Cancelling my subscription last week just looks smarter and smarter. Today’s “good lord what the hell are they thinking” moment is provided by public editor Liz Spayd:
Suppose that Donald Trump stops insisting President Obama was born outside the United States, and then saddles Hillary Clinton with starting the rumor in the first place. Is that stretching the truth? An unfounded assertion? An error? A falsehood?
Or is it a flat-out lie?
The New York Times voted for “lie” in writing last Friday about Trump’s decision to abandon the birther movement, using the word in two stories and a front-page headline: “Trump Gives Up a Lie but Refuses to Repent.”
It’s not all that often that The Times newsroom throws around the word “lie,” but Trump seems to bring it out in the place. Another story that ran in recent days used the term to describe Trump’s deception on his plans for a $1 trillion small-business tax cut.
How about calling something a lie WHEN IT IS A FUCKING LIE? But wait, it gets better:
I asked the political editor Carolyn Ryan about when that word gets clearance for use. Her definition of a lie is when there’s a deliberate attempt to deceive — when someone knowingly fails to tell the truth.
“A lie is different from the spin, exaggerations and squabbling between candidates that are commonplace in politics,” she said. “It is not a word we will use lightly.”
These are the factors that Ryan said would determine the conditions under which the word is used:
■ It is not used for matters of opinion, but only when the facts are demonstrably clear.
■ Intentionality is important — in the case of Trump and birtherism, he repeated the lie for years, in the face of overwhelming facts that disproved it, suggesting this was a deliberate attempt by Trump to deceive.
■ It is not used to police more frivolous disputes among political candidates or political factions.
“Lie” is a loaded word, all right, a favorite of campaign operatives. You score every time you can get the media to catch your opponent in one, and it’s into the bonus round if you can get them to actually call it a “lie.”
Oh, jesus fucking christ. According to the NYT’s alchemical handbook, a lie is no longer a lie when it is a minor or frivolous lie. These people have completely lost the plot and the NY Times is a rudderless organization at this point. Right now there are thousands of journalism professors hoping their students who work at the NY Times don’t have their school name published in their bio.
If a house was on fire, and the NY Times was the fire department, the news team would come up and describe in glorious detail the size and color of the flames, the smell of the smoke, the extent of the damage, all the while missing Donald Trump sitting on a pile of empty kerosene containers juggling road flares. The analysis squad would then swoop in and point out that this is going to make living there hard, that other house have been on fire before and were rebuilt, and that really, both sides have had house fires and right now the polling data says it is 50/50 as to whether the fire should be put out.
Ross Douthat would write that the fire was God’s will, Brooks would note that sometimes true conservatism means just letting things burn and that out of this may arise a Burkean renewal of spirit, political arsonist Maureen Dowd would run to the back yard and set the shed on fire before putting on her Pradas and calling in to flirt with Don Imus, and Paul Krugman would single-handedly save all the occupants of the household and then pass out from exhaustion as the only person manning a firehose.
A couple days later, Liz Spayd would show up to wank about the true nature of a fire hydrant, when it is and is not appropriate to use one, describe the platonic ideal of firefighting, and then piss on the ashes. A month later Dean Baquet would show up reeking of absinthe and crab boil, mumble something about needing to do a better job next time, and then fuck off out of sight for a month until the next time the New York Times shits the bed.
The whole organization is fucking hopelessly lost right now.
JMG
Magnificent rant! Bravo!
Phoenix Woman
Thank you.
Albatrossity
Epic! Thank you for that, and please carry on!
Doug!
So good.
Amir Khalid
Quoth Spayd:
No, The New York Times should call every lie it is aware of a lie. Simple as that.
Josie
Excellent! This needs to be shared far and wide.
Gin & Tonic
Pissed-off Cole is the best Cole.
scav
Just what are the so-called duties of the Public Editor? No doubt she sees herself as “Spinning” instead of “Lying”, as whatever gets published in her rag is trivial and incosequential — besides, she utterly doesn’t believe it (carefully believing in nothing whatsoever) so that she can pass the “intentionality” test. Isn’t everything the NYP publishes a joke, therefore no harm, no foul and can’t you public / people get a sense of humor?
