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New York Times editor Joe Kahn says defending democracy is a partisan act and he won’t do it

This is from May 7th, but I hadn’t seen it.

Joe Kahn, after two years in charge of the New York Times newsroom, has learned nothing.

He had an extraordinary opportunity, upon taking over from Dean Baquet, to right the ship: to recognize that the Times was not warning sufficiently of the threat to democracy presented by a second Trump presidency.

But to Kahn, democracy is a partisan issue and he’s not taking sides. He made that clear in an interview with obsequious former employee Ben Smith, now the editor of Semafor.

Kahn accused those of us asking the Times to do better of wanting it to be a house organ of the Democratic party

. . . And to the extent that Kahn has changed anything in the Times newsroom since Baquet left, it’s to double down on a form of objectivity that favors the comfortable-white-male perspective and considers anything else little more than hysteria.

Throwing Baquet under the bus, Kahn called the summer of the Black Lives Matter protests “an extreme moment” during which the Times lost its way.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b434808a-1407-4bce-b752-933385475cae.jpeg

nifty ,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

Immigration and inflation are sideshow distractions used to distract from wealth and resource hoarding. NYT editor is just doing his upper class friends a solid by framing these distractions as the main issues

jonne ,

Exactly, every mainstream outlet is owned by billionaires or giant corporations, which is why you don’t hear about wealth inequality or union busting in mainstream media.

rockSlayer ,

2 men stand on opposite sides of a valley. “Meet me in the middle”, said the man on the right. The man on the left takes a step forward. The man on the right takes a step back. “Meet me in the middle”, the man on the right says again.

Looks like this jackass of a CEO kept trying to meet in the middle.

nednobbins ,

That’s not what he says. Not only does Kahn not say that himself, he’s not even asked about it.

He’s asked, “Why don’t you see your job as: ‘We’ve got to stop Trump?’” And he responds that the role of the media in a healthy democracy is to provide accurate and unbiased reporting, rather than hiding or misrepresenting facts to favor one candidate over an other.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

So this is the first sentence of that interview:

I stopped by Joe Kahn’s modest office in the New York Times newsroom Thursday to ask him what some of his readers want to know: Why doesn’t the executive editor see it as his job to help Joe Biden win?

And this is the entire question he was asked:

**Ben Smith: **Dan Pfeiffer, who used to work for Barack Obama, recently wrote of the Times: “They do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.” Why don’t you see your job as: “We’ve got to stop Trump?” What about your job doesn’t let you think that way?

And here’s his entire answer:

Joe Kahn: Good media is the Fourth Estate, it’s another pillar of democracy. One of the absolute necessities of democracy is having a free and fair and open election where people can compete for votes, and the role of the news media in that environment is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or the other, but just to provide very good, hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates, and informing voters. If you believe in democracy, I don’t see how we get past the essential role of quality media in informing people about their choice in a presidential election.

To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda. It is true that Biden’s agenda is more in sync with traditional establishment parties and candidates. And we’re reporting on that and making it very clear.

I don’t know if that’s just an unusual interpretation or if you’re being disingenuous but I see the question and his answer as exactly as described. The question was: Why isn’t your job stopping an authoritarian, and he says, essentially, “because we don’t tell people how to vote”. Which is bullshit in 100 different ways. It doesn’t answer the question, it makes the exact leap he’s accused of in the OP, and he takes the opportunity to shit on Biden with a left-handed compliment and blowing more smoke up everyone’s ass.

nednobbins ,

“He says” is not the same as “he says, essentially”.

One is directly reflects what he said, the other injects your interpretation of what he said. It requires the leap of believing that defending democracy is best done by stopping Trump, even if it means abandoning journalistic ethics. He claims that defending democracy requires an impartial media.

To say that he doesn’t want to defend democracy is entirely bullshit. It’s not what he says or implies. He just disagrees with you on how best to do so.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

“He says” is not the same as “he says, essentially”.

True, that’s why I put both the full quote and, later, the “essentially” to show that was a reading of it. Yes.

It requires the leap of believing that defending democracy is best done by stopping Trump, even if it means abandoning journalistic ethics. He claims that defending democracy requires an impartial media.

No “leap” is required. Trump has already staged a coup. Trump has already said he will pursue a program of retribution. Trump’s idiot followers in red states have already passed unconstitutional laws to prevent the voters’ candidates from winning if they so decide. NO LEAP. IS REQUIRED.

He claims that defending democracy requires an impartial media.

