Tuesday, August 13, 2024

The New York Times goes to its happy (Trumpless) place

Looks like I was a bit premature suggesting that the Overton window was moving at the New York Times.

We've already established that New York Times and the considerable segment of the establishment press that follows its lead would rather not talk about Donald Trump at all, so it's not that surprising to see his name omitted from the front page of Monday's paper and largely absent from the website.



Instead, the big stories are a deep dive into Tim Walz's relationship with China and a borderline nonstory about African-American men supporting Kamala Harris. Both are the sort of articles you would expect to see on the proverbial slow news day, which is strange since the weekend was rather eventful on the political front.

There is certainly more say about Trump's press conference and its aftermath, including the fact that he threatened to sue the New York Times for pointing out one of his fabrications. Surely the GOP nominee for president averaging over two and a half misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies per minute is newsworthy.


 

Then there are radical, offensive, and just plain crazy statements Trump made over the weekend. Normally, a candidate suggesting that he would abolish Fed independence would make the front page.




Of course, in terms of shock value, that pails next to the accusation that the Harris campaign with the apparent cooperation of dozens in the press mounted a massive conspiracy to fake a rally attended by thousands of supporters. This one was so unhinged that even Nicholas Kristof suggested it was time to start discussing Trump's mental health.





The weekend also saw major breaking news about project 2025. How was that not more important than the mystery of black men supporting Harris?



And there was a hacking scandal:








Perhaps the biggest news of the campaign was Trump's "quiet quitting."

And remember, that appearance was in Montana. You'd have to go all the way back to Atlanta to find him campaigning in a swing state.




Is there any precedent for a non-incumbent candidate, slightly behind in the polls and badly outfunded, deciding to scale back campaigning to a trickle? Trump's "explanation" was two transparent lies with a nonsensical statement in the middle. Assuming "letting their convention go through" means minimal campaign appearances, what strategic reason could he have in mind? 

Even the far right cable channel the Blaze was talking about this.

 

Not, however, the New York Times.

The NYT has never shown any reluctance to speculate in the absence of facts, and all too often present those speculations as facts. This continues to make up a large part of discussion of Biden and Harris. How can they not do the same when faced with far more bizarre behaviors and credibility-straining explanations of this suspension of conventional campaigning? Is he not physically up to the strain of more than one appearance a week? Is he afraid of dwindling crowds and embarrassing comparisons to Harris? Are his handlers trying to keep him from doing damage? Is his history of stiffing cities for the bill catching up with him? Does anyone have any other ideas?

If would be great if the paper of record did some actual reporting on this (something even I will admit is still their real strength), but simply acknowledging something strange was going on would be a step forward.

Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 13, 2024 at 4:02 PM

    I continue to think that most NYT reporters, and much NYT management, very much wants the Democrats to win the election.

    I wonder whether part of the coverage problems you discuss above is that political journalists spend a lot of time on twitter and other online spaces that are filled with partisans on both sides. If you go to such spaces, you see Democrats saying that Trump is lying, speaking incoherently, supporting radical policies, etc., and then you see Republicans saying that Trump is being picked on by the media and that Harris is an empty suit, etc. When a NYT journalist see this . . . it's not that the journalist will try for "balance," exactly, but I think it does influence how they think.

    When people talk about the influence of social media on election campaigns, the usual way it's framed is that some number of voters are seeing a message on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, and that might swing their vote. But I suspect there's another mechanism, maybe more important, which is that political journalists are so online that they end up chasing stories from all directions and not getting anywhere.

    It's kind of like . . . what if I had subscriptions to Psychological Science, PNAS, NPR's science team, and the writings of Gladwell and the Freakonomics team? Then I'd be seeing tons and tons of stuff, much of it interesting, some of it true, some of it completely bogus. The mix of what I see would, to some extent, drive what I'd talk about.

    Andrew

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousAugust 14, 2024 at 2:37 AM

      Andrew,

      I suspect most of the reporters are growing increasingly angry with the direction of the coverage just as the rank and file were with the Tom Cotton editorial. Hell, even Kristof is complaining (though tactfully not calling out his employer by name).

      Editors make the assignments, decide what goes on the front page, and write the headlines. The NYT is known for taking this to this next level compared to papers like the LA Times where reporters historically have much more input.

      The actual reporting we're seeing is generally fine once you get past the bad headlines, the buried ledes and the A13 below the fold placement. With the exception of a few good soldier stars who can be counted on to follow the company line (Ezra Klein, Nate Cohn, Frank Bruni, Ross Douthat), the journalistic sins we've been seeing all seem to come from editors and their bosses.


      Mark

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 14, 2024 at 1:01 PM

      Mark:

      I still think the "too online" thing is part of the story. Reporters log on to twitter and they think it's the public square. The twitter feed is full of partisan content. So when a reporter goes on twitter and is deluged with posts saying that Trump is a hero and he crushed it with the Musk interview, well . . . it's not that the reporter will forget that Trump told a lot of lies in the interview and wasn't called out on them, but the reporter might still feel some need, not to balance the story exactly but to recognize the other side. Social media serve the function of amplifying extreme views, and I think it's hard for reporters to read social media and not be influenced by the mix of posts being pushed on them. It would be as if, every day on the way to work--and for many of the working hours--the reporter is driving through a neighborhood that's full of "Kamala is a Communist" lawn signs. It's gotta have some effect.

      Andrew

      Delete
    3. AnonymousAugust 15, 2024 at 5:23 AM

      Andrew,

      you can certainly make a good case for social media having the effects you describe in general, but I don't think they fit this case were a couple of reasons.

      First, with a handful of previously discussed exceptions, this does not seem to be a reporter level problem. Even Haberman and Swan, except for some beat sweetening, do a pretty good job going where the story takes them. The problem here is editors, and we know from reliable first-hand sources that the New York Times is an exceptionally top-down, narrative driven paper.

      Which brings me to my second point, the egregious examples are disproportionately coming from the NYT. I can't think of any reason why social media would have this much more of an impact on that paper than on the Washington Post or the LA Times.

      The explanation I keep coming back to is that the paper of record is probably more influenced by institutional culture than is any other comparable news organization, and that culture has been having trouble coping with changes in the Republican Party since the Gingrich era and was pretty much completely broken by the rise of Donald Trump.

      Mark

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)