Mathguy
A freaking brilliant rant. Sharing this one all over.
SarahT
@JohnCole Your post re, cutting the NYTimes cord inspired me to (finally) cancel. Had a suprisingly thoughtful & interesting conversation w/the representative & was able to work in both “false equivalence” AND “journalistic malpractice” ! The Times rep was actually quite sympathetic: She brought up Paul Krugman’s posts on how the media are failing us before I had a chance to do so ! Got the distinct feeling she’d dealt with plenty of similar cancelations before mine, John Cole-inspired or not.
chopper
obviously, given that trump’s been coughing up all this birtherism bullshit for like 8 years. but no, you guys really deserve a pat on the fuckin’ back.
Robin G.
This is magnificent.
Cacti
The highest rated reader comment:
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Spayd is just one of many reasons why ‘Murkins of all stripes have no trust in establishment media like the NYT. She’ll most likely go to her grave never understanding why.
chopper
why? by ignoring so many other lies you just normalize it.
Spider-Dan
A couple of weeks ago, this same editor penned an article about “False Balance” in which she directly reprimanded liberals for submitting their partisan priorities as an editorial wishlist (direct quote: “I can’t help wondering about the ideological motives of those crying false balance, given that they are using the argument mostly in support of liberal causes and candidates.”) I did a quick search to see if she had ever deigned to address conservatives’ endless whining about “liberal media bias,” and it turns out that in she had, in July of this year… a sappy lovefest assuring those on the right that the Times takes its responsibility to be a neutral arbiter Very Seriously.
This editor is the clown princess of Forced Media Neutrality. After all, you can’t call David Duke a racist in one column unless you complain about the dirty hippies in the next.
Captain C
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Counting her money all the way.
bluehill
Unfortunately, this contributes to the normalization of Trump and makes it easier to say more and more outrageous things because now we can rationalize it as “frivolous dispute.” This is the slippery slope. Once people accept that some ethic groups are “bad” or “other” it’s easier to objectify them as something other than human. Skittles today but something worse tomorrow.
For the people in the undecided camp that don’t have time to look into each allegation, I think that there’s a cumulative negative effective on Hillary so the Conway/Bannon strategy is working IMO. In addition, the press doesn’t highlight the many issues with trump’s so-called policies. They are impractical, dangerous, won’t be fulfilled, etc, but they are simplistic and easy to digest and they chip away at areas that are the dem strengths. They make it easy to view both candidates as having similar positions and thus they resort to who they like better.
RaflW
Semi-OT, but since this is posted in the ‘failed media experiment’ category, BJers on Twitter, please go vote: https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/778274316286889986
Yes only ahead 57/43, with 23 hours to go…
RaflW
FMR, my comment is in purgatory!
FYWP!!!!
chopper
i think trump is the epitome of costanza’s rule – “it’s not a lie if you believe it”.
Poopyman
So does this mean you’re not ready to resubscribe yet?
scav
Also, it’s exactly not that they’re rudderless in regards to the value of the truth, it’s that they have a policy, a defended, reiterated policy, of not naming untruths aka lies because it might hurt some potential readers feelings. That’s not lacking rudder, that is a rudder aiming for something.
singfoom
I wish we could get a column from Spayd about when to use the terms “dark clouds” and “storms”. Can we get some bullshit column on the clarification for that.
I second John’s rant above. The column she could have written reads thusly:
daves09
Righteous.
Roger Moore
But maybe if they were less willing to cover for the liars, there would be fewer of them infesting our political system.
RaflW
Whew! I’d need a cigarette if I were still into such awful things (and I particularly avoid them now that big tobacco will be bankrolling the crying orange barman/ex House sociopath-wrangler).
Keith P.
Remember when they had the “torture” vs. “enhanced interrogation” debate? Good times…
Betty Cracker
Bravo and huzzah!
Enhanced Voting Techinques
There’s point of views on things, sure politicians spin things, but come on, Trump’s an outright bullshitter. I mean it’s only a matter time before Trump claims he is a black lesbian who wrote Dr King’s “I have a dream” speech and Obama is the real racists because Obama is half white and knows nothing of Trump’s people’s struggles.
