Reddit user says this is a Times headline they got:
“music festival headlined by Kid Rock showed the MAGA movement in pure party mode, with a mix of hedonism and rebellion.”
The post just above yours shows how they are reacting to Trump’s decline - they are ignoring it.
…in two weeks
This post is for inviting @El_Famous_Burrito to post their NYT takes in this purpose-built thread. I’ll link to some recent posts from other threads that would fit well here.
@Ulfreida ? The water’s warm over here 
Lemme get my beach towel.
Consider:
Trump admits he gets confused and makes things up (2016)
The real story is that evidence of Biden’s cognitive decline is clearer because Joe started from a higher baseline. Trump is smart in understanding his base well. But he never read with care and critical intelligence long briefing papers. Does Biden still do that? It is now extremely difficult to judge objectively, and that means it is hard, maybe impossible, to fairly judge the Times on this. Five or ten years from now, when many of the current NY Times anonymous sources have written tell-all books, this will be easier to judge. If Kellyanne says how Trump read foreign policy books in 2016 and 2017, and then stopped, I’ll admit there should have been more stories on Trump’s decline as a public intellectual. Now? Criticizing the Times on this is playing the ump.
(sigh) Are we still doing this? Biden isn’t in “cognitive decline”. He never was. It was a false narrative when Trump came up with it in 2020, it was a false narrative when the Times started printing “Biden is OLD OLD OLD” stories every other day, and it’s still a false narrative now. There are literal mountains of evidence that his debate performance was a one-off caused by overworking and covid. Did the man who set the DNC stage on fire with his speech this week, or who got our hostages out of Russia earlier this month, sound like he didn’t know where he was or what he was talking about?
I’ve seen and posted articles by neurologists who say you can’t diagnose remotely. I’ve seen and posted articles by neurologists who see a problem. What I have not seen is mountains of articles, or even foothills of articles, by neurologists saying that he had a transient problem during the debate but was his old self in the subsequent press conference and Lester Holt interview. Instead, they grouped them together because Joe was just less bad in subsequent unscripted events.
Then there is the fact of anonymous White House sources telling Carl Bernstein that “there have been 15, 20, occasions in the last year and a half when the president has appeared somewhat as he did” in the debate. A bunch of liars? Not plausible, and that wasn’t the NY Times.
And then there is the heavy pressure put on Biden to resign. Why? The polls did not go into any Goldwater or McGovern type swoon from the debate. If Biden was the same guy who got a solid bounce from both 2020 debates, and if the presser, and Holt interview, showed a professional politician at the top of his game, Pelosi would not have been pushing Biden to drop out. She instead would have been pressing Joe to take up Trump’s offer of frequent debates.
The NY Times, like the WaPo, reports on what knowledgeable sources, named and unnamed, tell it. IMHO, when the tell-all books come out, Times bashers will be surprised to learn it was not just the debate. We’ll see if I am correct, and, then, one of us should resurrect this thread and post a Times-style correction.
I have decided that I might just give this fight up. If you people want to view Biden as in decline or whatever, no amount of arguing, evidence, logical explanations, will convince you. You’ve decided that no matter what Biden does, says, looks like etc. He’s a doddering old man, ready for the memory ward. 
I’ll just say in hindsight that Biden dropping out was the right thing. You can’t argue with success. But it does seem to me there are many people, in this thread and elsewhere, that seem a little quick to start shoveling dirt on his grave. He ain’t dead yet folks. And he has been instrumental in getting us to where we are right now.
Regarding the thread topic…
I just can’t take the NYT seriously anymore. I know it’s most likely a financial decision, they’re chasing clicks and ginning up drama in the race creates more interest which in turn creates more viewers and readers. Maybe they don’t actually want Trump to win at this point, but their actions don’t support that. Just my two cents.
We have seen many times that Sulzberger and the Holy NYT Editorial Board have had a bug up their ass because Biden wouldn’t sit down for a one on one interview. DJT hasn’t done it but not an issue.