This is a platitude one learns in journalism 101 and at the place and time he sits, right now, it is means nothing. Let’s skip the definitions of what ‘an impartial media’ might mean and examples for and against.

The purpose of the free press is to allow any subject to be told. There are MANY subjects the NYT hasn’t touched about either candidate. But as regards trump, the subjects-less-traveled are almost all criminal, corrupt, and deeply idiotic. Is it “impartial” to deliberately ignore them? No.

Furthermore, the NYT appears to be “defending democracy” by chasing polling results and securing more cycles of a given feedback loop. That is also not impartial, nor is it defending democracy.

To say that he doesn’t want to defend democracy is entirely bullshit. It’s not what he says or implies. He just disagrees with you on how best to do so.

No, what he says and what he implies is, in fact, bullshit.

I have no doubt he believes he has a role in “defending democracy”. His actions on how to do that are simply wrong, and his words justifying his critical inaction give away that he simply can’t bear to write a story that might not give both sides equal weight. Do we need to argue ‘both sides’? I would expect not.

He says they have a responsibility to publish “hard-hitting” stories. Well, where are they? “trump said some stupid shit at a rally again”? “Joe looked tired and was hoarse”(on repeat for the month)?

Bullshit.

catloaf ,

Oh so he’s well aware of his job, he’s just a piece of shit not doing it.

WatDabney ,

The really disturbing part is that he’s technically correct.

At this point in history, supporting democracy really is a partisan position, since the Republicans uniformly and adamantly oppose it, and intend to impose christofascist autocracy in its place.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

I see how you mean, but let’s not cross the streams, so to speak.

WatDabney ,

Yeah - I hesitated to post that, since even with the clearly negative characterization of all of the clearly negative aspects of it, it still sort of sounds as if not defending democracy is the right thing to do, when it’s really only “right” in an extremely narrow, warped, relativistic and brazenly evil sense.

Still though…

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

Understood. It’s a bizarro-world truth if we look at it that way.

MyOpinion ,

When Trump comes for him I am sure he will be very shocked at why he does not have protection because he was so objective.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

That’s another thing that’s amazing to me. trump shat on these fuckers for YEARS every. single. day. and made their lives hell and here they are just, “doot doot dee doo oh trump’s an average guy just, uh, runnin’ for president, as one does, uh huh uh huh, yaup” It’s just another reason they’re idiots, like we needed more reasons.

Here’s a thought - maybe defend your profession? A little? Maybe? No? No, he says no.

gardylou ,

Explains a lot actually.

Blackbeard ,
@Blackbeard@lemmy.world avatar

Some responses to Kahn’s lunacy:

What most people want is for the media to spend less time on the horserace and more time on the stakes of this election; and to specifically call out the threat that is a second Trump presidency. There have been a lot of very good stories, but there could always be more. In general — and this is a complaint I have had about the New York Times that is two decades old — I wish they would take good faith criticism from the Left with as much seriousness as they take bad faith criticism from the Right.

Kahn seems to think that polls about what people see as the most important issue should, at least in part, guide the paper’s decisions about what to cover. As a snapshot in time that sounds appropriate; if Americans care deeply about health care access, the Times should make sure to cover the issue of health care access. The problem comes in which way the causal arrow runs. Most of the time, news media don’t cover particular topics because the public thinks they’re important. The public thinks particular topics are important because the media are covering them.1 This is called “agenda setting,” known by communication scholars as one of the most important effects news media produce. As political scientist Bernard Cohen wrote in 1963, the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”

That’s a lot to unpack — probably too much to do so in the limited space we have here. But, suffice to say, Kahn’s answer feels overtly disingenuous. It is, of course, entirely feasible to express concerns about Trump’s anti-democratic rhetoric and acknowledge them in a real way without morphing into a “propaganda arm” for President Joe Biden. In fact, I am not aware of anyone who has called for The NYT to treat Biden like Fox News treats Trump (an aside, but has Kahn’s outlet yet worked up the courage to label Fox News “propaganda” or is that only a term that gets thrown around when smacking down straw men?). As Hunter Walker posted on Threads, “If we agree that democracy is an objective good then, we must also grapple with what it means that Trump has tried to stay in power a different way. We need to be clear about authoritarian and even fascistic tendencies. This can, in fact, be objective.” To be fair to Kahn, he is not the only news chief dodging the uncomfortable math before him. I’m not aware of any major newsroom leader who has discussed its complexities openly in public. But it is worth asking: If newsrooms are pro-democracy, and if their reporting indicates one candidate is opposed to democratic values, how can they feign ignorance on the 2024 race?