Haydnseek
@Keith P.: Trying to remember who it was that said if torture can be described as “enhanced interrogation,” then death can be described as “enhanced sleep.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
It’s on a quota system.
Kay
Donald Trump’s incessant lying is distracting from the fact that Chris Christie is also a giant liar.
How many times did he say publicly he didn’t know about the bridge closure? He’s seriously fucked up in the head because it’s not just 500 times repeating the lie publicly, he paid private lawyers with public money to produce that bullshit report! He gleefully rubbed their noses in it.
He was a US attorney! Hugely powerful position. Everything he did in that job should be immediately reviewed by a non-psychopath. It’s urgent. He’s nuts.
Peter VE
I wish I could write as well as Cole, especially when he’s pissed off.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Spider-Dan: One wonders if this editor has children and is she the kind of parent who punishes the both of them when one is bad, because she hates confrontations and collective punishment is easier. She must be a blast to work for too.
ET
I don’t think that she understands the NYT and a lot of other press establishment may have those “rules” or conditions in place but they still don’t and won’t call something a lie even if that something meets any one or more of those rules/conditions. She doesn’t understand that most politicians like but most don’t lie quite like the Donald and that maybe those rules/conditions are leaving the press completely outwitted by someone so brazen.
J R in WV
Good job John.
I especially agree with the comment above, If it isn’t true, it’s a lie! is all the column Spayd needed to write:
All the other fabulous comments!
ETA spelings.
piratedan
the link doesn’t include the comments on the article but as has been mentioned here before, it’s hard to get someone to notice something when they’re getting paid not to. It’s incredibly awesome that the NYT is able to be the arbiter of the parsing of the language, context and politics. It’s your one stop shopping for all things noblesse oblige
the Conster, la Citoyenne
This is the Balloon Juice post of the year. Bookmarked to savor in the future, because it’s so ridiculously true.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV:
I would make an exception to that for people who are simply wrong. That is, they say something that is untrue but are willing reverse course when made aware of their error.
low-tech cyclist
Anybody at the NYT digging into the Trump Foundation records yet? As Kevin Drum points out:
And there’s still plenty of stories to go around. Would be interesting to compare the accomplishments of the two foundations.
bemused
Reading the first Spayd excerpt above, I thought why does this sound familiar, very familiar. Then I remembered hearing these type of arguments on occasion from our kids, from about age 4 into the teens, trying to convince their parents of something they knew we would see through but they just had to try.
Emerald
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: She’ll go to her grave feeling vastly superior to all us silly, unsophisticated rubes who still want outmoded things like truth and accuracy in the media.
Felonius Monk
Can we quote you verbatim in our Letter to the Editor of the NYTimes?
ETA: Which we know they would not deign to publish.
Pogonip
Her article is rudderly ridiculous!
Pogonip
@RaflW: well, that upgrade/improvement didn’t last long.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I think Hillz is finally putting her oppo research to work. First the WaPo on his foundation, and now the Huffpo on pay to play tax breaks. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-donations-alan-hevesi_us_57da25b8e4b0071a6e05666b?section=§ion=us_politics
donnah
Awesome sauce, Mr Cole!
dexwood
Spayd is quite the contortionist. She must play one hell of a game of Twister.
eemom
May have been mentioned here already, but “liberal” hipster twat Taibbi had a post up a few days ago (to which I will not link) seconding Spayed’s sneer piece on false equivalence. Seems it’s REALLY the fault of the unwashed hordes, for DEMANDING that the JournoGods shower them with bullshit. Fuck that smug, entitled prick.
prob50
@Enhanced Voting Techinques:
He wrote it while he was marching to Selma with Dr. King.
Brachiator
The Times doesn’t know how to print the plain truth. Some of their readers don’t want to read the plain truth.
That’s a hell of a dilemma for a gutless newspaper.
Trump could be in the Liar Olympics. He lied, doubled down on the lie, compounded the lie and then did a backflip smear.
But that’s what he does. He tells whatever lie that appears to make himself look good. That he was somehow “ending” the birther conspiracy that he himself fed for 5 plus years is a delusional lie of massive proportions. It should have permanently made him a figure of mockery.