Now they are starting in on Harris for not meeting with reporters or holding a press conference in a way they are dictating. Does this make them pro-Trump or not, I don’t really know. But they are VERY definitely arrogant and see their place on the landscape as really ridiculously at the top of the hierarchy. Sulzberger and his ilk can fuck off for all I care.
There is no such story, Biden had a complete check up just for that earlier this year. You dont “decline” that fast. Biden was tired.
Yep.
True, especially as he had a clean bill of health this year.
Very plausible. Note Anonymous" ie could be made up, and" Bernstein is just about as old as Biden and he shows signs of decline.
Because he wouldnt give the NYT a special interview just for them- and he was trailing in the polls a bit- mostly because of lies that he was in cognitive decline.
No, it no longer is reliable. It depends exclusive interviews or you will get hit pieces. It already threatened Harris- and already did a hit piece on her when she wouldnt knuckle down “Why wont she give us an interview? is she hiding something?”- when of course trump has never given an interview this cycle.
She didnt. She told him to do what he thought best.
Exactly. Kiss the ring or get hit pieces.
with all due respect, then only cite to the ascertation that NY Times publisher Sulzberger has a blood fued with President Biden is one Politico piece cited earlier. Or at least that is all I can find on a quick internet search, which is the Politico speculation piece or citing the Politico speculation piece. Pretty weak sauce that get’s repeated ad nauseum as if it came down as the 11th commandment.
As a long term daily NY Times on-line reader, I just don’t see it. And, with all due respect, the big proponents in this thread have yet to share convincing cites otherwise. I like Biden, but his debate performance was beyond anything explainable such as jet lag, cold meds, etc. The NY Times, which generally does make an effort to meet impartial journalistic standards, calls out there is something abnormal going on with Biden, which we all say.
Share some real cites on the Sulzberger “feud” otherwise it is a gaslighting attempt and/or criticism that the NY Times is avoiding being a partisan hack in favor of Biden
(my emphasis)
I’m one to reflexively distrust new Internet media … but Politico is an exception. Their journalistic methods and standards are in line with long-established print outlets.
I offer that referring to Politico’s April 25th article as a “speculation piece” is unfair. I don’t know whether or not it is the interviews with anonymous sources that offends most, or something else. From the article:
According to interviews with two dozen people on both sides who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject, the relationship between the Democratic president and the country’s newspaper of record … remains remarkably tense, beset by misunderstandings, grudges and a general lack of trust.
However, there are several other sources, both with Biden’s press team and with the NYT, that did go on the record for Politico. The mix of anonymous and named sources is no different from the way sources are routinely used and cited by the NYT itself, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and so on.
If the issue is that another new outlet did not deeply investigate the matter in parallel with Politico and publish similar findings, I would say that’s not a reasonable thing to hold against Politco’s reporting.
For what it’s worth, Sulzberger tipped his hand a bit in a February interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. It’s kind of a Rorschach test of a statement:
Sulzberger: We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden. He is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it.
We are not saying that this is the same as Trump’s five court cases or that they are even. They are different. But they are both true, and the public needs to know both those things. And if you are hyping up one side or downplaying the other, no side has a reason to trust you in the long run.