No one is asking you to join the Biden campaign, stop covering the flaws and foibles of Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, or to run a bunch of puff pieces about those candidates. But we are asking you to make it clearer — in coverage, and in emphasis and framing, and, yes, in your public statements — that your news organization is aware of the threats to democracy on the ballot in November. And that it is a core part of your mission to stand for democratic principles and to have news coverage reflect that consistently.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

Kahn seems to think that polls about what people see as the most important issue should, at least in part, guide the paper’s decisions about what to cover. As a snapshot in time that sounds appropriate;

If that time is 1975. Looking at polls to drive the narrative is the dumbest thing to do in 2024. Polls are complete garbage.

oxjox , (edited )
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

MOTHERFUCKER - JOURNALISM IS THE FOURTH PILLAR OF DEMOCRACY. ITS YOUR LITERAL ONE JOB - TO DEFEND IT.

It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second.

Ah, that’s your problem right there. And this is going to be the major issue for generations to come. The algorithms are determining what’s popular and will generate content to maintain engagement. What used to happen is news rooms would find important stories and report on them then the people would read those stories to determine what actually matters in their lives.

I subscribe to my local paper. The mobile app is essentially ‘what the people want’. Meanwhile, the newspaper itself (print or digital) has almost entirely different content and it’s certainly organized differently. When I want to learn about things in my community and the world - the reason I subscribe to a newspaper in the first place - I read the paper, not the app. The app is just like a blog.

It’s incredibly frustrating how far our fourth pillar of democracy has fallen.

Blackbeard ,
@Blackbeard@lemmy.world avatar

That’s exactly the problem. Kahn and his crew determine what’s a “top issue” the same way the rest of us do, through algorithm-driven engagement. There’s a reason all the major outlets placed a “trending” chyron at the top of their homepages years ago, and that’s because they’re specifically tailoring their coverage to whatever generates traffic on their and other’s websites. Each editor is, after all, a human whose understanding of the world is driven by the content that shows up on their phone, their computer screen, and their television. The fact that media is curated through a narrowing window of social media platforms means that the things that pop onto their radar will be algorithm-influenced. Even if they stepped back and only accepted what polls highly, they’d have to either perform their own real-time polling (yeah right) or point to other polls for emphasis, the results of which have been filtered and amplified according to algorithmic engagement. This is only going to get worse as AI starts to influence the algorithm in real time and we become more and more susceptible to hive-mind coverage where the tail wags the dog.

This is part of the reason 21st century media has skewed so heavily toward sensationalism since 9/11, because for some ungodly reason they’ve decided that their job is to react to the news, rather than create it. Fuck them. Their spineless “neutrality” is a tool Trump & Co. learned how to play like a fiddle from day one, and by refusing to even entertain the possibility of assisting the left, they’ve obsequiously and unconsciously become the right’s most potent weapon. They are the harbingers of fascism in America, and they’re still too fucking dense to see what’s coming.

oxjox ,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

Fantastic 👏👏👏

To add to that, all I keep seeing in the news is about Biden’s poor performance. Yeah, we knoooow. Can we maybe get some coverage of the report of Trump raping a child or how many mentions he has on Epstein’s list? Is there anything else going on in the world we should know about? All the news is doing is grabbing hold of the most sensational topic that every other outlet is reporting on speculating about so they don’t lose ratings / clicks.

The world we live in is not about genuine creativity or challenging perspectives or journalistic responsibility. All we have going forward is what generates ad revenue. What’s “engaging”. And our dumbass brains only care about dopamine. So anything that challenges us to think outside the box is too difficult for us to engage with. The corporations and special interest groups have won. I wouldn’t be too worried about climate change at this point, kids. I doubt you’ll be aware of your surrounds enough to realize what’s going on around you.

I’m just hoping for a new Age of Enlightenment. Maybe people will realize that having everyone else do the thinking for us isn’t such a great idea.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

I’m just hoping for a new Age of Enlightenment. Maybe people will realize that having everyone else do the thinking for us isn’t such a great idea.

That sounds wonderful. However I’m not expecting it anytime soon.

homesweethomeMrL OP , (edited )

Another part is just straight up computer illiteracy. You can bet Kahn wouldn’t know an algorithm if it bit him in the ass.

What that translates to is an unfamiliarity with how social media works - or rather a distorted familiarity.

