From Media Matters
Sitting down for his first presidential phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart "vowed to repair relations between the countries," during a "warm," hour-long discussion, The New York Times reported.
The two men promised "to join forces to fight terrorism in Syria and elsewhere, according to the White House and the Kremlin," noted The Washington Post, and the confab was "positive," according to a White House statement quoted by NBC News.
Reuters agreed: "Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to try to rebuild U.S. Russia ties and to cooperate in Syria, the Kremlin said on Saturday."
Virtually all the coverage of the Putin-Trump phone call was identical and had the same feel-good vibe, because the information about the call all came from the same two sources: a statement released by the White House, and one put out by the Kremlin. ("The chat took place in a positive and business-like tone.")
Noticeably absent from the phone call? According to the White House, Putin and Trump did not talk about U.S. sanctions currently in place against Russia and whether Trump will lift them, even over objection from members of his own party. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus "refused to say whether" there was discussion during the call of U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia made a concerted effort to influence the November election in favor of Trump. The White House and Kremlin accounts suggest they never talked about news that two Russian intelligence officers who had worked on cyber-operations had been arrested on treason charges, in a move that some observers think may be related to Russia's attempts to influence the U.S. election. Or that there was any discussion of allegations that Russian operatives "claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump."
Instead, there wasn't even a hint of discord between the two leaders, according to the press reports. And maybe there wasn't any. But again, journalists received all their call information from aides who crafted public statements, which reporters then typed up as fact.
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