Yesterday, Michael Cieply, a 12-year veteran of the New York Times who left this past July, wrote a phenomenal article at Deadline Hollywood titled, Stunned By Trump, The New York Times Finds Time For Some Soul-Searching. Before highlighting some key excerpts, let’s set the stage.
The New York Times’ coverage of the 2016 Presidential election was an abysmal disgrace. I first became aware of the extent of the paper’s shady and compromised reporting, when the editorial board endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary over Bernie Sanders without making an intelligible or coherent argument to justify the stance. This outraged me to such an extent, I wrote a post titled, A Detailed Look at The New York Times’ Embarrassing, Deceitful and Illogical Endorsement of Hillary Clinton, which you should reread in full.
Here’s how I began the piece:
The New York Times’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary consists of an unreadable, illogical piece of fiction. In this post, I will critique the paper’s position in detail, but first I want to take a step back and explain to people what I think is going on in the bigger picture.
In its endorsement of Hillary, the New York Times editorial board did such a sloppy job I can’t help but think it may have done permanent damage to its brand. Upon reading it, my initial conclusion was that the editorial board was either suffering from Stockholm syndrome or merely concerned about losing advertising revenues should they endorse Sanders. Then I thought some more and I realized my initial conclusions were wrong. Something else is going on here, something far more subtle, subconscious and illuminating. The New York Times is defending the establishment candidate simply because the New York Times is the establishment.
One of the biggest trends of the post financial crisis period has been a plunge in the American public’s perception of the country’s powerful institutions. The establishment often admits this reality with a mixture of bewilderment and erroneous conclusions, ultimately settling on the idea people are upset because “Washington can’t get anything done.” However, nothing could be further from the truth. When it comes to corruption and serving big monied interests, both Congress and the President are very, very good at getting things done. Yes it’s true Congress doesn’t get anything done on behalf of the people, but this is no accident. The government doesn’t work for the people.
With its dishonest and shifty endorsement of Hillary Clinton, I believe the New York Times has finally come out of the closet as an unabashed gatekeeper of the status quo. I suppose this makes sense since the paper has become the ultimate status quo journalistic publication. The sad truth is the publication has been living on borrowed time and a borrowed reputation for a long time. Long on prestige, it remains very short on substance when it comes to fighting difficult battles in the public interest. Content with its position of power and influence within the current paradigm, the paper doesn’t want to rock the boat. What the New York Times is actually telling its readers with the Hillary Clinton endorsement is that it likes things just the way they are, and will fight hard to keep them that way. It is as much a part of the American establishment as any government institution.
After the paper successfully helped to dispose of Senator Sanders, it continued to commit egregious errors as a result of its blinded, fanatical support of Hillary Clinton. I highlighted an example of this behavior in the August post: New York Times Fails to Disclose Op-Ed Writer’s Ties to Hillary Clinton’s ‘Principal Gatekeeper’.
Fast forward to just one week before the election, when I discovered a tweet in my stream from the paper with such an absurd forecast I immediately flagged it with the following tweet:
Hilarious.
Taking a screenshot of this one. https://t.co/zUNeGApr3D— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) October 31, 2016
I didn’t find the Times’ tweet absurd because I was some ardent Trump supporter (I wasn’t). Rather, I was able to recognize it as absurd because it was absurd. So why was I, a nobody blogger, able to see the ridiculousness of this forecast so clearly when the New York Times couldn’t? Because The New York Times had a predetermined agenda, and this agenda blinded it to reality.
With that out of the way, let’s dig into how things work at The New York Times according to Michael Cieply, and why its election coverage was so, for lack of a better word, deplorable.
Published at Deadline Hollywood:
Having left the Times on July 25, after almost 12 years as an editor and correspondent, I missed the main heat of the presidential campaign; so I can’t add a word to those self-assessments of the recent political coverage. But these recent mornings-after leave me with some hard-earned thoughts about the Times’ drift from its moorings in the nation at-large.
For starters, it’s important to accept that the New York Times has always — or at least for many decades — been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?”
It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?”
The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper’s daily Page One meeting: “We set the agenda for the country in that room.”
Having lived at one time or another in small-town Pennsylvania, some lower-rung Detroit suburbs, San Francisco, Oakland, Tulsa and, now, Santa Monica, I could only think, well, “Wow.” This is a very large country. I couldn’t even find a copy of the Times on a stop in college town Durham, N.C. To believe the national agenda was being set in a conference room in a headquarters on Manhattan’s Times Square required a very special mind-set indeed.
