Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Maggie Haberman thinks we're out to get her.

Fresh Air can be really good at collaborative interviews where the subject is working with the interviewer. When the subject is being evasive or has an agenda, it doesn't work so well and this is probably truer with Davies than with Gross.

Davies certainly deserves some of the blame here. His questions are badly worded, he doesn't seem to be up on the controversy, he doesn't ask nearly enough follow-ups, and he seems content to let Haberman take the lead.

Most of the show consists of sane-washing (mainly by omission) and  bad, often self-serving news analysis. This isn't just a Haberman problem -- news analysis at the NYT is now almost entirely without insight or original thought -- but the result is pretty much a waste of time except for one exchange.

DAVIES: So let's talk about some of the criticisms of the media. I mean, I will just say, you don't have to answer for all media or even the many reporters and editors at The New York Times who are working on this campaign. But I'm interested in how you respond when people say that The Times and the media have given Trump credibility by treating things he says as if they should be taken seriously when they don't deserve that treatment, or when he gives a garbled answer about, you know, say, child care, and it's rewritten to sound clear and credible. In general, I mean, is there a point here?

First off, this is a terrible question from Davies. He leaves out most of the criticisms being leveled by journalists and press critics of the stature of Fallows, Froomkin, Sullivan, Risen, and Marshall. Then he managed to sane wash a question about sane washing, greatly understating the magnitude of the misrepresentation. It was a question almost designed to let Haberman off the hook. All she had to do was stick with "I think that Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media process every day, has for years. The systems are just fundamentally - they were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does. I think the media has actually done a very good job showing people who he is, what he says, what he does." and she would have been fine but this was a hole she was determined to dig for herself.

HABERMAN: I think that the media does a very good job covering Trump. There are always going to be specific stories that could have been better, should have been better, that are written on deadline, and people are not being as precise as they should be. I think there is an industry, bluntly, Dave, that is dedicated toward attacking the media, especially as it relates to covering Donald Trump and all coverage of Trump. And I think that Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media process every day, has for years. The systems are just fundamentally - they were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does. I think the media has actually done a very good job showing people who he is, what he says, what he does. I think most of the information that the public has about Trump is because of reporting by the media. And I guess I don't really understand how this industry that literally exists to attack the press broadly - and the media is not a monolith. It's not a league. But this industry that exists to do that - I don't see how they think they are a solution by undermining faith in what we do. That's been very confusing to me.

DAVIES: Yeah. Well, I mean, part of the attacks are clearly are partisan. I mean, Republicans and Trump supporters are going to attack.

HABERMAN: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about...

DAVIES: Yeah, well, who is the industry you're talking about? Yeah.

HABERMAN: I'm talking about criticism on the left. I'm talking about a lot of that Trump has used the language of despots to undermine the press is very well established, and it's very dangerous. And I've talked about that. The publisher of The New York Times has been incredibly clear about that. He published an Op-Ed recently in The Washington Post actually talking about that. So I don't think that anybody is - in - at The New York Times is trying to sanitize Trump's language. Do I think that there are occasional pieces at my paper, at other papers that probably should have been done differently? That's absolutely true. And that's - but that - what happens with this industry on the left that attacks the press is that it gets described as a grand conspiracy to try to help Trump somehow, as opposed to people doing their job on daily deadlines and not always hitting the mark because we are humans. And we are doing our best under a very challenging set of circumstances. But I actually think the media has done a very good job of covering Trump.

I think that what is frustrating to those people making those claims is that there is not the result they want to see, which is Trump melts or Trump no longer has, you know popularity. I mean, you were saying - I think your question was treat him with credibility. He's the Republican nominee. So there's a substantial voting bloc in this country - almost half - that take seriously what he's saying. And it's not because The New York Times wrote a certain story. And so to not understand that, I think, is problematic for folks leveling the charge.

DAVIES: I'm going to take another break here. Our guest is Maggie Haberman, senior political correspondent for The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

Other than some vague assertion about the criticism coming from "the left." Haberman completely ignores the question and Davies just lets it drop, which is a shame because the answer's really interesting. Here is a very incomplete list of the people and institutions that have played a prominent role in the criticism.


James Fallows
Dan Froomkin
Josh Marshall
Margaret Sullivan
James Risen
Mark Jacob
Norman Ornstein
Tom Nichols
Matthew Cooper
Bruce Bartlett
Jay Rosen
Philip Gourevitch
Kai Ryssdal
On the Media

Implicitly (called out the policies but not NYT by name)

Nicholas Kristof
Thomas Edsall
Jamelle Bouie
Justin Wolfers

(Discussed in more detail here.)

Most of these names here would be considered center-left. Some would be considered apolitical. One or two would qualify as conservative. There not a clear ideological pattern here but they do share one trait. All are highly distinguished as either journalists or press critics. Haberman knows these people and she knows they and other highly respected people in the field have grown increasingly critical of the New York Times' political coverage. It would be next to impossible for her not to know the major players and have a general sense of what's being said.

