this is turning many more people further from media outlets and closer to Trump or at least further from the left. Even if he loses the election, I think the past few weeks have shown he might have already won. Not due to anything he did, but solely due to an entirely avoidable shooting of oneself in the foot. This could have ripple effects that last longer than the next 4 years.
You're already buying into the propaganda - there is nothing to "cover-up" per se, there can't be a cover-up, because there is nothing to cover up, there is no story.
Imagine multiple media outlets simultaneously get an email saying "Meowface denies being Dogface during the night". If someone refuses to print this, due lack of evidence and lack of truth - that is not called a cover-up. There is no reason to dignify it with airtime in the first place.
After all one can publish this sort of stuff on blogs, internet forums, tabloids etc. Curation is the true news product - sifting of truth from untruth is one way to do it.
I may very well turn out to be wrong, but I think the emails are more likely than not all real. But even if they all turn out to be completely doctored, there's a much more responsible way of handling the information. Of course it'd be absurd to assume the emails are real, but it's almost as absurd to assume they can't be real and that to even attempt to objectively assess the claim is falling for propaganda.
This is a true Shiri's scissor, here. The left-leaning journalists who recognize, in my opinion, how ridiculous this behavior is vs. the rest are basically living on different planets.
It's not based on nothing. It's based on a pattern of the current administration and the media that supports it propping up nonsense and blowing stories that are critical of their opposition out of proportion specifically in order to rile people up and influence elections. Pizzagate, Hillary's emails, Q-Anon, these things all take a toll on people who actually care about what is true and real.
Is it really surprising that after all the overblown conspiracy nonsense we've been battered with from the White House and Trump that people have grown suspicious and weary of new stories that smell even remotely similar? It's gotten to the point where if Trump supports a story I assume it's probably untrue by default just because of the sheer volume of lies and nonsense he retweets on a daily basis. I don't know anything about the Hunter Biden story. Maybe it's loaded with true, damning information against Biden. If so, it's too bad, because we are neck deep in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation here and I'm not going to learn about it until it's been verified and reported by media outlets that I can actually trust.
I fucking hate conspiracy theories. I spend (or waste) way too much time online arguing with conspiracy theorists and debunking conspiracy theories. Trump is definitely the conspiracy theorist in chief. It's beyond insanity.
But just like conspiracy theories are irrational, kneejerk dismissing all negative stories as conspiracy theories is also irrational. There's a much more reasonable way of handling this. Things always have to be taken on a case-by-case basis.
You mention boy-who-cried-wolf, and NY Post is definitely a shitty and extremely biased outlet, but probably about as biased as modern day CNN. Both have peddled a lot of hyperbole and unjustified shit, and both have also reported on real things. As far as I know, the NY Post never supported absurd conspiracy theories like Pizzagate or QAnon.
NY Post certainly hyped up Hillary's private email server well beyond the point of reason and fairness, but this scenario would exactly be like if every non-right-biased news outlet all decided to never publish any story even mentioning that she had a private email server that she may have used for non-personal affairs. Of course it'd be extremely irresponsible to have headlines about her email server every day, but it's just as irresponsible to consider the mere existence of the topic an unspeakable matter, as it would be if Twitter were to have censored every link to an article mentioning that she had a private email server she's alleged to have used for non-personal things. This is the Streisand effect in action, here.
It's simply not rational to assume that any story Trump supports is probably untrue. He lies an unbelievable amount, but if you assume 60% of everything that ever comes out of his mouth is a lie, that 40% could still have some real things worth trying to look at objectively. And in this case, this isn't some thing he just peddled entirely himself out of the blue; a newspaper reported on it, even if they're a very biased newspaper. He's going to support anything that he thinks helps his campaign, and not everything that helps his campaign is necessarily bullshit, even if a lot is.
This absolutist stance is part of the thing that only bolsters his constant accusations of fake news - "fake news" has in some sense become a self-fulfilling prophecy in some cases, like here. The left never followed Hillary's proclamation of "when they go low, we go high". Every year, the opposition sinks lower and lower, gradually trending towards the level of the other side. And that's probably exactly what Trump wants and has been trying to trigger.
They had the hard drive for over a year. Plenty of time to try and do a proper investigation. But instead they sat on it. If they were willing to sit on it for over 12 months, I see no reason why mainstream media can't insist that they continue to sit on it until they verify their sources.
And it is worth mentioning that both Fox New (the news side, not the opinion side) and the Wall Street Journal turned the story down. And the journalists at NY Post refused to put their name in the byline. If I worked at CNN, and saw that right leaning orgs were staying away from it, maybe skepticism is warranted. And keep in mind, they are refusing to release copies of the source material to other journalists. So no one other than the NY Post has the ability to authenticate (even fox business can't get access[1]).
I'd argue that all of the rampant censorship about any conceivable questioning or criticism of Biden is the thing that history is likely going to look back on in a few months, and perhaps years, as unethical and irresponsible journalistic conduct.
I disagree with some of Greenwald's stances, but he and Matt Taibbi seem to be the only actual journalists left in the country, that I'm aware of. It's mind-boggling.
I strongly dislike Trump as president and as a person, I think he's probably the worst president we've had from a domestic perspective, and I couldn't disagree more with him and his party's agenda, but as of the past few days I almost want to see him win due to all of this recent censorship tipping the scales. Almost like an Oedipus-style prophecy ironically fulfilled by the attempt to prevent it. I don't actually want him to win, but I want these people to have this blow up in their face.
The cover-up is probably a lot worse than the allegations (which don't seem that damaging, going by the leaked emails, but I'm curious to see Greenwald's analysis), and I bet this is turning many more people further from media outlets and closer to Trump or at least further from the left. Even if he loses the election, I think the past few weeks have shown he might have already won. Not due to anything he did, but solely due to an entirely avoidable shooting of oneself in the foot. This could have ripple effects that last longer than the next 4 years.