The Most Traditional of Traditional Media Lead in 2016 Presidential Campaign Reporting

The New York Times publication of Donald Trump's 1995 tax return a few days ago underlines the heroic work that the most traditional of traditional media - the paper press, and its reflection online - has been doing in the U. S. 2016 Presidential campaign.

The actual tax returns were of course dropped off in a reporter's mailbox at the Times, so it didn't take much work to retrieve them.  But it took acumen and shoe leather to track down the retired accountant in Florida who prepared the tax returns, and confirm that they were the real thing.  Even the excellent New York Daily News tabloid couldn't do that - the returns were left in their mailbox, too, but they lacked the depth and reach of a classic full-throttle newspaper like The New York Times and its reporting team of David Barstow, Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, and Megan Twohey.

Over at Newsweek, one of the two historical titans (with Time magazine) of news magazines, Kurt Eichenwald has published top-notch investigative reporting on Trump's overseas business entanglements and his dealings with Cuba in violation of the US embargo.   These stories were so important that Rachel Maddow at MSNBC previewed each of them on her show the night before their publication in Newsweek, providing a rare occasion in which the traditional paper press not Twitter served as the primary source of a cable news hour.

Meanwhile, David Fahrenthold at the Washington Post has been publishing stories for months that expose the truth of the Trump "charitable" Foundation, and the way it has been used in unethical and illegal ways to suit and further Trump's interests.    A course could be offered at any university about investigative reporting based just on Fahrenthold's relentless pursuit of this story.

I've been saying for years now that traditional print media have had their day, and certainly are not now what they once were.  Newsweek even paused its print edition for a little over a year, and the readership of The New York Times and the Washington Post has plummeted since their heydays.  But after the reporting they've provided in the past months, I'll make no mistake about it:  even in their diminished form, traditional print journalism has been providing unique and extraordinary service to our democracy.

The Heroism of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Abdication of the Media

I was disappointed but not really surprised that The New York Times called out Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg yesterday for her apt and heroic criticism of Donald Trump, worrying that "Washington is more than partisan enough without the spectacle of a Supreme Court justice flinging herself into the mosh pit".  The Times has sunk a long way, both in its reporting and editorials, since I read it every day in my high school cafeteria in the 1960s.   Come to think of it, it was painfully slow in getting it right about how wrong the Vietnam War was back then, too, but at least it had its moments with its publication of The Pentagon Papers.   The same can be said about the Washington Post, its publication of The Pentagon Papers, and its criticism of Ginsburg, calling her comments about Trump "inappropriate" and "much, much better left unsaid by a member of the Supreme Court".

"Better left unsaid?"  If either editorial board had more than a superficial knowledge of the US Supreme Court and its history, they might have come across the following from Associate Justice Louis Brandeis:

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.  Concurring opinion, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927).

But Trump has risen and thrived due to ignorance of history and the lessons of what can happen in a democracy when it elects someone like Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.   No, I don't think Trump is exactly the same as Hitler, but Trump is as bad as it gets these days as a major party candidate.   And while the media fidget and express concern that Trump's critics have gone too far - including Chris Matthews, who on MSNBC yesterday afternoon expressed concern that Hillary Clinton may have gone over the line in her speech in Springfield, Illinois yesterday, in which she wondered if Trump might use the military to silence his critics - Trump continues to threaten many of the very foundations of our democracy, including the press itself.

The media, and especially The New York Times, made things worse in the build-up to the Iraq War, uncritically supporting the US and British claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. They did it again with Trump in the early days of his campaign, treating it as a source of humor and a magnet for higher ratings and ad sales, rather than denouncing him for what he is and has done, and backing that up with relentless investigative reporting.

So we have the media to blame, at least in part, for where we are today with Trump about to get the Republican nomination for President, and they attack Ruth Bader Ginsburg for bravely shouting fire in the crowded theater of our democracy?   I've got some news and a little more history for The Times and the media: shouting fire when there really is a fire is exactly what a responsible citizen is supposed to do (it's falsely shouting fire that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. warned about in his famous 1919 Supreme Court opinion).  

We live in a country in which the Republicans daily flout the Constitution by refusing to hold hearings on Obama's Supreme Court nominee, media such as The New York Times abdicate their responsibility, and both unsurprisingly are roused to come out and attack Ginsburg for doing her job as a citizen.   With any luck and a lot of hard work, Trump will lose and the Republicans in Congress will be voted out of office.   As for the traditional media - well, they'll likely continue to wither and be replaced by the Internet, which has already become the bedrock of our democracy.

PS - News just broke that Ginsburg expressed regret regarding her comments about Trump - doesn't change in the slightest that what she said about Trump was right and she was right to say it.

Obama Weak in Protecting Citizens and Journalists in Ferguson

Obama's words an hour ago about what has been going on in Ferguson, Missouri were better than nothing, but a little late and, typically, a little weak.

The situation in Ferguson could not be more clearcut:  Under the First Amendment, people have the right to peaceably assemble to protest, which means not being teargassed, and not have police who look like an invading force in Iraq point all kinds of military weapons at you.   Under the First Amendment, reporters have the right - the obligation - to convey what is happening before them to the American people, and not be arrested as happened to two reporters (one of whom works for the Washington Post - African-American, perhaps not coincidentally).   When citizens and journalists are threatened and arrested by local police, it is the duty of the President to send in the National Guard to protect the people and physically restrain the police when necessary.

