Last week, I left off with New York Times political reporter Kenneth Vogel taking on Threads (and probably other social media) for criticizing the Times’ reporting on Biden and Trump.
Here’s Vogel’s post:
The response was overwhelmingly derisive.
I think what most people were responding to was Vogel’s arrogance and contemptuousness for his readers.
“You clueless national historians, Supreme Court bar members, former top daily news editors,” he seemed to be saying, “you have no idea how journalism really works in the only newspaper that counts. And you are misleading the poor saps who follow you.”
So, we’re going to look at framing this week. With lots of pictures.
I decided to take yesterday’s Times headlines to make the point.
This, of course, was the headline those of us who still read the Times woke up to yesterday morning. Yet another poll before the campaign gets underway asking generic questions of registered and likely voters.
Which means, in doing the poll, the Times and Sienna put their thumb on the scale of who to talk to. They made the editorial decision to go to registered and likely voters rather than all possible voters. They are relying on a sample of the past to predict the future.
And they only talked to 980 people - who answered their phones.
The poll also didn’t ask about issues. We have no idea how the respondents feel about abortion, the environment, or gun violence. These are likely to be galvanizing for voters. As will Project 2025 and the possible loss of democracy.
The poll also didn’t put into context that the last poll the Times and Sienna did - which also had Trump winning - was just before a string of Democratic election victories, including the Kentucky governorship in November, and the recent special election to fill the Congressional seat vacated by George Santos.
Not only did the poll not ask if anyone knew what Project 2025 was, the story about the poll quoted “a 39-year-old independent voter” in Rochester saying, “If we get Trump for another four years, we get a little better on economics.”
First, it’s hard to get better than our current economic outlook. The Times did not identify where this “independent” voter got his news.
Second… four years? This voter really thinks that Trump will step down after four years? As the Times, itself, reported last June, that is unlikely. And the Times really published this with no caveat that Trump has been saying all year that he will be a dictator?
Of course, not only did the Times conduct the poll, and frame it in such a way as to spell doom for Biden, they also ran two stories immediately after ABOUT the poll.
This is the Times creating news, and then writing about what they created.
And just for funsies, this was the headline that Gallup put up in October of 2012, just weeks before Barak Obama won reelection.
Gaza Coverage
The next thing I saw when I looked at the Times yesterday morning was news about Gaza.
First, let’s start with the credible data that’s been collected showing the Times and other Western media have been skewing their reporting to favor Israel.
British data journalist Mona Chalabi, who won a Pulitzer for her freelance work with the Times, put together this graphic just before she accepted the prize in November, a month after the war started. She showed it to her editor before she accepted the award. Then gave a speech about the graphic.
She hasn’t worked for the Times since.
The issue I have with the Gaza headlines from Saturday is that they - and the stories that go with them - illustrate selective framing.
The first one says that Israel “helped organize aid convoy that ended in disaster.”
The subhead, though, was the best. Israel farmed the convoy out to Palestinian businessmen. So, the framing told us, the businessmen were to blame for all the people who were dying of starvation rushing the trucks and making Israeli soldiers shoot them.
I mean, you just can’t get good help these days.
The story, itself, was a bit more nuanced than the headline. The food convoy was taken on by Israel after “international aid groups suspended operations to the area, citing both Israeli refusals to greenlight aid trucks and rising lawlessness.”
The Times, in fact, ran a separate story on how international aid agencies are angry that Israel is blocking aid and then making ham-handed attempts to bring aid in.
So, that’s good.
The Times did not write about the fact that Israel is bombing innocent civilians, destroying almost all the housing in a small area, telling Gazans to go to safe places, and then bombing those places.
Also, notice the passive framing of those two headlines. The convoy “ended in disaster.” People’s lives were “ended” in Gaza.
Even the story about the Gazans who were killed - which is heartbreaking - uses passive framing. “She was killed in an air strike on her family’s building.”
Who dropped the bombs? Who ordered the air strikes? Who has paid for the weapons? Why are Gazans being attacked? Why are children being killed?
Deus ex Machina. Nobody is responsible. Things just happen.
The Times also notes in a third headline that the U.S. is dropping food aid into Gaza. But the story totally ignores the fact that the U.S. is supplying weapons that are used in the destruction and then bringing food aid in to alleviate the results of the destruction.
Maybe it’s me, but this feels like a highly abusive relationship.
Oh, Woe is Poor Trump
This was my favorite framing from Saturday. After the poll and the stories about their poll, the Times put out a headline in a section defining the unprecedented indictments of a former U.S. president as “legal troubles.”
And, the editors telegraph to us in the headline and subhead, the charges against Trump probably aren’t good enough for prosecutors to win. The only way he can lose, really, is by hurting himself.
“Poor Donald. He’s his own worst enemy.”
This is the kind of advice you give a friend or a loved one who is going through a rough time. This is not the kind of advice you give to someone who is trying to game the legal system and crown himself president for life.
Changing Frames
Media columnist Dan Froomkin wants the media to report more on who Trump is, and what he will do if elected. This election is not just a horserace. It is about the future - if any - of our democracy.
According to Froomkin:
Every single new public figure who endorses Trump should be asked by reporters to explain how that squares with their moral beliefs. Do they consider Trump trustworthy? Reliable? Do they agree that the government should root out certain people like vermin? Do they condone his contempt for pluralism? Do they share his willingness to turn over parts of Europe to Vladimir Putin? Do they support setting up camps for the mass deportation of long-time U.S. residents who lack documentation? …Saying Biden is worse doesn’t cut it. How, exactly? What hideous values does he represent?
I agree. The Times, and every other news outlet, needs to traffic in specificity and active verbs. They need to do that in their polling, in their stories, and in their headlines.
Which brings me to three stories I didn’t see in Saturday’s NY Times. Only the Daily Mail reported that Alexander Smirnov - the Hunter Biden accuser who is now in jail for lying to the FBI - was also involved in Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Of course he was. And of course the Times ignored the story.
It should have also been news in the “Paper of Record” that Florida Judge Aileen Cannon asked the prosecutor in the classified documents case about the Justice Department’s “60 day rule,” indicating she may not schedule a trial within that time frame. She also flatly rejected Jack Smith’s proposed July trial date.
But reporting that story wouldn’t go with the “poor Trump” narrative the Times is so fond of.
There’s also this Jane Mayer piece in the New Yorker about Clarence Thomas’ new law clerk, who was fired from the right-wing, anti-Semitic Turning Point USA because her online racist rants were even too much for them.
Not only is this a story about who this person is, but also about how the Supreme Court clerkship hiring process is not remotely fair.
For the Times to do this story, though, would require nuance. And a frank look at racism and power. This is something the Times political reporters and editors don’t want to deal with.
I’m not sure they understand it’s even a thing they should deal with.
Look me up on Threads @ckaufman04 and on Bluesky @carriekaufman.bsky.social.
Thank you for this analysis. I cancelled my WP and NYT subscription within that past 2 weeks. Here’s something the media isn’t acknowledging since the Republicans and Trump are currently trying to take advantage of the woman killed in Georgia by the immigrant from Venezuela.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/19/trump-venezuela-temporary-legal-status-460524