As a Wall St. Journal reporter Abramson wrote a maliciously biased book about the Anita Hill/ Clarence Thomas controversy, air-brushing and obfuscating evidence that contradicted Hill’s claims. rsk
Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, used White House reporter Glenn Thrush as an example of how reporters shouldn’t talk about President Trump.“On Twitter, Glenn Thrush, an otherwise great reporter, has tweeted that Trump had ‘breathtaking chutzpah,’ that he ‘will never get over the shock of waking up and seeing the leader of the free world spouting demonstrably false information,’” Abramson recounted in a recent analysis of the paper’s political coverage. While Thrush’s observations may be true, Abramson wrote, they are opinions — and it’s exactly that type of commentary that can be twisted by critics as “gloating” or “overkill” — and that can hurt the paper’s historic, unrelenting and overall accurate coverage of the administration.
The column:
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/when-all-the-news-that-fits-is-trump.php
Jill Abramson is a former executive editor of The New York Times. She also writes a political column for The Guardian and is finishing a book on the transformation of the news industry. She is a senior lecturer in the English department of Harvard University.
Since the election, The New York Times has toughened everything about its coverage of Donald Trump, from the choice of words it uses to describe what he says to the number of reporters assigned to cover and investigate him. Like everyone else, the Times underestimated his chances of being elected. Although it published impressive investigations of his taxes, treatment of women, and real-estate deals, it was only after his surprise victory that the dimensions of Russia’s interference in the election and ties to Trump were examined and revealed.
In recent months, the Times has been in a running one-upmanship battle with The Washington Post, a thrilling journalistic display that has reinforced the importance of the few national news organizations left that still have the muscle to do this kind of reporting. “The role of the press is clearer now than it’s ever been,” said Executive Editor Dean Baquet on CBS’s Face the Nation in February. The quixotic nature of the new administration, the president’s serial lies (the word Baquet was right to use on the front page), and the false narratives that tumble out of the White House daily cry out for this kind of accountability journalism.