As for the Times public editor, I haven’t seen so much bullshit shoveled since the NPR ombudsman pushed a load around over whether torture was “torture.”
hovercraft
@Kay:
Seth Myers made a point to skewer Christie in this clip about the birther lie.
Timurid
It’s not turtles. It’s white supremacists. All the way down.
piratedan
wonders if anyone has spotted Speyd and Brooks having a lunch together at Applebee’s, asking for a friend….
geg6
Fucking tell it, Cole. This woman should have an express pass to the first tumbrel ride. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hate these people.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
There is no other profession in this country like the press. They study “journalism” which means they don’t actually know anything about anything. Who reports on them, themselves? See above. It is a profession without any accountability, there are no ethics boards as there are for the medical or legal profession.
They think they are all Bob Woodward, and they are out to bring someone down to save us. Bob Woodward was just another fucking stenographer, he was just taking dictation from the FBI.
They will never save us, we have to do that ourselves.
Roger Moore
Because nobody else has mentioned it yet, kudos on the “Clueless” reference with the picture.
artem1s
@Cacti: also a reader comment. jeebus wept
sukabi
John, I hope you sent this in as a letter to the editor…of the NYT and also to the Wapo for why you’re switching papers…
Be a kick in the pants if it got published.
Turgidson
Awesome. The only thing missing is Tom Friedman passing by in a cab, deep in conversation with the cabbie about the deeper implications of the rising tide of nationalism in Europe.
JMG
@artem1s: A failed attempt at sarcasm, I think.
Villago Delenda Est
Liz Spayd is one of the people Orwell was warning us about.
Righteous rant, John.
Punchy
If you think accusations of lying (or, for that matter, p#dophilia, beastiality, tax avoidance, pederasty, 1st or 2nd degree murder, felony theft, DUI, or domestic violence) are going to sway Trump supporters, I’ve got glaciers in Alaska to sell you.
There is literally nothing he could be proven to have committed and lose more than perhaps 0.5% of his supporters.
Walker
The decision to not call something a lie if it is minor or frivolous is an editorial decision. It is biased and demonstrates a partisan leaning.
SenyorDave
@Turgidson: Awesome. The only thing missing is Tom Friedman passing by in a cab, deep in conversation with the cabbie about the deeper implications of the rising tide of nationalism in Europe.
In defense of Friedman (o at least partial defense), he wrote this recently in an op-ed in the Times:
People are playing with fire here, and there is no bigger flamethrower than Donald Trump. Forget politics; he is a disgusting human being. His children should be ashamed of him. I only pray that he is not simply defeated, but that he loses all 50 states so that the message goes out across the land — unambiguously, loud and clear: The likes of you should never come this way again.
gwangung
@Punchy:
So? It’s not the here and now that this is for…it’s continued pounding the refs and tying this to Republican behavior that this is for.
25 years of Republicans doing this has ungodly numbers of leftists and progressives believing Republican lies.Wonder what we can do with the truth.
Turgidson
@Punchy:
It’s more about the possibility of swaying undecideds and 3rd-party-curious voters than it is trying to peel off any committed Trump voters. Even with Trump’s “comeback” he’s still in the low 40s generally. Sustained scrutiny of his lies and corruption might help keep him there.
gogol's wife
@Turgidson:
Friedman’s actually been pretty good through all this. So has Kristof, and Egan’s been fantastic.
Walker
@Punchy:
We are not talking about his core supporters. We are talking about all of the other Republicans who are being convinced to come home to Trump because the media claims he is not that bad.
RaflW
FWIW, as a reader and Sunday subscriber (grants two full access digital reader licenses too), I’ve commented on each of the last two Spayd columns, actively tweet on her issues, and just now wrote a brief but in no ways mincing letter to [email protected].
I get the frustration with the paper and the urge to unsubscribe. But draining the coffers of one of the few major dailies that still has a real newsroom and newsgathering operation over Liz and her bullshit is just what conservatives want.
We will not have a more truthful America because we helped defund traditional journalism. Write in, call in, tweet, cajole, push the Times to do better. Or if you must go, please spend the equivalent $$ subscribing to other journalistic outlets. Thx.
