By calling for Biden's withdrawal, the Times is hardly "All the news that's fit to print."

The Times, the Post and other media mainstays have lost their way

Issue #664 The Choice, Thursday, July 11, 2024

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NOTE: SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF THIS ARTICLE THIS MORNING, THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS NOW ALSO - AND FINALLY - CALLED FOR DONALD TRUMP TO WITHDRAW FROM THE RACE]

Let me begin by saying this is one of the harder columns I’ve ever had to write.

I have been a journalist for 40 years, since the spring/summer of 1984 when I had my first three-month internship at the Littleton Independent in Littleton, Colorado. This journey began at the urging of my mother to see if maybe journalism was something I might enjoy as a career since it had become apparent that my trying to earn a living as a writer of science fiction might be a bit difficult.

It didn’t take more than about 15 minutes spent in that tiny newsroom for me to sense that this was where I belonged. And once the Independent published my very first article on how computer-aided design was going to be the next big thing in designing cars, I was hooked. You might even say I had a ring in my nose. There was no place else I’d rather be. So when I got my next internship – this time for a year – at my hometown paper The Denver Post, I was so in love that I didn’t care what shift I got assigned to work, didn’t care what hours or on what day. Whatever. Didn’t care. Just let me breathe that newsroom air. Plus, The Denver Post had been delivered to our family’s doorstep for as long as I could remember, so it was a special thrill to actually be working there.

Once that internship was done, I was accepted to my final internship – again for one year – at the prestigious Los Angeles Times as a member of the second class of the LA Times Minority Editorial Training Program, otherwise known as METPRO. I still remember some of the veteran Times reporters (white) who initially bore some resentment toward the program, referring to us as Metbros. Get it? Bro? Isn’t that clever? But we soon proved that we bros – and sistuhs - had the right address, and the level of respect for our abilities grew.

Since those early days, my career has taken me from the Ann Arbor News, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I began my first paying gig as a reporter, to the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, to the Detroit Free Press, where I was a member of one of the top-ranked editorial pages in the nation on the nation’s 6^th largest newspaper. I felt like I was on top of the world, and even more so when I became a nationally syndicated columnist for the Universal Press Syndicate, where I believe I may have been the only Black syndicated columnist at the time.

Then the strike happened, the longest newspaper strike in history, kicking off its 5-year stretch in July of 1995. I joined the strike, subsequently lost my syndicated column, but then became a bi-weekly columnist for the local Detroit Metro Times, and also served twice as the editor of The Michigan Chronicle, Michigan’s historic and largest Black newspaper.

So yeah, I’ve been at this for a while. And for that entire time, I have always been so proud to call myself a journalist, to be a member of what I have always considered to be such an honorable profession – more of a calling, really – that strives not only to inform and educate the public but also to protect the public by sharing important information that most average folks may not have easy access to. For as long as I have been a journalist, I have always felt like I was doing some measure of good in the world, and, to me, newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post always represented the absolute height of journalistic excellence. Although, unlike many of my colleagues, I never aspired to work for either, preferring to avoid New York and especially Washington D.C., I nevertheless have remained a loyal reader, supporter, and subscriber of both papers for nearly my entire 40-year career.

Until now. Last week, with a considerable amount of internal anguish and anger, I canceled my subscriptions to both. Whether or not I ever resubscribe remains to be seen.

What prompted my cancellation was when both papers decided to call for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race and make room for another Democratic candidate. For me, that was the last straw. Not simply because I support Biden and think he is the best choice, but because both papers were asking for something they had to know was so impractical and disruptive – more like explosive – that it was crazy. Because of one bad debate performance, two of the country’s most respected newspapers were essentially demanding that the top Democratic vote-getter step out of the race to make room for (insert unqualified candidate here) to step in with no campaign funds raised and no campaign infrastructure in place. No campaign staff, no campaign offices, no flyers, no campaign ads. This individual would have five months to step in behind one of the most successful Democratic presidents in modern history, assemble an entire presidential campaign from scratch, choose a vice president, unite the Democratic party, and then beat Donald Trump.

Bullshit.

And they knew it. If they didn’t know it, they have no business in the business. And if they did know it, then asking Biden to step down while knowing what would actually be involved in such a middle-of-the-stream transition was the height of journalistic malpractice. This malpractice was further compounded by the fact that no such demand was made of Donald Trump, who should be considered an illegitimate candidate for more reasons than I have time to list here, but we can start with 34 criminal charges on which the convicted rapist and serial liar has been convicted.

Throughout Biden’s presidency, his numerous accomplishments have largely been brushed aside or ignored, to make way for either Trump’s (more exciting…?) crime of the day, or to highlight (repeatedly) Biden’s age and his inability to deliver soul-stirring speeches like those of former President Barack Obama. The fact that Trump has been visibly losing his mind and delivering wildly incoherent and rambling word-salad speeches (?) for over a year now almost never seems to make the cut as a relevant news story. But if President Biden doesn’t tie his shoelaces correctly then it’s front-page news.

Let’s be clear; this is not just imbalanced coverage. What this has become is intentional misinformation packaged and delivered to a mostly unsuspecting public by two of this nation’s most widely-respected news organizations with remarkable track records of forcing the high and mighty to be accountable. I mean, why wouldn’t you trust these guys, right?

Well, now we know why.

So now it’s not just the Russians we have to defend against spreading misinformation and disinformation. Now we have to defend ourselves from our most respected news organizations. News organizations that I have spent a large part of my life looking up to as the guiding lights of journalism. One of which bears the motto, “All the news that’s fit to print (the New York Times).”

To me, this is soul-crushing.

But it’s not just the Times or the Post that has lost its moorings. Just this week, the White House press corps behaved like a bunch of frenzied hyenas who hadn’t been fed in a week as they mercilessly badgered White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about a totally false and poorly reported story that had appeared in -where else? – the New York Times. Jean-Pierre was openly being accused of withholding information from the press and dodging their questions - until it turned out that Jean-Pierre wasn’t withholding anything and was telling the truth the whole time. MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell has been one of the few reporters to get this story completely right – and to properly blast the NYT for their screwup.

But has there been an apology? A retraction? A reflection on the fact that maybe, just maybe, a certain number of major media outlets fucked up in a major way?

Of course not. Because that would be too much like right.

Instead, the Times and others (thank God the Philadelphia Inquirer had some sense and published an editorial that completely called into question whatever the hell the Times called itself doing calling for Biden’s withdrawal) will likely continue stumbling and bumbling down their chosen path, if for no other reason than because they are too far gone to know any other direction. The consequences of this sort of willful malpractice will only become more and more evident, especially if President Biden loses the race. But I don’t think this will happen because thankfully most Americans do not get their news from the Times or the Post.

But that’s not a good thing to brag about. Because we should be able to trust those news organizations. Not to get it right every time, but to strive for that standard, and to let us know when they fall short. That’s the profession I signed on for, and it’s the profession I recognize.

I no longer recognize what the hell the Times, the Post, or the Washington press corps have become.

They need to do better, and they need to do better right now. Because not only do we deserve it, but so do they. And because without it, we have a serious problem.

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