I do not believe they have this power. TV may. Not print. But for argument’s sake, let’s say they do have the powers ascribed.
From the start of heavy Trump - Biden polling, in March 2023, Biden was at least six points behind, in rolling polling averages, where he was four years before. He was thus losing. And that was before the repeated coverage AKA relentless attacks that, I concede for the sake of argument, crippled Biden’s campaign. Then the Times helped the Democrats to select a more viable (and, according to most pundits, more left wing) candidate who just possibly will win.
The real issue with the coverage should have to do with whether Biden actually has persistent cognitive decline, as opposed to just having a cold on a debate day. Eventually the medical data will be found by biographers, but I think there are indications of a real problem with the world’s most crucial military commander in chief. Whether I am correct truly awaits the judgment of history.
I cited their post before, congratulating Harris, and saying - in no uncertain terms- “we hope she does better at giving us interviews” or something like that. . I call that a threat.
Anti Biden “needs to drop out” “too old” articles would appear on the front page, while down back in Op/ed they might have an article about how bad trump is.
Yes, but Biden refused to give them special interview privileges, which the NYT thinks they should have. Read the whole thread.
The Times’ hate-on for Biden started before March 2023. The Times is coasting on a reputation it no longer deserves and is acting out because they aren’t being treated like it’s 1917.
And how do you interpret them reporting on Trump tweeting out at 1 AM that he’ll only debate Harris on a friendly network with his choice of moderator and “a full arena audience” as “Trump Agrees To Debate With Harris”?
Because I interpret it as a clear attempt to obfuscate the fact that he’s chickening out of a debate he already agreed to the terms of.
Here is the current headline: Trump Cancels a Debate With Harris on ABC News and Pitches One With Fox News Instead.
The summary sub-title is: Mr. Trump said in a social media post that the previously scheduled presidential debate to be hosted by ABC News was “terminated” once President Biden dropped out of the race.
You and I have a completely different comprehension of both the headlines and the article. Feel free to quote in context what doesn’t pass the purity test of reasonably objective reporting.
Maybe because I only read the on-line version, and perhaps I don’t read the breaking news headlines, I get something wonky?
IMHO, Kamala should go into the lion’s den and debate the Donald on Faux, as long as there a few ground rules like muting the mic when it’s one person’s turn, and there is a retort. The prosecutor should absolutely crush the senile old blowhard, and should be eager for any opportunity to do so. Even if it means a more unfavorable setting, which is still far better than letting Trump try to weasel out of ever debating Harris.
What I posted is the original headline before they rewrote it several times. See the screenshots upthread.
Moreover, the sentence “the previously scheduled presidential debate to be hosted by ABC News was “terminated” once President Biden dropped out of the race” is factually incorrect, as the terms of the ABC debate, which Trump agreed to, stated that the participants would be anyone who meet the criteria established by the Commission on Presidential Debates and does not mention Biden or any other candidate by name.
Putting out a wrong headline and fixing it in post, and just reporting “Candidate X said this” without clarifying that what they said is false, is not good reporting.
Sure it was poor reporting (well really more like poor headline writing) but that doesn’t a conspiracy make. I find it far more credible that the employee who wrote that is undertrained and overworked then there is some sort of firm wide directive to be pro-trump.
I don’t think the Times was ever really anti-Biden, but if you do then I think it is pretty clear their bias helped the Democrats, as the party is in way better shape then they had been at any point this election.
Yes, I would say pointing out that Biden was too old and needed to drop out was the LEAST pro-Trump thing they could possibly have done. It was the people insisting “Joe is fine, it’s all a media conspiracy!” who were playing into Trump’s hands.
That’s hindsight bias, though. It’s using information you only have now to argue about a decision made in the past. It would not make it okay to have an anti-Biden bias. While Biden was in the race, any such bias would inherently have helped Trump. And it still harms their credibility if such a bias was allowed to stand.
That said, we don’t all agree they had an anti-Biden bias. But I think we can all agree they had a bias towards Biden stepping down. They had a bias towards op-eds that focused on Biden and not on Trump’s issues. I have a problem with that.
The only reason why I tolerate them having op-eds that platform horrible positions is the idea that they are promoting freedom of speech an exposing people to ideas that they may not have heard. If it is instead a place for them to push their own agendas, then that make those posts look really bad.
And I just don’t think they should have been putting their thumbs on the scale. Sure, the press is supposed to hold the government to account, as a sort of fourth branch. But they do this by reporting on information the public didn’t have, not by putting forth positions.
I still am rather disappointed with the NYT on this issue. And that’s without getting into the whole issue I have with people saying Biden should step down but having no idea for a replacement or plan to actually win.
But this is what bugs me the most: The inaccurate summaries of what happened that vilify critical thinkers.
First off, you’re still conflating the issue. Biden’s age was never the problem. He did not step down because of his age. Anyone arguing that was still being ageist. He stepped down due to cognitive decline actually affecting his ability to do the job.
Second, no one was arguing that Biden was “ok” after he actually showed evidence he wasn’t. People were arguing he was okay when all the other side had were rumors, misleading edits, and their own vibes. Those are not a valid reason to make a decision.
What actually happened was that Republicans started harping on Biden’s age back in like 2022, and that morphed into implying he was senile, with misleading tactics to promote the idea. And, just like with things like “woke”, “PC,” “SJW”, this seeped into the general consciousness. They successfully shaped the narrative, that the Dems were “hiding” Biden’s decline and “refusing” to talk about it.
Standing up for rationality isn’t supporting Trump. And pushing that Biden should step down because of his age is not anti-Trump. People can wind up being right (that Biden needed to step down) but for the wrong reasons. (And this is very frustrating for those of us who want to promote rational thinking.)
If the NYT did promote Biden stepping down over age, then that is a problem. That would either make them ageist or anti-Biden. And that is still pro-Trump.
OK, fair point. Change “too old” to “showing clear signs of cognitive decline”.
But it certainly isn’t true that “no one was arguing that Biden was “ok” after he actually showed evidence he wasn’t”. There are many people on and off this board who, even after the debate debacle, insisted that “your eyes and ears are just lying to you, he looks fine!”
He’s certainly lost a step but looks sufficiently fine to do the actual job of President…because he clearly is. If he isn’t, there should be broader calls for him to step down now.
That’s separate from whether he was he up to the job of campaigning for re-election. Self-evidently not. Or at minimum, he concluded he couldn’t convince enough Americans of this.
Clearly the NYTimes was caught flat-footed by this. I’m still of the opinion that while they don’t necessarily have a definitive pro-Trump bias, they did have an anti-Biden bias. In theory there’s a middle ground between those but in practice, there really wasn’t.
And there are signs they are still flailing a bit due to discomfort with actually having to consider their own bias and how to properly editorialize and generate headlines. That could be due to staff cuts with concomitant quality issues or actual editorial bias, but the results are the same either way.
