NY Times Has ‘Journalistic Integrity’ Problem, ‘Blatant Double Standard’ in Biden Coverage vs. Kavanaugh: Former NYT Editor
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The New York Times has “abandoned” traditional journalism ethics in order to pursue a “woke” agenda, according to a former Times editor who spent 28 years working for the paper.
“For me, the issue is journalistic integrity. Ideology and journalism do not mix because ideology wants an outcome and good journalism does not,” wrote ex-Times editor Tom Kuntz, who now works for Real Clear Investigations, in a Wednesday column. “Ideology dictates a blatant double standard for coverage of sexual misconduct charges — think of what Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh endured in his confirmation hearings and the Times‘s deferential treatment of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.”
Kuntz said the paper’s “1619 Project,” which sought to trace the history of American slavery to 1619, had “gravely distort[ed] the history and legacy of slavery in America,” and that the paper had failed to answer questions about significant shortcomings in its impeachment coverage.
“Having worked as an editor at the Times for 28 years before leaving (on good terms) in early 2016, I know that the flaws in that reporting are not an outlier. They flow, instead, from an evolving culture that abandoned the let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may ethic of traditional journalism to one that embraces partisan and results-oriented agendas,” Kuntz wrote.
He noted that Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Kenneth Vogel disclosed on Twitter some of the flaws in their coverage of research firm Fusion GPS and its infamous Steele Dossier, but said the paper has not been as forthcoming about those shortcomings in formal reporting.
“When it was revealed in court in October 2017 that the Clinton campaign had used a law firm, Perkins Coie, as the cutout to hide its payments to Fusion GPS, the Times reporters expressed outrage — initially. … But the pair took a far softer tone in the subsequent print story with Vogel’s byline and Haberman contributing — a piece written presumably with the input of editors. … The pertinent passage says circumspectly: ‘Earlier this year, [Marc Elias] had denied that he had possessed the dossier before the election.’ That’s a far cry from nailing anyone as a liar about funding the dossier.”
The paper’s reluctance to call out left-leaning sources as “liars” contrasts with its treatment of Trump. The Times in 2016 instituted a policy to begin labeling what it viewed as Trump’s lies, a decision that former Executive Editor Jill Abramson attributed to the rise of “wokeness” in the newsroom: “The more ‘woke’ staff thought that urgent times called for urgent measures.”
Kuntz said the Old Gray Lady’s fixation on “wokeness” had become a case of the “the empress’s new facts.”
“The ‘woke’ pseudo-history of the 1619 Project and coverage of Donald Trump, the antithesis of wokeness, are two sides of a coin that the Times is not about to let out of its grasp,” Kuntz wrote. “Should the 1619 Project win Pulitzer acclaim next week, the Old Gray Lady’s admirers can celebrate a fairy tale ending for woke journalism — not the emperor’s new clothes, but the empress’s new facts.
