I give you the first two paragraphs of the AP story vs the NYT story
Perfectly normal to be fascinated by eugenics, I guess.
It isn’t, and I don’t think the NYT article claims that it is.
They don’t mention eugenics at all, they just present his Hitler-like obsession with genes and genetics as if it’s just a normal little line of thought for Trump.
And later in that same Times story, it says:
His remarks on Monday in some ways echoed his repeated assertion last year that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase criticized by many for evoking the ideology of eugenics promulgated by Nazis in Germany and white supremacists in the United States.
If Hanlon’s Razor doesn’t already have this corollary it should:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by greed.
But conspiracies are SO appealing!
It doesn’t even mention the word (despite that being exactly what Trump describes, and that’s the most charitable way to describe it), that’s the problem.
Similarly they allude to his past statements on the matter they omit that one of those statements was “poisoning the blood of our country.” a blatantly Nazi statement not just “alleging that immigrants are changing the hereditary makeup of the U.S”
“later”? Putting such things later in a story well beyond the introductory section is a literal example of burying the lede.
Students are literally taught not to do that, and style guides suggest it is bad writing.
Pointing out that the NYTimes of all outlets is burying a lede is not exactly bolstering the point you seem to be making.
“How dare they say the thing I want them to say but not as early on in the article as I’d have liked” is a literal example of purity testing.
Um…no.
If they are going to point it out and know it may be controversial, you still put it up front. Or don’t bother putting it in the article at all.
It’s not a matter of purity or not but of good or bad writing style. Put the relevant point up front. Or don’t include it. I’m good either way. But burying it deep in the article is a poor way of trying to have it both ways - and they, as journalists, should know better.
Right, which is exactly why I posted the first two paragraphs of the AP and NYT articles - because the important stuff should be up front, because a large percentage of readers don’t do more than skim beyond that.
Is your argument that they have bad style, or that they are pro Trump?
I have no interest in whether you find their style up to snuff or not. The question is whether you think they are pro Trump.
If you declare them Pro Trump because they didn’t put that info as early on as you’d have liked, that’s a purity test.
Their “standards” are sanewashing a crazy person who is trying to become President.
I understand the argument to be that they are engaging in poor journalistic style because they are pro-Trump.
So you say, and then you give me examples that paint him as insane. So, I don’t buy that.
If that’s the argument, that’s a purity test. “You said the things I wanted you to say but not in the order I’d have said them, therefore you’re a Trump supporter” is an unhinged argument to make.
Though my only problem with that in this case is it would mean being both being greedy and incredibly goddamned stupid. A Trump presidency would be disastrous to everyone but also to the NYT. Boosting Trump to sell a few more subscriptions in 2024 at the expense of having to survive a Trump presidency is a spectacularly stupid thing to do. I don’t think the management of the NYT are particularly stupid, or fail to grasp the nuance of what they are doing (in fact they are far more cognizant of it than any of us)
I have no idea who is deciding if the NYT’s pro Trump policy or what their motivations are. But it is clearly just that a pro Trump editorial policy, no matter what their stated endorsement is.
Bad writing style.
I’ve stated much earlier in this thread I don’t think they’re explicitly pro-Trump but given the last couple days’ worth of posts, I can see why people would conclude it.
As the de facto paper of record for the country, I assume they know good writing style. Such frequent deviations from basic journalistic standards indicate an unreasonable drop in quality if they are actually free to write as they please. So I conclude there is least some editorial pressure to seem more even-handed to the extent they may overcorrect.
That doesn’t necessarily amount to being pro-Trump but it’s certainly nowhere close to actual neutrality in their reporting. I.e. it may well be a distinction without difference. Time will tell, hopefully for the better.
I think the NYT, and traditional media as a whole, suffers from the same issue our legal and political system are dealing with right now. These systems were all set up under the assumption that, disagree as we might, we are all, at the end of the day, operating in good faith. And so, these systems struggle with the reality that the party of “but what if we didn’t?” is not, in fact, operating in good faith.
That doesn’t make the NYT pro Trump. It might make the NYT, and institutions like it, obsolete dinosaurs. I think that depends on what happens post Trump. If the Republican party ceases to be reactionary, if people who are actually Conservative - who I may disagree with, but who are at least acting in good faith - rise to power again, then traditional media may still have its place. If not, it’s probably time for it to die off.
Respectfully, I think you are overlooking that the comment about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” dated back to last year and therefore was old news.
How did the Times report that comment last year? Here’s the lede:
Former President Donald J. Trump said undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” in a recent interview, language with echoes of white supremacy and the racial hatreds of Adolf Hitler.
I’m failing to see how that bolsters the point - and that’s from somebody who admits not being convinced they’re pro-Trump.
An article from last year does not affect the readership this year on the impending election or how they are perceived to be influencing it.