Every time I write something negative about Donald Trump, and it happens every now and then, it must be admitted, I get word from his followers that I have now written for The New York Times again. Trumpers and conservative Americans see the legendary flagship as the ultimate symbol of the liberal East Coast elite, and many of them probably take it for granted that the newspaper cheers for Biden and trashes Trump.
But since most things in American politics have been turned upside down in recent years, it is a truth with significant modifications. On the contrary, there is bad blood between the Biden administration and The New York Times. Several of the newspaper’s reporters and commentators even feel boycotted by the White House. Recently, it went so far that the newspaper’s publisher sent out an official statement about Biden and his relationship with the press, where it was said, among other things, that Biden has set a “dangerous precedent” by avoiding interviews with the press, and that it is worrying that Biden “saw has actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his presidency”.
Biden quickly responded on charges during the annual press dinner, The White House Correspondence dinner, where he joked: “If that’s what it takes for The New York Times to call me both active and effective, then I’m all for it.”
The self-deprecation could not completely cover the fact that Biden believes that the newspaper’s coverage of him is unreasonably negative and, moreover, gives ammunition to the other party. He is not alone in thinking that. In recent months, liberal New Yorkers have canceled their subscriptions in droves following a social media boycott. Readers believe The New York Times has fallen into the Hillary trap again. In the 2016 election campaign, virtually no media wrote so much and so critically about Hillary Clinton’s unsecured e-mail server, a criticism that later turned out to be greatly exaggerated, but which undeniably contributed to her losing the election, not least thanks to FBI Director James Comey’s intervention. The Times itself has admitted that it was perhaps a little too obsessed with Hillary’s emails, but at the same time that it was a challenge to appear balanced with such an extreme candidate as Trump. Then it became tempting to blow up the “normal” candidate’s smallest mistakes to create a semblance of balance. Look, we’re critical of Hillary too!
Hello Fire
In this round of elections The Times has been obsessed with Biden’s age. Hardly a week goes by without a newspaper having a report or a comment about Biden being too old, and that some party member thinks he must resign. That is, in contrast to a candidate of the same age who is being prosecuted with 88 charges against him, including for defrauding the voters and trying to overturn an election. It smacks of “what about her emails?” again.
The newspaper’s coverage of Biden’s candidacy can undoubtedly appear to be pure campaigning against him, and it is perhaps not surprising that liberal media consumers are annoyed that their newspaper is not a little more enthusiastic when Trump has a frenzied cheerleader in the media on his side.
It is this asymmetry in the polarization as pain. While Trump and the right have an army of foot soldiers in the media who do not for a moment pretend to be balanced, and who have even had to pay dearly to front Trump’s lies, without that stopping them for a nanosecond from telling new lies, the democrats again with the maligned “mainstream media” who constantly throw themselves on their high horse and ride to all corners to appear balanced and objective. The Democrats are left with a critical press, which Trump and the right-wing give a lift to.
Or as Biden implored the reporters in the audience at the Correspondents’ Dinner: “Please, don’t cover this like any horse race. I am not asking you to take sides. I ask you to take it seriously.”
Hans predicts the weather with wishful thinking
The New York Times responded as all media respond when they are criticized; arrogant and pompous: The New York Times fights for democracy every day. But not for the Biden administration.
Of course. But if the newspaper were to think that the alternative is a danger to democracy, it is probably also the role of the free press to warn against it, not equate the two as if Biden tripping on a flight of stairs is in line with an attempted coup d’état.
The problem of The New York The Times is that it no longer has reason to be as arrogant and pompous as in its heyday. Yes, the newspaper still has the muscle to run one of the country’s sharpest and most award-winning newsrooms. Few newspapers have revealed so much about Trump’s illegalities, they certainly should have.
But Biden no longer needs them. The working-class boy, as he likes to see himself as, does not have to bow his neck to the liberal elite of New York. According to Politico, the straw that made the cup overflow for publisher AG Sulzberger must have been that Biden, after repeatedly refusing requests for an interview, sat down with the rabble-rouser Howard Stern on his popular radio talk show. There he also got sharp questions, but could be both personal, funny and a little cheeky. Clips from the Stern interview went viral and will live long in social media. A dry interview with The New York Times lasts a day and reaches far fewer people. A purely cynical assessment says that this is the right strategy.
In the past, presidents did both, but until Trump, after all, they felt obliged to appear at press conferences and in critical one-on-one interviews. Biden has set a clear record in recent times in terms of lack of press conferences and interviews, while Trump’s slightly better statistics are about covid and calls to Fox News. This year’s election campaign could be the first in the TV age without a televised debate between the candidates. Guess if politicians and media here at home and around the world also follow what is happening.
Joe Biden can’t praise democracy and a free and independent press enough, but at the same time has a media strategy as if he is an influencer and the voters are stupid. He says one thing and does another. I get that he envies the Trump cheerleaders on Fox & Friends, but those people are not friends. They are the enemies of democracy.
