“Most Devastating Portrayals Of Bad Journalism In History”: Trump Slams “Failing” NYT After Leaked Transcript Of Chief Editor And Staff Meeting

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NYT Chief Editor Dean Baquet circa April 2018. Click to see full-size image

Attempts by British and US supporters of the New World Order to exploit anti-Russian hysteria to keep the crumbling mainstream propaganda machine alive have appeared to be not so successful. So, now, they are shifting the narrative to some ‘fresh topics’.

Starting from August 18^th, US President Donald Trump has been blasting the New York Times over Twitter, claiming its “failing” and accusing it of attempting to “shift” the narrative.

He called it the “most devastating portrayals of bad journalism in history.”

…..”Journalism” has reached a new low in the history of our Country. It is nothing more than an evil propaganda machine for the Democrat Party. The reporting is so false, biased and evil that it has now become a very sick joke…But the public is aware! #CROOKEDJOURNALISM

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2019

He then claimed that his “poll numbers” would be much higher if simply there were honest media.

Trump appears to be referring to a recording of comments made by the NYT’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, at an internal town hall meeting that was leaked to Slate. The transcript can be found here.

 “What I’m saying is that our readers and some of our staff cheer us when we take on Donald Trump, but they jeer at us when we take on Joe Biden,” New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told his staff.

Furthermore, the said the following:

“This is a really hard story, newsrooms haven’t confronted one like this since the 1960s. It got trickier after [inaudible] … went from being a story about whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia and obstruction of justice to being a more head-on story about the president’s character. We built our newsroom to cover one story, and we did it truly well. Now we have to regroup, and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story. I’d love your help with that.

…

The day Bob Mueller walked off that witness stand, two things happened. Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, “Holy shit, Bob Mueller is not going to do it.” And Donald Trump got a little emboldened politically, I think. Because, you know, for obvious reasons. And I think that the story changed. A lot of the stuff we’re talking about started to emerge like six or seven weeks ago. We’re a little tiny bit flat-footed. I mean, that’s what happens when a story looks a certain way for two years. Right?

I think that we’ve got to change. I mean, the vision for coverage for the next two years is what I talked about earlier: How do we cover a guy who makes these kinds of remarks? How do we cover the world’s reaction to him? How do we do that while continuing to cover his policies? How do we cover America, that’s become so divided by Donald Trump? How do we grapple with all the stuff you all are talking about? How do we write about race in a thoughtful way, something we haven’t done in a large way in a long time? That, to me, is the vision for coverage. You all are going to have to help us shape that vision. But I think that’s what we’re going to have to do for the rest of the next two years.”

A lot of conservative commentators also claimed that the NYT was trying to portray Trump as a racist, after the Russian meddling investigation crashed and burned.

“The takeaway? The NYT says it is mapping out a narrative in advance of any naturally-occurring, true news events, and plans to shape all natural-occurring, true news events so that they are reported in the context of racism,” Sharyl Attkisson tweeted.

The takeaway? The NYT says it is mapping out a narrative in advance of any naturally-occurring, true news events, and plans to shape all natural-occurring, true news events so that they are reported in the context of racism. This is what they believe their readers want. https://t.co/BJGqZttVSc

— Sharyl Attkisson?️‍♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) August 17, 2019

Question raised by leaked New York Times transcript, plus rollout of 1619 project: Should the public still view the Times as a news outlet? Or as something else? https://t.co/28AbrrPgnt

— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 17, 2019

Baquet, however, thinks that the word racist shouldn’t be used, but rather he should be portrayed as such, which would be much more “powerful.”

“Staffer: Could you explain your decision not to more regularly use the word racist in reference to the president’s actions?

Baquet: Yeah, I’m actually almost practiced at this one now. Look, my own view is that the best way to capture a remark, like the kinds of remarks the president makes, is to use them, to lay it out in perspective. That is much more powerful than the use of a word.

The weekend when some news organizations used the word racist, and I chose not to, we ran what I think is the most powerful story anybody ran that weekend. [inaudible] [chief White House correspondent] Peter Baker, who stepped back and took Trump’s remarks, looked at his whole history of using remarks like that, and I think it was more powerful than any one word. My own view? You quote the remarks. I’m not saying we would never use the word racist. I’m talking about that weekend. You quote the remarks. The most powerful journalism I have ever read, and that I’ve ever witnessed, was when writers actually just described what they heard and put them in some perspective. I just think that’s more powerful.”

Then, discussed is the “overall strategy for getting us through this administration and the way we cover it.”

“Staffer: I’m wondering what is the overall strategy here for getting us through this administration and the way we cover it. Because I think one of the reasons people have such a problem with a headline like this—or some things that the New York Times reports on—is because they care so much. And they depend on the New York Times. They are depending on us to keep kicking down the doors and getting through, because they need that right now. It’s a very scary time. And when something like this happens, or we have opinion columnists—because people really can’t tell the difference between op-eds and news anymore—but when we have people who post and tweet incendiary things, like Bret Stephens, people don’t understand. I think they get confused as to what we’re trying to do.

Baquet: Yeah.

Staffer: And I’m just wondering, how can we tighten that up?

Baquet: Are you talking about coverage, or are you talking about social media?

Staffer: I’m talking about all of it.

Baquet: OK. I mean, let me go back a little bit for one second to just repeat what I said in my in my short preamble about coverage. Chapter 1 of the story of Donald Trump, not only for our newsroom but, frankly, for our readers, was: Did Donald Trump have untoward relationships with the Russians, and was there obstruction of justice? That was a really hard story, by the way, let’s not forget that. We set ourselves up to cover that story. I’m going to say it. We won two Pulitzer Prizes covering that story. And I think we covered that story better than anybody else.”

According to Baquet, specific people need to be given a voice, some that earlier wouldn’t have wished to say something or just wouldn’t have been given a chance.

“Baquet: Can I just say one thing? This is a hard story. This is larger than the headline. This is larger than the other stuff. This is a really hard story. This is a story that’s going to call on like all of our muscles, all of our resources, all of our creativity, all of our empathy. Including all of our empathy for each other. It’s going to call on us to be maybe a little less harsh with each other, because we’re gonna make other mistakes. It’s going to call on us to listen to each other more, including me listening to you all more. If you ask me how we end up getting through this with the best coverage, it’s by having honest conversations. It’s by inviting people into the Trump story who ordinarily might not have played on stories like this and making sure they get to participate in the coverage. But I hope this is a start, and I hope people take me at my word when I say you may come into me and tell me something you don’t like. I may not agree with you. I will be direct, and I will say I don’t agree with you. But I promise you I will listen and I promise you that in the end all of this influences the coverage. So thank you. Thank you.”

The entire transcript is quite a long one, shedding a fair bit of light on “independent reporting” and how to construct a story and convey a powerful message, regardless of it being true or not.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Canadian Cartoonist Fired After Trump Cartoon Goes Viral, But “Censorship Isn’t Real”

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