REPORTING, NOT RESISTING
The New York Times reported that on Jan. 8, 2021, the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, told colleagues that President Trump’s behavior during the storming of the United States Capitol two days earlier had been “atrocious and totally wrong.” He even suggested Trump might resign and added, “I’ve had it with this guy,” wrote the Times.
McCarthy, who has cravenly reversed course and now kisses Trump’s ring, blasted the Times report as “totally false and wrong.” Well, no. The Times produced an audio tape, proving that the Republican leader — who will likely become the next Speaker — is a bald-faced liar.
This episode came as the Times announced a change in its top editors, with 65-year-old Dean Baquet stepping down and his chief deputy, Joe Kahn, taking over. It’s a moment to contemplate the role of the Times and other mainstream media outlets as Trump continues to promote his Big Lie — that the 2020 election was stolen from him — and threatens to run again in 2024.
The Times’ story on McCarthy’s true feelings provides at least part of the answer. It’s called reporting. It’s called finding the facts. It’s called fearless determination to hold the powerful accountable — with the truth.
I worked for the Times for 25 years, and I am well aware of its many flaws and faults. But the paper — and independent journalists everywhere — remain an absolutely essential part of any healthy democracy. During the Trump years, those journalists have been under enormous pressure to join the “resistance,” to take sides in the political and cultural wars ignited by the president.
Some of this pressure comes from outside the Times, from its left-leaning subscriber base, which is both well-informed and highly vocal.
Other pressures are coming from inside the paper itself. As Baquet has admitted, “There is a generational divide in newsrooms right now,” and that divide is particularly acute among young reporters of color. But Baquet, who is Black himself, has long insisted, “Our role is not to be the leader of the resistance.”
“What I’m saying is that our readers and some of our staff cheer us when we take on Donald Trump, but they jeer at us when we take on Joe Biden,” Baquet explains. “They sometimes want us to pretend that he was not elected president, but he was elected president. And our job is to figure out why, and how, and to hold the administration to account. If you’re independent, that’s what you do.”
Independent, yes — but not blind to reality and the need for change. In 2016, for example, the Times decided to use the word “lie” to describe Trump’s persistent prevarications.
The Times, like many outlets, has abandoned “both-sidesism” or “false equivalency”: the notion that two parties to a dispute should usually be given equal weight. COVID quacks or climate change deniers, for example, don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
Another huge change is diversity. When I joined the Times in 1964, almost every reporter and editor looked like me — a white, straight, Ivy League-educated male. It took the Times years to adjust, but it has.
The question is, what does diversity mean? It should mean that new voices are being heard, new stories are being uncovered, new angles are being explored. It should not mean that journalistic standards are being abrogated, that those new voices and stories and angles are promoted from an ideological or partisan perspective.
That’s what the Times scoop about McCarthy demonstrates. It was far more powerful, more valid, because it was produced by independent reporters, not members of the “resistance.”