Lurking Canadian
Righteous rant. I think this:
Was my favourite part.
Paul in KY
@low-tech cyclist: Some right wing nutwads I talk to occasionally chalk it up to Mrs. Clinton being in positions where being truthful & trustworthy is more desired than it is being a New York real estate jerkwad.
They basically give him a pass on that, due to him having to be a scumwad in his chosen profession.
The rationalizing is epic to behold…
Lizzy L
A truly magnificent rant, John. Thank you.
Punchy
Left out: but we look forward to it coming again in 2020, where we will again enjoy all the click-bait.
hovercraft
So maybe the “collapse” panic is ebbing. And Li’i Marco can still be beaten?
EDIT: This afternoon from Monmouth.
cokane
A surprisingly intelligent take for a Steelers’ fan
;p
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
Sure, but he needs more than his core supporters to win the election, at least if the Democrats turn out at all. We need to work hard on every Republican and unaffiliated voter who usually votes Republican who has some second thoughts about Trump. Lets give them some third and fourth thoughts, too. Maybe we can’t convince them to go for Hillary, but every one who votes third party, doesn’t vote for president, or (even better) decides to stay home helps Hillary.
amk
@Punchy:
Just accusations? Really?
Who gives a shit about his racist base? This is more for the clueless trump curious.
Turgidson
@gogol’s wife:
That’s good to hear, but I retract nothing. Friedman had his role to play in bringing us to this point and he’s still a fucking empty-headed clown who should have hit the unemployment line long ago.
DemJayhawks
That’s gold Jerry! Gold!
Turgidson
@Lurking Canadian:
And then Spayd would implicitly criticize Krugman for being too strident.
Matt McIrvin
@eemom: For me this is really the moment of reckoning for the both-sides-are-equally-evil faction of the progressive left. If they really can’t pull their heads out of their asses when the White House is in danger of falling under the control of a fascist clown, they’re either useless or actively malignant, and I begin to wonder if their complaints about everyone being equally in the pocket of Wall Street aren’t actually based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Roger Moore
@RaflW:
It’s not just about her and her bullshit. It’s about The Times’s general unwillingness to call Trump on his bullshit and simultaneous willingness to dig deeply into everything Clinton has ever done and make up “clouds” and “shadows” when that turns up nothing. The supposedly wonderful Times newsroom has been dreadful this whole campaign, to the point that it frankly isn’t worth saving.
The Thin Black Duke
@Roger Moore: Amen.
Villago Delenda Est
Note to Alain: The format changes upon refresh are still happening (Firefox/Win 10). Also, I attempted to post a comment, and I got the site not found message instantly, which wiped out my comment.
Brachiator
@Turgidson:
Yep.
bluehill
@gwangung: Exactly. No one allegation sticks, but the cumulative effect is that Hillary is a liar and untrustworthy. It’s working, which is depressingly amazing considering that Trump seems to be viewed as more truthful than her.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: Looking at the unrepentant Berniebros (mostly Paulista scum to begin with) and anyone even thinking of voting for Jill Stein.
sukabi
@gogol’s wife: well sure they have, they’re at least smart enough to see that drumpf is a threat to THEIR livelihoods and standing in their communities. If he wasn’t going full on facist and actually had even a tiny grasp of and a willingness to learn what being POTUS is.about they’d probably be in his basket as well.
randy khan
Stuff like this makes me think that the whole “public editor”/”ombudsperson” thing at major newspapers is a waste of time. (This is not the first occasion on which this thought has occurred to me.) I sometimes think that if the Washington Post had had a public editor in the days of Janet Cooke, the public editor would have issued a column saying that all was well because the paper repudiated the story once it was apparent it was all made up.
Here’s my better idea for how to put some teeth in the public editor role: The public editor is picked (and paid) by a competitor newspaper, and the newspaper agrees to publish whatever the public editor wants to say once a week, no further back than page 3.
Steeplejack
@RaflW:
Wah. It requires that you sign up for Twitter to vote.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Roger Moore: Wish I could up vote this !
Steeplejack
@RaflW:
Naked fucking hyperlink. Supposed to be fixed soon, but in the meantime—dress that link up!
bobbo
@Keith P.:
And they sagely concluded that they had to say “enhanced interrogation” because that was what the Bush Administration was calling it.