Inside the Times building, then and now, a great deal of the conversation is about the Times. In any institution, shop-talk is inevitable. But the navel-gazing seemed more intense at the Times, where too many journalists spent too much time decoding the paper’s ways, and too little figuring out the world at large. I listened to one longtime editor explain over lunch, for instance, that everybody on the paper has an invisible rank that might or might not coincide with his or her apparent place in the hierarchy. “You might think I’m a captain,” he said, based on his position at the time in a slightly backwater department. But, he continued, “I’m actually a colonel, because of my experiences and influence here.”
If the New York Times continues to operate this way it has no future. Let’s see if the self-proclaimed “really smart people” there understand that.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Funny you bring up the NYT, Michael. This was in my inbox late this morning, bearing the official letterhead and signed by the Publisher and the EE. I literally spat coffee out my nose.
Somebody, somewhere deep inside their big glass house seems aware of how strained their credibility is.
To our readers,
When the biggest political story of the year reached a dramatic and unexpected climax late Tuesday night, our newsroom turned on a dime and did what it has done for nearly two years — cover the 2016 election with agility and creativity.
After such an erratic and unpredictable election there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters? What forces and strains in America drove this divisive election and outcome? Most important, how will a president who remains a largely enigmatic figure actually govern when he takes office?
As we reflect on this week’s momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly. We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.
We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our subscribers. We want to take this opportunity, on behalf of all Times journalists, to thank you for that loyalty.
Sincerely,
Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. signature
Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
Publisher
Dean Baquet signature
Dean Baquet
Executive Editor
Wow, thanks for sharing that. I’d say they are a little late! No independent thinker believes any of their agenda-based propaganda.
If they’re so committed to presenting real information now, perhaps they could start with the obvious, tragically flawed government account of the events of 9/11/01…..
i don’t know whether to laugh or cry
Michael,
The New York Times’ coverage of the 2016 Presidential election was an abysmal disgrace yes, but it was, far more importantly, also an integral facet of an on going long term, incrementally increasing, intentionally crafted and well orchestrated menticide management program.
It is all spelled out in the last issue of my banned, and confiscated many times, “Saint Aug Dog” newspaper. The local coverage is a stage setter spring board to the meat of the issue; the dynamics behind the policy shift of the self anointed elite at the top of the global heap. The riots going on all across the country right now, and the increasing dissent and conflict all around the globe, are testimony to the policy shift and the escalation of the intentionally instilled perpetual conflict described in the issue.
I would be interested in your feed back. Long time admirer here…
Apologies, here is the link;
http://saintaugdog.com/sadarticles/immoralsnobsignoretheir%20corruption.html
How could any self-respecting journalist stay for 12 years at such a narcissistic operation? I always thought good reporters where the last people to be fooled or bought off because it was their job as well as natural inclination to be suspicious and expose secrets rather than take part in them. Everybody needs a paycheck but I think journalists have to bear some of the guilt for the sad state of the mainstream media today as well as their profession.
I got a letter too.
It is legal propaganda.
Hopefully this will contribute to a growing understanding of how even intelligent people can be thoroughly stupefied by their environment. There is no person, however intellectually gifted, that is not prone to being mind-bogglingly stupid given the right conditioning. Habitual scepticism is our only hope.
New York Times is a walking self indulgent zombie.
They are dead broke so some one offers them enough money to play nice for the democrats.
Classic theory (Stalking Horse) “is a figure that tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against someone on behalf of an anonymous third party. If the idea proves viable or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare its interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure. If the concept fails, the anonymous party will not be tainted by association with the failed concept and can either drop the idea completely or bide its time and wait until a better moment for launching an attack.”
Some in the New York times pulled their head out their own ass to take a hard look at their reporting.
They will be fired or the new term downsized.
The Alternative media reported that Donald Trump tasked VP Mike Pence to head up the cabinets picks for him.
Trump made the VP deal for the money.
Picking this bastard Trump is showing he can be bought with the moneyed Washington insiders interests.
VP Mike Pence direct quote: “I encourage your support for Trade Promotion Authority, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and any other trade-related measures when they are brought before the Congress for consideration,” Pence in 2014.
VP Mike Pence is at extreme odds with the trump campaign promises for the new president 100 day agenda.
What’s their byline, ‘all the news that’s print to fit’? The NYT is about as credible as the National Enquirer. I thought everyone outside of the progressive urban sewers knew that.
Freedom of the press is one thing but fraudulent, lying propaganda designed to distort the truth and misled pr enrage people should be criminalized the the participants prosecuted and jailed. Think Stalin and Hitler propaganda, do we really want or need that? People watch the news to get the truth not a bunch of crap. People make decisions on what they hear on the news, such as who to vote for, and it should be the truth rather than biased, bigoted and misleading. Sadly many in the news media have any concept of what integrity means and those with integrity are no longer considered credible. I quit listening to the news long ago because I could not tell which liar to believe, sad but true. This should not be tolerated any longer. If the truth was really being told would we be having post election riots? Doubtful. Someone is egging them on, hatred and dissent. To what purpose? Because the people spoke but the rioters didn’t like the majority decision. Grow up and get over it and move on.
