{"id":306552,"date":"2017-05-04T04:36:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T03:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/nyts-100-day-apologism-shows-danger-of-both-sides-reporting\/"},"modified":"2017-05-04T04:36:36","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T03:36:36","slug":"nyts-100-day-apologism-shows-danger-of-both-sides-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/nyts-100-day-apologism-shows-danger-of-both-sides-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT\u2019s 100 Day Apologism Shows Danger of \u2018Both Sides\u2019 Reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NYT:<\/a>New York Times<\/b> White House reporter Peter Baker (4\/29\/16<\/a>) appears to have set out in earnest to write a \u201cbalanced\u201d review of Donald Trump\u2019s first 100 days in office. In doing so, he exposed the futility of such an exercise.<\/p>\n

Baker spins some of Trump\u2019s worst and most dangerous traits as positives, downplays his constant threats and impulsivity and tortures the English language to find praise where none ought to exist. First the latter: Baker attempts to find symmetry in Trump\u2019s approach to \u201ctransparency,\u201d by conflating actual governmental openness with an obsessive desire to talk at the media:<\/p>\n

\n

He has been both more and less transparent than other presidents, shielding his tax returns and White House visitor logs from public scrutiny while appearing to leave few thoughts unexpressed, no matter how incendiary or inaccurate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Baker takes two bad things (Trump\u2019s lack of transparency relative to Obama, and his runaway narcissistic desire for media attention) and turns them, somehow, into one good thing and one bad thing. (This is part of a broader problem, as FOIA expert J. Pat Brown noted<\/a>, of \u201cmuddying the #OpenGov waters\u201d by \u201cequating and replacing actual government transparency with \u2018access.\u2019\u201d)<\/p>\n

Baker similarly twists the meaning of \u201cauthenticity\u201d\u2014making it a vague appeal to the appearance <\/i>of honesty, with no necessary connection to telling the truth:<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Trump has brought back a certain authenticity and willingness to engage. His frequent news conferences and interviews can be bracingly candid, uninhibited, even raw. He leaves little mystery about what is on his mind.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The claim that Trump has had \u201cfrequent news conferences\u201d is strange, considering he\u2019s actually had 33 percent less than Obama<\/a> in his first 100 days\u2013\u201312 vs. 9. How Baker knows Trump\u2019s macho bluster and rambling, unlettered outbursts actually reflect what is \u201con his mind\u201d rather than high-octane performance art is unclear. But to fulfill the mission of \u201cbalance,\u201d good things must be found to be said about Trump, no matter how tenuous.<\/p>\n

The words \u201clie,\u201d \u201cliar\u201d and \u201cfalsehood\u201d never appear\u2014remarkably, considering the pace of deception<\/a> set by Trump in his first 100 days. The best Baker can muster is a vague reference to \u201cunfounded statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

More words not mentioned in the piece:\u00a0 \u201cclimate change,\u201d \u201cimmigration,\u201d \u201cdeportation,\u201d \u201cMuslim,\u201d \u201cLatino,\u201d \u201cAfrican-American,\u201d \u201cracism,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cabortion,\u201d “LGBT,” \u201cYemen.\u201d Also glaringly omitted from the report card: the ongoing investigation into Trump campaign\u2019s ties to Russia. A scandal that\u2014regardless of how one feels about its underlying claims\u2014has had a notable impact<\/a> on the administration.<\/p>\n

The piece is fleshed out with surface-level punditry to provide some expert color, including former Bush Sr. aide (and current lobbyist<\/a>) Janet Mullins Grissom, who makes this absurd claim:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe biggest difference between President Trump and his predecessors is that he is the first president in my political lifetime who comes to the office unbeholden to any special interest for his electoral success, thus immune to typical political pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n

In effect, she said, that compensates for a victory he secured in the Electoral College without winning the popular vote. \u201cThat gives him as much leverage as someone who won with landslide numbers \u2014 and the freedom to govern his way,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd his voters love him for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One is curious how Trump\u2014whose Super PAC received over $35 million<\/a> from casino mogul and pro-Israel super donor Sheldon Adelson\u2014is not \u201cbeholden\u201d to the special interest of backing Israel\u2019s far-right government. Or how he\u2019s not \u201cbeholden\u201d to the six major donors that he appointed to high-level positions<\/a> in his administration. But fatuous Beltway tropes about Trump being a rebel outsider are permitted to be expressed unexamined and unchecked\u2014in the interest of \u201cbalance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The piece ends on a warm note, implying that Trump could-still-yet become a \u201cnear great president\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

Meena Bose, the director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University, said Mr. Trump\u2019s presidency so far seemed unlike almost any other, except perhaps Andrew Jackson\u2019s. She noted that Jackson was seen as erratic at the time but was later evaluated by historians as a near-great president.<\/p>\n

\u201cMight the Trump presidency be viewed similarly someday?\u201d she asked. \u201cDifficult to see at the 100-day mark, but that is an artificial measurement, with so much of the presidency still to come.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If one accepts the premise that a devout white supremacist<\/a> and slavery booster responsible for the deaths of thousands of Native Americans could be a \u201cnear great\u201d president, then perhaps Trump can too. If reporters, like historians, can find the bright side of genocide, then the \u201cboth sides\u201d ethos knows no bounds.<\/p>\n

\n

You can send a message to the New York Times<\/strong> at letters@nytimes.com<\/a> or to public editor Liz Spayd\u00a0 at\u00a0public@nytimes.com<\/a> (Twitter<\/strong>:@NYTimes<\/a> or @SpaydL<\/a>). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nThis piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker (4\/29\/16) appears to have set out in earnest to write a \u201cbalanced\u201d review of Donald Trump\u2019s first 100 days in office. In doing so, he exposed the futility of such an exercise. Baker spins some of Trump\u2019s worst and most dangerous traits as positives, downplays his constant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-306552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}