Perhaps it is fair to evaluate Sulzberger’s comments in the context of an October 2023 Media Matters study regarding major national newpaper coverage of Biden’s age (source emphasis):
Media Matters data shows The New York Times has emphasized Biden’s age more than similar papers
- A Media Matters study showed The New York Times mentioned Biden’s age the most out of any of the top five U.S. newspapers by circulation, in 98 of its articles over a five-month span.** [Media Matters, 10/20/23]
- The Times was also one of the worst of the top five papers in terms of giving Trump and Biden’s age equal coverage.** The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were least likely to also mention Trump’s age in pieces that mention Biden’s, with 28% and 29%, respectively. [Media Matters, 10/20/23]
And another in March 2024, a few weeks after Sulzberger’s interview with Reuters:
Media Matters also found that the Times ran 30 reports on Biden’s mental fitness after special counsel Robert Hur said he showed a “poor memory”
- Following the initial Hur report, The New York Times ran 30 reports on Biden’s mental fitness in four days.** After the initial frenzy of reporting, the Times noted that the transcript of Hur’s interview of Biden “shows that on several occasions the president fumbled with dates and the sequence of events, while otherwise appearing clearheaded.” [Media Matters, 3/12/24]
…
Having said all that: while Sulzberger’s animus against Biden is commonly invoked on this board, it’s not really a sine non qua to the specific idea presented in the OP’s title – “pro-Trump”. The reasons for the lean (or perhaps better - blind spots) in the NYT’s reporting of Trump are a lot less important than the effect of such reporting: specifically, the normalizing and numbing of Trump’s words and actions over the past nine years. This normalization, in turn, promotes the idea that Trump’s candidacy is just another campaign largely like any other, to be properly and rightly covered with the exact same journalistic ethic and method as applied to previous presidential campaigns. The apparent peril of a second Trump presidency is not taken into account – indeed, it is essentially ignored as something unworthy of journalistic concern.
An occasional Trump-critical op-ed otherwise provides only a fig leaf of a counterargument.
Now, this is an opinion piece that Press Watch’s Dan Froomkin wrote in response to Sulzberger’s delivery of the Reuters Memorial Lecture on March 4th. Unfortunately, it is a long piece that is difficult to summarize succinctly. However, these snippets gives enough of the gist – quoting Froomkin:
It’s an increasingly common critique of the New York Times: The largest, most influential news organization in the nation is not warning sufficiently of the threat to democracy — while at the same time bashing President Joe Biden at every opportunity.
And it’s been a bit of a mystery. Why would a newsroom full of talented and mostly liberal reporters be engaging in such damaging behavior?
Well, mystery solved.
It’s because that’s what the publisher wants.
… [Sulzberger’s] ostensible goal was to defend the [New York Times] against its critics. But the two biggest takeaways, in my view, were as follows:
One: Sounding the alarm, it turns out, is anathema to Sulzberger’s notion of independent journalism. …
And two: According to Sulzberger, independent journalism requires being “willing to take a simple, easy, or comfortable story and complicate it with truths that people don’t want to hear.” …
What does that mean — practically speaking — to the editors and reporters who work for him? In my view, the message is clear:
One: You will earn my displeasure if you warn people too forcefully about the possible end to democracy at the hands of a deranged insurrectionist.
And two: You prove your value to me by trolling our liberal readers.
You can. My mother did. I suspect that Biden did, too.
But it doesn’t even matter.
Despite a decline in energy and probably in intellect, I believe Biden is still a very canny politician who is capable of being an effective president. But i don’t think he had any chance of winning the election. There are at least three times i can remember when i watched a political debate and thought, “he looks old and weak, i think he just lost”. I was right the first two times. I never felt that so strongly as watching Biden. Appearance is everything for elections. This was not a NYT vendetta. I don’t subscribe, and my reaction was immediate, after watching with a very pro-Biden group.
I do wonder if the NYT is going too soft on Trump, which is a separate question. I was recently gifted a free subscription, so i have been reading their news alerts for the past couple of weeks. I’m afraid i haven’t been keeping track of which news alerts came from which paper. (I get similar alerts from WaPo and WSJ, and ones that look a little different from some other news sources.) Maybe I’ll try to keep track for a few more weeks. I do feel like “Trump said something bizarre and stupid” is less newsworthy than “Biden had a piss-poor debate performance”. But I’ll try to compare the tenor of reports from different sources.
I’ll add that i used to subscribe to the NYT, and dropped the subscription because i got pissed at them for bad reporting. I feel their reporting is more biased and less factual than WaPo, WSJ, Reuters, AP News, or NPR. I was specifically annoyed by their science and health coverage, and read less of their other stuff. But I’m not super surprised if their political reporting is bad.