For those whose political memories go back a while, complaints about a large, powerful, yet vaguely defined "industry" that is out to get her and her colleagues at the NYT is particularly ripe. It calls to mind Hillary Clinton's comment about a vast conspiracy, something that Haberman's paper mercilessly mocked Clinton over for years despite the fact that their own reporters such as James Stewart conceded that there was a large group of powerful and extremely rich men who were working together often covertly and sometimes illegally to destroy her and her husband.

There is, however, the bigger issue. Haberman's misrepresentation of who her critics are and of the issues they raise are in lockstep with and sometimes include the exact language of the NYT editorial leadership's responses to these criticisms. Haberman is in many ways the ideal example of a New York Times reporter, a second generation star with the paper, reflecting its strengths and weaknesses, in many ways a gifted investigator, but often focused more on access than revelation and never seen deviating from the standard narrative.

The New York Times leadership (of which Haberman is a de facto member) has reached the point where they have lost the ability to truly hear outside criticism or to generate it internally. When failures are pointed out, those in charge of the paper process what should be constructive feedback much like the dog in the Far Side cartoon processed her master's scolding, with only a few familiar words registering. (First losing Margaret Sullivan then deciding to do away with the office of public editor are mistakes that haunt the paper to this day.)

Fallow's response was thoughtful and, in my opinion, went way too easy on her.

Obviously I disagree w main points here: that press has overall done very good job covering Trump, and that there is a left-wing "industry" that is "dedicated toward attacking the media," especially NYT.

But (seriously, no snark) credit to at least one prominent  NYT figure for acknowledging that there is a critique.

Next step would be engagement on some specifics people have actually been asking about:

- Why framing / headline / social-promo of stories  takes a certain shape so predictably as to have given rise to the Pitchbot
- Why no retrospective public discussion, at all, about coverage in 2016 (Her emails!!!!) and lessons thereof. After Iraq WMD coverage, NYT under Bill Keller did a public retrospective  ("what we got wrong") etc
- Why no public explanation of diff between coverage of HRC/Podesta Russian-hacked emails and silence on Trump  Iranian-hacked emails
- Why diff between extent / persistence of Biden "fitness to govern" cognitive overage vs Trump-cognitive issues.
- Thoughts about proportion of "guy in a diner" stories, vs "women in the suburbs" stories. And proportion of "econ is good but feels bad" stories.
- Whether there's a diff in general outlook of coverage of US politics (need for "balance") vs coverage of the rest of the range of news.
And so on

Worth considering this as a start.
Pitchbot also got roped into this discussion then stepped out of character for another response more thoughtful than it needed to be.

Lots of typos and omissions (for reasons explained at the end) but well worth a read.

(1/X) I hate doing these, but I feel like I'm being baited to do so. A few days ago Maggie H did an interview where she complained criticism of her reporting, James Fallows answered back (mentioning this account) and Jon Chait and some Reason bro took a shot at Fallows for...
(2/X) praising this account. First things first...Jon Chait and some obscure Reason bro lecturing James Fallows about journalism is ludicrous. Fallows is a legend, a five-time National Magazine Award finalist. More on this later...
(3/X) But first, Maggie admits "The systems are just fundamentally - they were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he (Trump) often does." That's exactly the point of all the criticism...
(4/X) of her and the Times' coverage of Trump. It's not built for Trump. Trump is hold to lower standards. Let's just take a couple examples. The Times played a big role in forcing Biden out of the race (which has worked out great for Dems)...
(5/X) Two or three times a week, Trump does something that is more strongly indicative of dementia than anything Biden did during that debate. Is there any move to force him out?  
...
(8/X) I don't think anyone can dispute either of those two points: that there's been no coverage of Trump's dementia comparable to the discussion of Biden's age and that hacked Democratic campaign emails would be getting covered.
(9/X). That's a different standard and one that is markedly lower for Trump. It's that simple. It doesn't mean that the Times hasn't taught the public a lot about Trump. There have been a lot of revealing stories. But they are easier on Trump than on other candidates..
(10/X) That's how narcissistic sociopaths work. They get weak institutions to make special rules for them. What I find fascinating about the discussion of this obvious fact is that you have an in crowd (Times political journalists, ppl like Chait, large account Substackers),
(11/X) Who devote themselves to denying this obvious fact and those who assert its truth. It doesn't matter if the person asserting is a no name like or a legend like James Fallows or James Risen. Doesn't matter, they deserve scorn and derision.
(12/X) There are no serious arguments, just a lot of RESPECT MUH AUTHORITY and boiler-plate evidence-free assertions. Serious people know that Trump is getting tough coverage is the thrust of it.
 ...
 (16/X) And no facts or investigation can change any of it. The Times is tough on Trump because they are tough on Trump. Don't you get it, Resistance libtard?
This may be even more incoherent and typo-ridden than usual. I wrote it while monitoring my six-year-old's Minecraft video intake. 

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1 comment:

  1. yosephusSeptember 24, 2024 at 10:39 PM

    Thank you for this. You have done a real service of the kind NYT so often eschews even the least circumspection to attempt.

    ReplyDelete

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