Wednesday, September 11, 2024

September 9th, 2024... the day the New York Times found out Donald Trump was running for president

 September 9th, 2024... the day the New York Times found out Donald Trump was running for president

Well, that was unexpected.

In the span of 24 hours, the New York Times posted more substantial criticism of Donald Trump than they have over the past three months.

Here's a good write up from Cheryl Rofer of Lawyers Guns and Money. (Rofer has become the essential LGM blogger. Definitely a follow.)

If this had been one or two articles or if the jump in tone had been less dramatic, it wouldn't demand explanation, but this is a big jump and it caught lots of people's attention.

 


I suspect the most obvious and likely explanation is that the pressure finally got to upper management. The criticism was no longer something they could dismiss as sour grapes from Democrats who wanted the New York Times to be the Fox News of the left. Questions about what was going on at the paper had become to widespread and the people behind them, such as Margaret Sullivan, too respectable.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the very establishment public radio program On the Media ran this segment two days before the sudden course correction.

The Media Are Going Easy On Trump and Russia is Going All In On Right-Wing Media

At a town hall event hosted by Fox, Donald Trump shared a number of falsehoods, and appeared to confuse who he was running against. On this week’s On the Media, how mainstream outlets fail to hold the Republican candidate accountable. Plus, meet the right-wing American pundits who’ve received payouts from the Kremlin.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Daniel Drezner, professor of International Politics at Tufts University. Drezner discusses how the political press continues to struggle to cover Trump, and his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris. 

[12:34] Host Brooke Gladstone interviews Dan Froomkin, editor of presswatchers.org. Froomkin explains why fact checkers at legacy outlets are too often adding to political confusion.

 

I don't want to make this sound like a road to Damascus moment. The New York Times still has entrenched institutional problems and even its recent efforts at moving beyond false balance and sane washing have been somewhat mixed.

This excellent MSNBC clip (well worth your time) explains how even in a supposedly hard-hitting article, the reporter effectively rewrites Trump's statements so that something that was nonsensical appears to be a bad but not absurd policy suggestion.

What's worse, we are already seeing some definite signs of backsliding in the past few hours, particularly with respect to the paper's coverage of the debate.

But let's look on the bright side and celebrate what progress we can find at the moment including this quote from Michelle Goldberg which, in addition to being apt and direct, also comes close to criticizing her paper's official position, something that only one or two of her peers have the guts to do.



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