Maybe the douchebags in N.Y.C. Washington D.C. San Fransisco and L.A. will begin to see that we don’t (The Flyover Plebs) really need them. Oh wait, their heads are so far up their own ass’s they can’t see anything but shit.
Omg, I love your comment. And these POS douchbags are about to learn that payback’s a bitch. I can’t wait!
I have to wonder if all of this chaos isn’t exactly what this ‘selection’ was all about. For one thing we should all question that she ‘won’ the popular vote with so much going on with the voting machines, etc that isn’t kosher at all! In a way, ‘she’ /aka The New World Order, the CFR, all of the PTB have accomplished exactly what they wanted didn’t they? This has been predicted long ago, that there would be rioting in the states and look at this! I think people who read that couldn’t have imagined the rioting would be of our own people against each other. The Obama adminstration has done more then others to devide the people up against each other, anyone watching the show could follow the dots of where this has been leading.
Hasn’t it been said over and over, ‘out of chaos come order’ and this is heading in that direction.
The people in the demonstrations totally bought into the spins/retoric that Hillary spat out for them to digest, and to make Donald Trump into a monster. She wanted them to not see that she was the bigger monster and she would have taken us into war with Russia and perhaps others. Meanwhile she and her foundation would have kept dipping into the pockets of people all over the world, it is their personal piggy bank.
I wonder if this is the wick that Obama has been waiting for to light, so he could declare martial law on his orders from the PTB! I am afraid Donald has played right into their hands not knowing to walk softly and carry a big stick. He carries a baseball bat and walks in swinging without knowing what the game is.
I am afraid this is the end of our country as we had ‘thought’ it was supposed to be and now Hillary is cackling and the elite who have taken care of themselves at our expense will call ‘check-mate’.
I have the same disdain for the N.Y. Times as I do for CNN. The “survival” of our Republic…for any Democracy,is much in the hands of our “News Media”. Historically,the RESPONSIBLE journalist had held political feet to the fire,attempting to keep the government honest,(as much as that is possible),and to “educate” the reader. The press,recognizing this great responsibility,served as a beacon in the otherwise murky quagmire of Washington politics. Standing atop all others,once, WAS the N.Y. Times. This will never again…”BE”. The past year and a half the “times”,(capital T no longer applies!),has failed in every way.The degree of failure in actual reporting,coinciding with it’s arrogant and elitist posturing,has,forever removed itself from any “fair-minded” list of intellectual resource. Newspaper(?)…a resounding NO! Perhaps it can find a place at the supermarket “check-out”,alongside People,T.V. Guide,and The National Enquirer! CNN(?)…one merely had to listen as Jake Tapper continued to correct himself on election night,each time results came in,announcing,(over and over!?!?),”WE,err,I mean she,will need…”. Both “Institutions” have proven to be OBJECTIONABLE,rather than OBJECTIVE. RIP.
It didn’t happen overnight or with the election. I canceled my NYT subscription during Obama’s first term when they went overboard to protect his anti-American stance. I don’t know if they were getting financial support from the Saudis or what but when a wise and graceful old lady turns into a deceitful propaganda machine, I turn my back. They’ve had a lot of subscriptions canceled and like all newspapers, they are being replaced by digital news carriers. I just read that their editor-in-chief now fesses up and resolved to change because they’re going down the drain -but he’s too late.
For over 30 years I have referred to the major dailies as “Fantasy Maintenance” and the network news as “The Liars’ Club”. So there is a tiny measure of satisfaction in seeing the masks off this year. A welcome triumph for the alternative media, this once. BUT how shall the people be informed now, day by week by month by year?
Good for piddle pads ,little else!!
NEW YORK TIMES IS BIAS, LIES, COMMUNIST NEW REPORTING. THEY CAUSE DIVISON & ANGER IN THE PEOPLE. TIRED OF THEM,
The New York Times seems to be out to get itself known as the most hated newspaper out there. But there are other newspapers that were pushing crooked Hillary every step of the way. In Upstate NY newspapers were showing the same disregard for the lawbreaker Clinton team. Fact is a lot of US media were pushing a disgrace of stubborn out of touch, we think Hillary is perfect when it was obvious it was a mistake. The NY Times though lost huge credibility here as they were very belligerent about this election. Reviews of voting impropriety by the way as so Democrat fraud it is quite baffling. Apparently there were many that would bend every principle to,get their way! Supervised elections in War Zones show no more corruption than this one.
Money can buy them. Whoever give them money can tell what to write.
Their era is over! yippee!
“Rank” and “influence” also might have something to do with being a covert asset of the CIA or other Deep State apparatus.