JGabriel
Liz Spayd, NYT (via John Cole @ Top):
And yet it took the Times five fucking years to call out Trump’s birtherism lie as a lie, when it was obvious from day one that it was a lie.
jl
What a bunch of useless, precious sophisticated nincompated fools and tools we find at the NYT.
I’m not sure they have to use the word ‘lie’, but they do have to gain the courage to escape the wriggle room. Like, they could say ‘absolutely not true, no doubt about it’. But they don’t even have the courage to do that.
The word ‘lie’ might be reserved for Trump’s lies about opposing the 2003 Iraq invasion, intervention in Libya or current strategy in Syria. There are multiple recorded instances of Trump himself supporting at the time what he now claims he opposed out of some eerie perfect second sight about future events. But the evidence against him is recordings of his own words coming out of his own mouth. What is the alternative to ‘lie’? Maybe ‘insane’ is the only believable alternative.
But almost no reporting on that. Why is that not worth coverage than all the HRC email BS? The worthless NYT wandered around digging up evidence that Trump is a cad with women, which we all damn well knew already.
I’m thinking of writing them an ‘FU, I will never subscribe to your miserable rag, sorry I don’t have the pleasure of cancelling’ letter.
James E Powell
You mean that you doubt that a major media organization would hire & publish a person who exposed their errors, biases, and cluelessness?
BruceFromOhio
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
jonas
Here’s what’s really going on and what Spayd’s not saying: the problem with just tallying up the facts and then being honest with readers when one of the candidates is simply lying is that a large chunk of this country, and the NYT’s readership, don’t even know what facts and reality *are* anymore. If you declare that a certain statement or explanation has no relationship to what we know to be real world facts, a bunch of morons are going to jump down their throats about how they have no right to claim the sky is blue or that water is wet because those are just more liberal lies.
It’s a little more than ironic that the pundits and politicians who chortled and whined most about the “postmodern turn” in the humanities, social sciences, and arts in the 80’s and 90’s were the ones who finally came around in the end to embracing it in politics. There is no “real world” or verifiable facts anymore, only what you “feel” to be true. It’s not the connection between a speaker and his or her words that matters, but simply the jouissance of various interpretations that audiences bring to them that matters. It’s why a snowball on the Senate floor is proof there’s no global warming. It’s why if there are still monkeys, then evolution can’t be true. It’s why you can claim there’s no proof someone was born where they said they were even if they’re holding a birth certificate stating they were. It’s why a fascist lunatic who has left dozens of actual failed and fraudulent businesses in his wake, but pretended to be a successful businessman on TV, has convinced millions that he deserves to be president.
We’re in a post-reality campaign. We may shortly get to see what a post-democratic America looks like.
wormtown
Of all the comments to this article, only one is a NYTimes Pick:
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
And only apparently after there was a mass uprising among the readers and subscribers.
Just One More Canuck
@Paul in KY: They’ve got it backwards – he’s not a scumwad because he’s a New York real estate jerkwad, he’s a New York real estate jerkwad because he’s a scumwad
Captain C
@Turgidson: No doubt while roasting marshmallows over the embers.
PaulWartenberg2016
I had to search down this one thing I remembered from my Journalism college studies:
Objective vs. Subjective reporting.
Our modern media is incapable of being objective about the news anymore. They can’t afford to maintain any standards or ethics if they need ad revenues to survive.
RSR
>>the true nature of a fire hydrant, when it is and is not appropriate to use one
haha, we had this debate in Philadelphia this summer, but it involved swimming in water-filled dumpsters
Mary G
@RaflW: I am a long-time news junkie. My subscription to the LA Times started in 1975 and I keep it in spite of its dwindling quality, because it’s my paper. Being a NYT subscriber was literally on my bucket list and I was thrilled when the price of a digital subscription was cut in half and signed up. I also have a Wapo digital subscription that I got last year on sale at Amazon for $19.95 for a year. When that ran out I paid the $99 to renew. The quality was much better in most departments than I had expected. Plus Fahrenthold.
But I cancelled the NYT last time John asked and I’m not sorry. I know who I married. (That part was for Mnem et al.)
