Page 2 - The View Inside Buzzfeed News Today

Whose work included revealed hillary clintons e-mails. i think its ludicrous to go back and dredge around stuff -- stories from 15 years ago that are real and that he wrote about back then. >> people wonder sometimes if in this partisan age of anti-trump bias, reporters opinions creep into the coverage. something like this. you might hear something from a source and you want it to be true. did that happen in this case? >> no, absolutely not. the last time jason was being accused of things like t...

Newspaper or in some media outlet that has a lot of things correct but it has a few things incorrect, like who is the object of scrutiny or what documents we have or mischaracterizes things in a certain way, usually our plan was to keep our mouths shut. you can do more harm by talking than not talking. sometimes it was egregious enough you felt like you had to make some statement. the problem then is, you dont want to edit their piece and say, among these 15 facts -- you become their editor. you...

Press outlets sometimes face that if they dont get everything right and the prosecutor speaks in this way and retreats back. >> just from a reporting standpoint, explain for people out there what happens now to -- for those buzzfeed reporters. for buzzfeed. are they -- they go back to the people they talked to, they try to pan out -- >> speaking for reporting generally, people will go back to their sources and try to re-establish trails and look at what they have and what they dont have. ben smi...

Confirm this story. no one else was able to get their hands on the documents that apparently backed up this story. i think the same is true of the buzzfeed reporters. they didnt put anything else corroborating it in terms of the underlying evidence. this statement really shows you what a difficult position the special counsels office was in today. we know the justice department, that includes the special counsels office, does not comment on anything regarding an ongoing investigation. thats what...

You are seeing base on what pam was saying the president referring to that. others on twitter referring to leakers. this is often a point the president makes. there is leaking against him. people are out to get him. anything that could delegitimize the investigation is of concern to the special counsel. thats why they went forward. i dont know what this means for the story going forward. >> joining us is ben smith. editor in chief for buzzfeed. good to have you on. can you explain your response ...

The credibility of buzzfeed, talking about michael cohen saying a proven liar, saying this is another example of leakers. thats the attitude here at the white house. we should note -- you did point out in the lead to me that buzzfeed has come out basically asking the special counsel to identify what exactly it is disputing. ben smith, the editor in chief said in response to the statement, he is saying we stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it and we urge the special counsel to ma...

He knows. what the reaction here may be, the press screwed up. they should apologize. the media isnt as great as it thinks it is. this is a bad day for the news media. lets not kid ourselves. that statement is at least a partial repudiation of an enormously important story. >> also, its a very bad day for buzzfeed regardless of where this story goes. to the credit of other news organizations, everybody didnt jump on the bandwagon saying this is true. >> we ran with it saying if true. that was no...

Buzzfeeds description of specific statements to the special counsels office and documentation obtained by this office in terms of michael cohens testimony are not accurate. >> right. this story, if true, would have directionally changed what is happening in terms of the white house. you saw the pressure come from lawmakers who were concerned about it, not just democrats but republicans. you saw that pressure applied and grow on the special counsel throughout the day. its very rare that they issu...

Changes that and maybe we should -- >> why would there be that discrepancy? if they both have access to michael cohen. >> it sounds like in one case they had clear proof it was at the direction of and they credited it. in the other case, they didnt, which is maybe why we have this clarification, because -- im prepared to believe -- im not saying this is true. im prepared to believe the president of the united states did some things, said things or people suggested to michael cohen, your testimon...

Thing. she was echoing the sentiment from what we heard from giuliani. now in an extraordinary move, the special counsel spokesman is coming out and essentially saying that there is nothing to back up this buzzfeed report that the president directed michael cohen, his former attorney, to lie to congress and that there are trump organization documents to back it up. again as sarah pointed out, that is extremely rare for the special counsel to do. but also, this story from buzzfeed certainly caugh...