The New York Times, once considered an international leader in journalism, now resembles more of a Democratic National Committee mouthpiece than the paper of record. The few conservatives who take the time to read it anymore are often treated to a plethora of highly biased propaganda and often incorrect information. Here’s but a small sample:
‘Unhinged’: NY Times Hilariously Mocked for Going Full 2000 Election Truther in Joe Lieberman Obituary
Former New York Times Editor Gives Behind-the-Scenes Look Into Paper’s Progressive Bias
NY Times: Don’t Worry About the $112.1B in Shoplifting, It’s a Right-Wing Narrative
But the president and his team don’t seem to have received the memo that the Times is in the tank for him—in fact, they don’t think the paper is biased enough in his favor and consider staffers “entitled” and “arrogant.”
In a long piece published Thursday, Politico described the growing tensions between the White House press staff and Times brass, detailing arguments over background sourcing and other inside baseball matters. But one event that occurred in the spring of 2023 epitomizes the bad blood between the two parties—the publisher of the Times, A.G. Sulzberger, had the temerity to ask Vice President Kamala Harris a basic question: why does the president avoid interviews like the plague and hide from the American people?
Kamala was not amused:
The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau. Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview. Harris, according to three people in the room that day, suggested that he contact the White House press office and later grumbled to aides about the back-and-forth being a waste of the allotted time.
How dare Sulzberger ask a question that is unfavorable to the president! The nerve! You can almost hear Kamala thinking to herself, “What is wrong with these people? They’re actually committing journalism—that’s not their function.”
Most conservatives think the paper’s coverage of the befuddled president is hopelessly fawning, so why is the Biden team annoyed? The reason is because they think they’re changing the world, and that negative stories or insinuations should be ignored in a bow to the Cause.
The president’s press flacks might bemoan what they see as the entitlement of Times staffers, but they themselves put the newspaper on the highest of pedestals given its history, stature and unparalleled reach. And yet, they see the Times falling short in a make-or-break moment for American democracy, stubbornly refusing to adjust its coverage as it strives for the appearance of impartial neutrality, often blurring the asymmetries between former President Donald Trump and Biden when it comes to their perceived flaws and vastly different commitments to democratic principles.
Oh please. I’ve never seen anything in that paper that comes anywhere close to comparing their saint, Joe Biden, to their Hitler, Donald Trump. Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller pointed out their flawed logic:
“They’re not being realistic about what we do for a living,” Bumiller told me. “You can be a force for democracy, liberal democracy. You don’t have to be a force for the Biden White House.”
The reality is that this has been one of the least transparent administrations in modern history, and Biden virtually never approves an interview with a real journalist or someone who’s willing to ask hard questions. Instead, he prefers to make the very occasional appearance with network anchors who stare at him with glistening doe eyes, or he’ll show up for late-night comedy shows with leftist hosts pitching softballs.
We all know why this is the case: if he ever did sit for a hard-hitting interview, he would likely faceplant because he can no longer get through basic sentences coherently. Additionally, with wars in Gaza and Ukraine, an economy that has hurt regular Americans with his Bidenflation, and an out-of-control border crisis, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked.
Three years into his disastrous presidency, it’s clear he doesn’t have the answers.