All of this, of course, in addition to the apparent murder of Michael Brown requiring justice.

It's unfortunately not surprising that Obama has done so little to protect the people in Ferguson.   He said little or nothing when the out of control cop pepper sprayed an innocent student in California during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.   He said nothing against Michael Bloomberg's consistent use of New York police to trample on the rights of citizens, journalists, and citizen journalists during Occupy Wall Street.   As I described at length in New New Media, it's a good thing that courageous people recorded some of this police misconduct on their phones.

MSNBC did a great job last night in providing live, ongoing coverage of the events in Ferguson.  Not so much the New York Times, which put the Ferguson story below the fold in today's edition, with Iraq on top (fair enough, maybe), accompanied by stories about the Bloomberg era at Rikers, poverty in America, and college sports (totally ridiculous!).   Perhaps if the arrested reporter had been working for the New York Times, the events in Ferguson would have received better coverage from the newspaper of record.

This is not the first time in American history that the Federal government has been required to step in when the local authorities have been violating the law to the peril of its citizens.   Eisenhower did it in the 1950s, and Kennedy in the 1960s, to protect citizens who were being blocked by local authorities from attending their schools.   In both cases, the National Guard was sent in to literally push the local authorities aside.

As Obama concludes his second term, he might want to think about this.   At this point, regarding the protection of the constitutional rights of American citizens, he not only has been no JFK, he's been no Eisenhower.   But there's still time for Obama to do the right thing.   I urge him to do so - as Representative John Lewis and others in the legislative branch have requested - before further damage is done to the American people.

Newspaper Coverage of Ron Paul in Iowa: B+

Newspapers have nothing like the clout they once had - 24/7 cable news and even more so the Internet have gobbled up the newspapers' lunch. But they still show up on lots of breakfast tables and commuter trains, not to mention hotel rooms, and they're still read by millions of people. So, in the view of the shabby treatment Ron Paul has received by TV news operations such as ABC, I thought it would be a good idea to take a glance at how newspapers reported the results of the Iowa Straw Poll earlier this week - in particular, were they accurate and complete in their coverage, with explicit inclusion of the fact that Ron Paul came in an impressive fifth, or halfway up the ladder.

The newspaper coverage was good-to-mixed.

Ron Paul was not only mentioned in this USA Today article, but a picture of him giving autographs to supporters was at the top of the story. The New York Times did the right thing in its article about the results of the Iowa Straw Poll, especially with this background -

If the Romney and Brownback campaigns had fleets of buses to ferry their supporters to Ames, a central Iowa city of about 50,000, loyalists of Representative Ron Paul of Texas appeared to come on their own. But come they did, with a crowd of a few hundred overflowing his white tent.

“I don’t make predictions, but I do say we are going to do very well!” Mr. Paul said, screaming to be heard over his audience. “How can anybody turn down the possibility to vote for freedom and hope?”

This is impressive and encouraging - USA Today with over two million circulation and The New York Times with about a million are the most read newspapers in the country. (You may or not need an account on the NY Times web site to read the above article.)

But the Washington Post, certainly almost if not completely as influential as The New York Times, left Ron Paul completely out its Romney Wins Iowa's GOP Poll article. This was- why? Because Ron Paul is not Washington insider? It doesn't matter what the reason is, Ron Paul should have been in this article.

In terms of what most Americans in most states read, however, it's likely not the Washington Post or The New York Times. News wires such as AP (Associated Press) are carried in hundreds of major newspapers around the country.

How did Ron Paul do there?

Here's an expert from Mike Glover's AP story about the results of the Iowa Straw Poll, which ran in the San Diego Union Tribune -

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo has made illegal immigration his signature issue and scored a fourth-place showing with 1,961 votes, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has developed an Internet-driven following, came in fifth with 1,305 votes.

The AP usually puts out numerous, updated versions of its major stories, so I can't guarantee that the above appeared in every newspaper. But it is certainly the story that now appears online.

All in all, then, newspapers did pretty well in their coverage of Ron Paul and the Iowa Straw Poll. The Washington Post is a major, regrettable exception, but does not seem to be in the majority of newspaper coverage. And, as unacceptable as the Washington Post's poor coverage was, it is still not in the same league as ABC's outrageous failure to mention Ron Paul's first place position in reporting the results of its own poll, or in showing just a lone Ron Paul supporter an Iowa rally, when in fact there were throngs. Further, ABC is one of just three major national, non-cable news networks - in contrast to the Washington Post being one of many important newspapers in this country.

Perhaps our broadcast media still have a bit to learn from our print media. Maybe newspaper reporters are more attuned to what's being posted on the Internet, because newspapers and the Internet are primarily written media, in contrast to broadcasting.

In any case, I'll be keeping my eye on how all the media in our country are covering Ron Paul and his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination. I want to be well prepared for my Fall classes at Fordham, where I'll be teaching about this in the Fall.



See also - ABC's Abuse of American Electorate to Be Included in my Curriculum This Fall

and More ABC News Distortion to be Included in My Curriculum

and The Media Disenfranchising of Ron Paul