It’s not just the political coverage, either. The reporters seem incurious and dependent on quotes they get from access rather than investigation of facts, which is of necessity resulting in strong reluctance to criticize in order to avoid losing the access.
scav
@wormtown: Amazing, isn’t it. Brazen on the part of the NYT. (The commenter may be snarking, but there’s no other way to interpret the NYT decision.)
Citizen_X
So there! Do you people actually doubt the mind-reading skills of the the New York Times?
Next, you’re going to tell me someone is racist, when you [black-velvet-painting puppy dog eyes] don’t know what is in their heart.
Aleta
The job description of public editor seems to be “tiptoe.” I got as far as this:
“That said, I think The Times should use this term rarely. … its mere appearance on news pages, however factually accurate, feels partisan. It feels, as Ryan said, as if you’re playing the referee in frivolous political disputes.”
and then I quit the site. I came here instead, only to run into it. So I went back and read what followed, which turned out to be just one para:
“Trump’s birther moment was no frivolous dispute among sparring candidates. It was part of a five-year campaign tinged with racial overtones and dark motives. On a day when the Republican candidate backs off that claim, with a smile and a wink, I say it’s time to call a lie a lie.”
Back and forth, back and forth. She lays out criteria for use of “lie” according to the politics editor. Then immediately contradicts that with subjective values. ‘I think it should be rare’; ‘it feels partisan’; ‘it feels like you’re playing referee.’
She doesn’t have the power to change the slant or words of the NYT articles, only the choice whether to heavily condescend (previous article) or, in line with some editorial decision, appease by acknowledging a couple of truths. Or she could quit, but being she is from a business background (mentality) I doubt she leans that way.
To me this piece particularly reveals how meticulous her higher ups are in controlling her column; how it is being used as a typical PR organ. Not the biggest surprise, but still so disillusioning to see it here.
James E Powell
@jonas:
This is the kind of claim one hears during sophomore year or sometimes at coffee shops where people talk loud.
It’s also a luxury one can indulge in without worry when one is wealthy enough to be free of the real, verifiable world of “do we have the rent money?”
debit
The closing four paragraphs are frame worthy. Rant on, John!
Lee
I got goosebumps reading this rant!!
geg6
@RaflW:
We tried your way back in the Judy Miller days. How’d that work out?
Fuck that. The only way they will do the right thing is if they see it hit the bottom line and those unsubscribing tell them exactly why they are doing it. I’m done begging and pleading and pretty pleasing the assholes who have shamed the great Gray Lady I grew up with. It’s time they learned that there is a price to pay. The NYT is not the only great newspaper in America (and the relevance of that title is questionable this election season). This is unforgivable bullshit and they deserve to take a hit.
James E Powell
@Mary G:
These practices started out, oddly enough, shortly after Vietnam & Watergate reporting both of which were widely viewed as triumphs of investigative journalism.
James E Powell
@Aleta:
Back and forth, back and forth. She lays out criteria for use of “lie” according to the politics editor. Then immediately contradicts that with subjective values. ‘I think it should be rare’; ‘it feels partisan’; ‘it feels like you’re playing referee.’
What’s worse is that if any reporter wants to go with a story in which Trump lied, and to write that ‘he lied,’ the editor will say, “We can’t run this unless you include a statement that Hillary also lied. For balance.”
geg6
@jonas:
So fucking what? Only an extremely small sample of those people every read the NYT. If they did, they’d realize that it isn’t and hasn’t been “even the liberal NYT” for a couple of decades. If it ever really was.
AnotherBruce
@scav:I read through the comments. Several commentators were calling that NY Times pick out. The NYT is flipping the finger at the majority of their readers and likely subscribers. It’s a good way to lose readership. Hey, if they want to dig their own grave, toss them a shovel.
sukabi
@jonas: think it’s actually simpler. If the nyt were to actually start calling a lie a lie, they’d be forced to do some actual investigative research. A good percentage of their stories would never be published because they are based on rumor and innuendo, which if actually investigated would be proven to be false, or more commomly known as LIES.
