Impeachment Hearings & Vetting Information Sources

Ranking member Devin Nunes gave his opening comments before the start of witness testimony in the House impeachment hearing this morning. His version of reality, presumably the GOP-Trump vision, is mostly the opposite of the democratic vision. One of the sources that Nunes dwelled on in his opening statements was reporter John Solomon. Nunes claimed that Solomon's reporting contradicts most or all of the democratic view of what Ukraine did not did not do.

Who is John Solomon?

Wikipedia has a bio on Solomon. The bio includes these comments:

John F. Solomon is an American media executive, and a conservative political commentator. He was an editorialist and executive vice president of digital video for The Hill[1] and as of October, 2019, is a contributor to Fox News.[2] He was formerly employed as an executive and as editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[3]

While he won a number of prestigious awards for his investigative journalism in the 1990s and 2000s,[4][5] he has also been accused of magnifying small scandals and creating fake controversy.[6][7][8] During Donald Trump's presidency, he has been known for advancing Trump-friendly stories. He played a role in advancing conspiracy theories about wrong-doing involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and Ukraine; Solomon's stories about the Bidens influenced President Trump to request that the Ukrainian president launch an investigation into 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, which led to an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.[2]

Some of Solomon's reporting has been criticized as inaccurate. Wikipedia:

On the same day that The Washington Post published its article, The Hill published another opinion piece by Solomon in which Solomon states that there are "(h)undreds of pages of never-released memos and documents...(that) conflict with Biden’s narrative."[30]

Solomon's stories had significant flaws.[23][20] Not only had the State Department dismissed the allegations presented by Solomon as "an outright fabrication", but the Ukrainian prosecutor who Solomon claimed made the allegations to him is not supporting Solomon's claim.[23][20] Foreign Policy noted that anti-corruption activists in Ukraine had characterized the source behind Solomon's claims as an unreliable narrator who had hindered anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.[31]

At least for now, House republicans are relying significantly on Solomon to see no impeachable, illegal or improper offenses by the president and duplicity by Joe Biden. Republicans adhere to that despite evidence that key pieces of Solomon's information is false. Some of the documents Solomon relies on for his narrative appear to be innocuous, at least on first blush, e.g., this and this.

Who and what are people supposed to believe?

Few Americans are going to read translations of Ukrainian documents and put them in context. They are not going to spend hours reading and confirming accuracy of facts and narratives by Solomon and others who assert the same. They should not have to do that. It is the job of the mainstream media and our political leaders to distil and accurately convey relevant facts and truths.

These days, the issue of who and what to trust in politics comes up over and over and over. Partisans tell us to trust people like Solomon and/or independent journalists who convey narratives that are either not reported by the MSM or at odds with existing MSM reporting and/or facts of record.

Someone is lying about reality here. The two competing impeachment narratives are mutually exclusive. Both cannot be mostly correct. Both can be mostly wrong, but only one can be mostly correct. What is astounding is the fact that both facts of record and the reasoning applied to them are in bitter, non-resolvable dispute.

In view of the situation, it is fair to call this tribalism, not reasoned politics. One side to the other arguably is much more at fault for the situation than the other. That assumes that one side is mostly right about their facts and logic and the other is mostly wrong. For better or worse, the analysis and ultimate conclusion is clouded by partisan subjective assessments of right and wrong. For most of the president's defenders, the now acknowledged quid pro quo does not amount to anything improper, unethical, illegal or impeachable. Nunes' opening statements seem to make that clear. The moral assessment on the democratic side mostly appears to be or is that at least impeachable acts are at issue.

Which set of facts and narrative is most likely true?

What are the controlling facts here? Most people, maybe about 95%, will mostly believe what their tribe and the various MSM and non-MSM media sources they rely on tell them. In essence, facts are now partisan things. Constant but unwarranted attacks on the professional MSM by the president and his supporters make have succeeded in poisoning the MSM as a reliable information source for millions of Americans. The vacuum that decades of mainly conservative distrust has creates leaves a huge opening for non-MSM sources to begin to look more reliable and trustworthy. Millions of Americans believe, or could come to believe, that Solomon's narrative and facts are reliable and true. In this vacuum, Americans can come to believe that reporters who publish on crackpot sites are telling truth even when they are not.

If that analysis is basically correct, and it appears to be, the people who have fomented unwarranted distrust. This is not an argument that the MSM is completely unbiased or that it never makes mistakes. It is biased and sometimes makes mistakes. The MSM has largely fallen to corporate ownership and the inherent censorship that comes with the profit motive. Despite the shortcomings and flaws, this is an argument that the MSM is still routinely more reliable than many or most the alternatives that people raise to advance their own narratives.

Based on the relevant facts and reasoning that flows from the facts, Nunes assertions and Solomon's narrative are both indefensible and wrong.

If that logic and conclusion is flawed, what are the facts and counter arguments that make it more wrong than right?