JOURNALISM AS STENOGRAPHY: Where did all those ‘Trump Lies’ articles come from this weekend? The Clinton campaign, of course. “So the weekend before the first presidential debate, four major news publications all print the same story, the content and tone of which (calling out one candidate over the other as a serial liar) Stelter concedes is ‘extraordinary,’ and it’s all just a ‘coincidence’ with no coordination between the publications and certainly none with the campaign? Uh huh. Hey wait… what’s this over here on the Hillary Clinton campaign website published on Friday, the day before all the articles published at the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post and Politico?” . . . As if the message wasn’t clear enough in the post, the Clinton campaign was sure to hammer the story assignments home by conducting a special conference call on the topic for members of the media. According to Jason Easly at PoliticsUSA, the conference call included more pressure on debate moderator Lester Holt.”