It’s the exact same reason it took federal courts a decade to decide Microsoft was a monopoly, and we still have this problem in any legal situation. Judges and newspaper editors know sweet fuck all about how the modern world communicates. Or rather, what they know is an extreme distortion.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

It’s incredibly frustrating how far our fourth pillar of democracy has fallen.

You can say that again.

Jerkface ,

From the article

University of Illinois professor Nicholas Grossman wrote:
Biden’s age isn’t among voters’ top issues in polls, but the NY Times made it a recurring top story anyway. Voters sure didn’t say they care about the president of Harvard, but the Times made that the number one story for days. When NYT editors care, they don’t defer to polls.

RagingSnarkasm ,

The First Amendment is a political document and Joe Kahn should not benefit from the protections it affords.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

No one ever thought we’d have to legislate telling the goddamned truth.

NoIWontPickAName ,

The fuck we didn’t, that’s why perjury is a thing.

It’s just not illegal to lie to people

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

Er, well, in court is a whole other thing from in the press. But - point taken. There’s at least precedent if you’ll pardon the expression.

Aqarius ,

It used to be illegal in the press too, IIRC ReagN abolished it.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

?? Not sure which you mean

Aqarius ,

I’m thinking of the fairness doctrine

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

I don’t think the fairness doctrine legislated “truth” as such, though torpedoing it did usher in media conglomeration, talk radio fascism and a host of related bullshit. If it did, though that’d be interesting.

sunzu ,

That's some useless drama lol

FYI

NYT is the original genocide deniers!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

catloaf ,

Ohhhh, so he’s why the NYT went to shit all of a sudden.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

Not sure if that’s a /s but he’s why they’re not going to do anything good at this time when we need it most.

On first read, I got him confused with the Murdochican stooge the Washington Post just hired to bring in all his buddies and screw up that paper.

I thought 2016 would have taught them a lot of lessons, but it doesn’t look like it. Of course, everytime there’s a disastrous political fucksplosion (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and the orange rapist) I think everyone’s going learn something from it. Maybe but goddamn.

Aqarius ,

Why would they? Did any of it affect them negatively?

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

You’ll have to define “affect” and “negatively” but I would say there was a brief moment where on-air personalities apologized for sucking and even the NYT published a long piece about “what they could have done better”.

For anyone who pays attention to the “inside baseball” world of news, journalism, media, whatever - yeah they fucked up royal and knew it. Of course, they spent the trump administration forgetting that and normalizing his insanity, and of course here we are in the blender again even after his coup, his fraud, his national security burning self is A GODDAMNED FACT and yet - nothing. Not even a footnote in any story.

Aqarius ,

I’d define it as “people getting fired and profit being lost”. If neither the people involved nor the overarching corporate entity suffered greater cost that the benefit, then the endeavour was a net gain, regardless of externalities.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

Oh I see how you mean - no, they made out like bandits as usual and some wily interwebs commenter sniped them for it.

ghostdoggtv ,

If you think democracy is a partisan act then you’re a fascist traitor.

Dkarma ,

Beyond that what does he think fascists will do to the heads of the heads of newspapers they don’t like???

ChicoSuave ,

A key factor in supporting fascism is a deep lack of foresight.

jonne ,

Or thinking you can “control” the fascist leader. It’s a mistake the German right made, and there’s a similar dynamic of underestimating Trump as well.

ghostdoggtv ,

Both parties are doing this with each other. Shit is about to go down.

billiam0202 ,

“Why are you coming for us? We stayed nonpartisan!”

“Yeah, that means you were against us 50% of the time. Now march to the camps.”

orcrist ,

It’s much worse than 50%. Non partisan is pro establishment. And the establishment doesn’t give a damn about most Americans most of the time.

pdxfed ,

He’s thinking about the benefits to those the administration does like. Goebbels was a brilliant manipulator and slow boiled the frog in Germany until he had normalized what was happening. Trump and Putin both need enormous machines to keep their operation running.

DmMacniel ,
@DmMacniel@feddit.org avatar

So he wouldn’t care if democracy would go down the drain? Fuck that guy.

girlfreddy ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

That’s what happens when you mix up the Democractic Party and democracy, believing they’re the same thing.

Hint: they are not.

homesweethomeMrL OP ,

Who in their right mind thinks they are?

cybervseas , (edited )

Ew

ETA: I’m trying to find something more constructive to add to the conversation, and I’m struggling. I knew NYT was strange lately, and as a paper of record, I’ve been expecting more from it. At this point, idk who’s left.

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