Former Times editor not happy with reporters’ cable punditry

NEW YORK >> Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson takes a dim view of many of the appearances that reporters at her former newspaper and The Washington Post make on cable networks to talk about President Donald Trump.

“I really think that all the cable appearances on panels, particularly on CNN and MSNBC, are a huge mistake,” she said. Abramson, editor of the Times from 2011 to 2014, spoke to reporters Friday before the publication of her book on the media, “Merchants of Truth.”

Print reporters are a staple at those two networks these days, often touting stories they have written for their newspapers. Abramson said she gets concerned when the reporters appear with opinionated commentators or are fed leading questions by hosts who have a clear point of view. The appearance to viewers can be that they agree with the opinions, she said.

She cited two Times reporters, Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, as skillful in sticking to their reporting. She stopped short of saying she would forbid reporters from making such appearances, which raise visibility for the newspaper and the reporters as individuals.

“I don’t believe in bans,” she said. “I don’t. I would monitor it more carefully.”

Abramson’s book is modeled after David Halberstam’s 1979 work, “The Powers That Be,” that looked at the Times, Post, CBS News, Los Angeles Times and Time magazine. Abramson examines the Times, Post, Buzzfeed and Vice Media.

She was already the subject of a presidential tweet a month before publication. After Fox News reported on her book’s conclusion that the Times’ news pages were “unmistakably anti-Trump,” the president wrote that she was “100 percent correct,” and condemned the newspaper’s “horrible and totally dishonest reporting.” Abramson shot back that it’s clear to anyone who reads the book how much she reveres the Times and that its tough reporting on the administration has been vital.

“Think where we would be now without the New York Times and Washington Post,” she said.

EVAN AGOSTINI — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE In this file photo, Jill Abramson attends the 2010 Matrix Awards presented by the New York Women in Communications at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.