NorthLeft12
@Aleta:
This has got to be some kind of misprint. I cannot believe that anyone involved in the practice of journalism could even think this, let alone put it down in print. The whole concept of this thought promotes the lie [yeah I said it] that the truth lies somewhere between two competing versions, and sometimes it is on that side, and sometimes on the other side.
The concept that one of the versions is a complete fantasy/fabrication is considered to be an outlier, and the concept that the one side is constantly and continually promoting the false version is completely incomprehensible and rejected outright.
Aleta, I can’t read the original story, so could you or someone else verify that this is what the public editor said/wrote?
Aleta
By the way, the NYT announced today (along with its new policy devoted to one word) that it is changing its comment moderation from people to robot-assisted. (How soon, I don’t know.) And right off the bat, on today’s public editor piece, a hit comment about HRC lying showed up as the first comment under “NYT picks.” They’re in trouble all right.
Aleta
@NorthLeft12: This is the exact quote, followed by the next paragraph.
-NYT public editor column Sept 20
Gertrude the Duck
@Aleta:
Yep. You can criticize her for being ponderous, but at the end of the day, she agrees with calling trump’s birtherism a lie.
Aleta
@NorthLeft12: @Aleta: And this directly precedes those two paragraphs that I just quoted (with two … parts that I took out)
(PS Ryan is the politics editor at the NYT.)
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
Not meaning this as snark, but does anyone know if Tom L’s dialog with the NYT reporter has survived this latest crap-fest?
p.a.
This is inspired
jl
@Aleta: Trump bald face lies about his previous positions on three major decisions on Middle East policies that he uses to claim he has better judgment on foreign and national security policy than anyone else. There are multiple audio and video recordings documenting his lies. To point that out is to play the referee in frivolous political disputes?
What the NYT is pumping out is insulting, if taken seriously, Or hilariously stupid and alarmingly dangerous if taken as pure BS.
Trollhattan
@p.a.: “Tire rims and anthrax” refreshed for millennials!
Aleta
@jl:
So many reporters have worked hard to publish evidence of other lies. I linked before to an article (National Memo, July 10 2015 ) by David Cay Johnston (law professor and investigative journalist who won a Pul Prize when he wrote for the NYT).
It’s practically a classroom handout for other reporters to pick up. He summarizes 21 stories of Trump lies and corruption that he has already researched and documented. (It was also reprinted by Alternet, Democracy Now, FreePress among others.) August 20, 2015 Youtube interview with David Johnston on the article.
This stuff about stories just now breaking, and how hard it is to say lie without documentation is bunk indeed.
scav
@AnotherBruce: TOO funny! They’re now posting assistant comments claiming it’s was all an “accident” that that comment was the only one chosen! Evan Gershkovich seems to be the stand-in for the particular bleat. Wonder if that’s a fancy title for intern about to be symbolically fired.
Aleta
@scav: Yes, and the assistant pseudo-explains that the accident was including the NYT picks category in a public editor column. No apology or explanation for whoever picked out that asshole comment about HRC and placed it there.
agorabum
I’d be ok with not calling some of his statements a “lie” if they instead called it “bullshit.” As in “Trump clearly had no idea about the actual facts of the situation and was just bullshiting his way through his response.”
If they don’t want to use lie, that is the only acceptable substitute.
scav
@Aleta: Well, hey, you know, most everything that gets thrown up on the interwebs and printed at the NYT is more or less an accident in the workflow, but so long as nobody “intends” any of the text thus promoted, it’s all good and requires no apology or explanation.
shomi
On the bright side, Washington Post appears to be kicking ass and taking names. The world doesn’t revolve around the NYTimes or WaPo for that matter. At least not anymore. There are a lot more places people can and do get informed from now a days.
stinger
I’d hate to see how these people are bringing up their kids.
RK
So when the Times was calling waterboarding enhanced interrogation that didn’t tell you who they were. You dropped your subscription when Hillary nose-dived in the polls. Your sanctimony is amusing.
Paul in KY
@Just One More Canuck: Right on, sir!
Paul in KY
@agorabum: That would be the best journalism the Times has practiced in a while if they did that.
tybee
hmmm. absinthe. i’ll try that in the next crab steaming event. i already have the zatarian’s.