Will The New York Times Ever Fix Its Clinton Problem?

[ehrnst]

The fact is that the Times and the Clintons have been locked in this solipsistic dance of destruction ever since Jeff Gerth wrote the first botched story about Whitewater during the 1992 presidential campaign. It has defined the newspaper and the family, one to another. Somehow, Being Tough on the Clintons has become one of the ways the Times has tried to prove its journalistic bona fides to the country and the world, while the Clintons seem to veer between hating the paper and wondering why the it doesn't love them.
...........................................................................................

In one 1996 column, Safire memorably called HRC "a congenital liar," and in January of 1997, he assured his readers that indictments were imminent on the FileGate story. They were not, but Indictments Are Imminent became a genre of the Times' Clinton coverage unto the most recent campaign, as we shall see. Due to the exalted position the Times holds in American journalism, the extended exercise in bad journalism that was conducted between 1992 and 2000 has had a remarkable shelf-life, as demonstrated by this column from the Washington Post's Kathleen Parker from January of 20-bloody-16.

Questions about Hillary Clinton's honesty did not start with Benghazi or with emails and a private server, but began ages ago with any number of fabricated — or at least exaggerated — stories. Many may remember what New York Times columnist William Safire wrote about Clinton in 1996: "Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar," he said. "Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit." There "they" go again? Safire's concerns at the time — Whitewater, Travelgate, "lost" records — may seem remote and trivial to some, but the drip-drip he identified didn't stop with the White House years.

These events were not only "remote and trivial." They were, by and large, complete bullshit, inflated by Republicans and a willing and timid elite political press into a Questions Remain culture of faux-scandal that persisted through the entirety of the 2016 campaign. And it began long before the Times ran seven stories about James Comey's release of his 11th hour letter to Congress on its front page.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54602/new-york-times-clinton-coverage-book/

[yallerdawg]

1. What the M$M has done to Hillary for three decades...

is a deep, dark stain on democracy and the Fourth Estate.

Let's hope America survives the real Bond villain "the press" just enabled, while demonizing the qualified and experienced candidate who won the election if we actually lived in a democracy.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. This

[NastyRiffraff]

3. The NYT has a lot to answer for

It was at least partially responsible for planting the seeds of Hillary's "dishonesty" in the minds of the public, and thus influencing the election.

[yardwork]

4. The NYT were cheerleaders for invading Iraq and published fake stories.

They have a lot to answer for.

[seta1950]

5. Yes

Yes they do !

[JHan]

6. The myth that the press favors Hillary , especially NYT, needs to die. Check this crazy ass example:

Some of the worst articles I read during the election from an established paper came from the NYT, how did this BS manage to get the greenlight by the editor:

Hillary’s New Go-To Gesture: Hand to the Heart

"At the Democratic National Convention, when she took the stage to wild applause, she cued the audience on how grateful, moved and humbled she felt by putting her hand to her heart, once, twice, then a third and fourth time.

It’s a subliminal message of sincerity that some language experts consider contrived.

Bill McGowan, a communications coach and chief executive of Clarity Media Group, calls the hand-on-heart motion “the gesture du jour.” He said he has noticed that other politicians have adopted the habit, and he doesn’t think it’s entirely artless.


Chelsea Clinton used the gesture when she introduced her mother at the convention. Michelle Obama put her hand on her heart multiple times when she mentioned her daughters. Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim United States soldier killed in combat, did the same when the crowd applauded his son’s sacrifice.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada may have inspired the trend: He put his hand to his heart so humbly and so often before cheering audiences during his campaign last year, it became almost a trademark.

Or, as Tristin Hopper, a writer for the Canadian newspaper The National Post put it: “Trudeau, however, manages not only a hand on his heart but moist eyes and a glowing expression, all delivered as a kind of silent ‘For me? Oh my God, thank you.’”

“If you are cynical, which I am not, you could say Hillary Clinton is trying to show audiences that she is warm and fuzzy and approachable,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. “But from my perspective, it’s great shorthand: It conveys emotion and gratitude and humbleness. It reminded me of baseball players who point a finger up to the sky after a home run to say that it was God, not them, who made it happen.”"

The writer whipped up antagonistic spin over a freaking hand gesture which is common and which every goddamn human being has done at some point in their lives.

[Paladin]

7. The NYT could make a good start by firing Maureen Dowd.

Her longstanding hatred of the Clintons has been an ugly feature of the paper's opinion section for decades. That, and she doesn't write worth a damn. Away with her.......

[Lonestarblue]

9. Dowd should have been fired years ago.

I refuse even to click on her columns--not worth the time to read them. William Safire is the one I hold responsible for a lot of the NYT Clinton hate. While accusing the Clintons of lying over and over, he knowingly did so without any real proof nad he was vicious in his Clinton denouncements. And during the election, the NYT repeadedly wrote favorable headlines for Trump and unfavorable ones for Clinton. I wrote to the editor to complain but never got a response. One I remember referred to the fraud at the Clinton Foundation but just scrutiny of the really fraudulent Trump Foundation.

[Raven123]

8. Agreed and the reason I ended my subscription to the NYT in 2008