Well, this should come as no fucking surprise.
Earlier this month, Politico released the full transcript of an interview WSJ editor-in-chief Gerard Baker conducted with Donald Trump.
That interview was the subject of what amounted to a puff piece the Journal ran on July 25.
One of things Politico notes in their piece introducing the transcript is that Baker took the lead byline on the story about the interview, “an unusual step for the editor in chief of a paper with a large White House reporting staff.”
Of course it doesn’t seem so “unusual” when you consider that Baker has reportedly taken an aggressively defensive stance towards his own employees with regard to what many believe is hopelessly biased coverage of Donald Trump’s presidential trials and tribulations. Consider this excerpt from the Politico article, for instance:
Baker has defended his paper in the past from criticism, both internal and external, that the broadsheet has been too soft on the real estate mogul and reality-television star-turned-45th president of the United States.
In an internal town hall with employees in February, Baker said that anyone who claims the Journal has been soft on Trump is peddling “fake news,” and that employees who are unhappy with the Journal’s objective, as opposed to oppositional, approach to Trump should work somewhere else.
Nope – nothing suspicious about that.
Well as it turns out, Baker was pretty goddamn frustrated with his staff’s initial draft of a story about Trump’s batshit crazy Phoenix rally, going so far as to demand the removal of the following largely innocuous phrases from the piece the Journal would eventually run:
The speech was an off-script return to campaign form.
Trump pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.
Those statements are true. That is: that’s just what happened. There’s no bias inherent in the phrasing, and even if you want to say there’s some veiled cynicism in there, it’s so tame as to be virtually meaningless. I mean would anyone (other than Trump) seriously read those two sentences and think “wow, really unfair”?
Well anyway, The New York Times has gotten ahold of some e-mails Baker sent to his staff. To wit, from the Times‘ piece on this:
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump, which some journalists there say has lacked toughness and verve.
Some staff members expressed similar concerns on Wednesday after Mr. Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated.
“Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” Mr. Baker wrote at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning to a group of Journal reporters and editors, in response to a draft of the rally article that was intended for the newspaper’s final edition.
He added in a follow-up, “Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?”
Now to be sure, there is nothing unbiased about our Trump coverage. But this is the fucking Wall Street Journal we’re talking about here. Sure, they’ve got a conservative lean, but now it looks like Baker is asking reporters to avoid describing the events as they happened.
I mean read the quotes from his e-mail again. What does this even mean?…
Could we please just stick to reporting what he said?
Why not just skip the reporting altogether then? That is, why not just publish a full transcript of the President’s remarks?
Ohhhhhhh, that’s right. Because if you publish the whole transcript, then Trump looks even crazier. Which is why Baker (essentially) threatened to fire employees who leaked the transcript of his own interview with the President as reported in the linked piece above by Politico.
So basically, the only thing that’s acceptable to Baker when it comes to Trump coverage is transcripts of the President’s remarks edited for craziness and curated by Baker himself, with a byline by Baker.
Got it.
The man is and has been diagnosed by several mental health experts as mentally incompetent. His mental health has been called into question by Republican Congressmen. Congress needs to formerly request and have Trump professionally evaluated for mental competence.
Again, where is Congress? What happened to their public and Constitutional responsibility to remove a self-demonstrated mentally incompetent President from Office. Are Republicans so desperate for power that they would risk the nation, its citizens, their voters over their Republican agenda ambitions? Clearly they are and that needs to be addressed legally.
It’s time hold Republican leadership legally accountable for the dereliction of their sworn Constitutional duties: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion (that means regardless of your personal ambitions and or the agenda ambitions of your respective party) and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.” The Republican leadership is a criminal disgrace to the oath they swore and the voters whose best interest they promised to represent.
For that that matter what are the damn Democrats doing – besides handing the Republican leadership and Trump more and more rope, but without ever initiating the well deserved hanging. The United States of America’s government – the worlds largest faux democracy its biggest “Banana republic,” but a source absurd humor for the rest of the world.
The Democrats, Dugger? They’ve been in a perpetual coma for a long as I can recall. Aside from Obama and perhaps Warren, not a single democrat* who’s a national figure jumps to mind that captures an audience’s attention with the content of their speech or charisma. How about Pelosi, Schumer, Ellison, Malloy, Van Hollen, Klobuchar, Warner, Hoyer, or Tom Perez? Now I’m putting myself into coma.
=====
I don’t consider Bernie a democrat and neither
does he. https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/
Look, I love Bernie, really I do! But he is too old – if he was 20 years younger, I would carry a sign for him! I do think he is honest and has a solid priority list. One that I think has the gumption is Kamala Harris, 52 yr old. She’s on your link, Marty, class III
Kamala Devi Harris is an American attorney and politician who currently serves as the junior senator from California. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She previously served as the 32nd Attorney General of California. https://www.earnthenecklace.com/kamala-harris-wiki-age-husband-parents-net-worth-education-facts/
– Murphy
I agree that Harris is talented, smart, skilled and if we were discussing Harris in a courtroom, a senate hearing, or perhaps a legislative debate on the floor of the senate, she might jump to mind these days. Yet for me, Harris is not a national figure that jumps to mind as one who captures an audience’s attention with the content of speech or charisma. An example is Mario Cuomo. When he picked up the mic everyone paid attention. Including Republicans. When he spoke people listened closely, because he was a fighter, and he was compelling and filled with substance. The people knew it.
Bernie’s Bernie. He’s a special man who was treated badly, in a malicious manner and in an unforgivable way by Wassermann- Schultz, acting at the behest of Hillary Clinton and/or her campaign. Whether it affected the outcome is anyone’s guess equal to the guess of whether the Russians affected the outcome of Trump v Clinton. Few rational people have any doubt that Bernie would be a much better president than the incompetent we have.
Marty, I think Bernie took away some votes in addition to Russian instigating some devastating crap on Hillary and assface constantly repeating total lies about Hillary – the only reason Bernie took away votes is that Hillary has so many haters and lost a lot that turned to Bernie.
Re Kamala, true, no national recognition but then again, Obama didn’t have that either. I think her biggest obstacle would be based on gender. Some of that also spilled over Hillary. There really are no Democrat stars. It’s gotta be an ‘unknown’ Democrat that has the charisma and experience to get the attention. I think Repubs will put Ryan at the top of their ticket. And I cannot stand that sob!
I could close my eyes and throw a rock into a crowd and whomever it hit would be a better president than assface!
– Murphy
God forbid that a responsible news outlet would say “Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?” Didn’t they get the memo that said responsible news reporting means packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?
Of course, it’s so much sexier to remove the ending context and only publicize the first ten words (“Could … said”). Now that’s what I call responsible journalism. /Sarcasm off
Harkening Car 54, OOH! OOH! I’ve got a sensational idea! Let’s frame
“rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism”
by calling it
“Pressured Reporters To Alter Trump Coverage”
Now THAT’s journalism!
This is part of a broader pattern. Good article, “How Conservatives Manipulated the Mainstream Media to Give Us President Trump” at http://billmoyers.com/story/future-democracy-read-media-bias-report/ gives data supporting the thesis.
Trump’s daily pronouncement of outrageous ad lib followed by tightly scripts from the teleprompter create cognitive dissonance in the audience and further divide the country. This is politics at its best: distractions to divide and conquer a populace. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the war plans are under way, the tax cuts for the super rich are negotiated, and the bail outs are paid. This strategy worked for Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. Why should the GOP change a proven game plan?
Now let me see what Trump said today. Breaking news: it is something racist, misogynistic, and outrageous!