CJR on Trump and the Press

Not entirely sure what I think of this. But worth reading.

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php

 

I read about half of that long-ass story and never could figure out what it was trying to accomplish.

 

The fact that Glenn Greenwald figured so prominently in this set off alarm bells.

 

Last sentence of the second graph:

For Trump, the press’s pursuit of the Russia story convinced him that any sort of normal relationship with the press was impossible.

*GIF of Seinfeld throwing his hands in the air & exiting the play*

 

There's a real forest / trees problem with the Gerth piece.

He also takes Trump both literally and seriously. If you're not treating Trump as a singularity - a pathological liar, con man and chaos agent - you're not doing journalism.

So: exhausting rather than exhaustive.

For example, where's McGonigal? Did the FBI’s Charles McGonigal Help Throw the 2016 Election to Trump?

And like Taibbi at Twitter - and Bari Weiss at all times, and Greenwald, and Williams, et al. - it's an incredibly deceptive piece of work. It ignores 95% of the available evidence in order to be technically correct about the 5% it includes.

The whole thing is terrifically problematic.

 

I liked the part where Basquet defended the NYT's coverage, saying "the prizes prove it."

 

For the record, Baquet.

Who - like every Times executive editor in history - overvalues awards.

It's not as if the Pulitzer folks go back and re-report every story.

It'll be interesting to see what life is like under Joe Kahn.

 

Gerth is a prominent figure in James B. Stewart's 1996 tome "Blood Sport: the President and His Adversaries." Baquet is in it too.

 

The Times is a flat circle jerk

 

Taibbi has transited the Tropic of This Fucking Guy.