Plan A: Russia Mania. Plan B: Racism Mania

It's what everyone's talking about today: Somebody at a NYT in-house townhall recorded the whole thing and Slate published a transcript. What's revealed is that the NYT was caught totally flatfooted when the Russia Hoax collapsed, and they're now scrambling to formulate a new narrative about Trump. Guess what? It's racism! No, really! All racism all the time. Starting with the founding of America in 1619. Ha ha--you thought the Pilgrims got here first? That just shows you don't know what it means to be a Nacirema. The whole thing is about how unhappy the staffers are that they can't call Trump a "racist" in every single story. Including, apparently science stories (nope, not kidding).

So here are two blogs that cover this story about the people who write the stories. Both are excellent in there own ways:

NYT Editor: After Failure of Our Russia Mania Plan A to Get Trump, We've Launched Our Racism Mania Plan B

I really liked this excerpt:

Shifting some of the excerpts in different order: 

… Staffer: Hi. Thank you so much for doing this. I guess I have a two-part question. The first part is: Would it be fair to say that, if [contributing op-ed writer] Roxane Gay hadn’t tweeted out what she tweeted out, that we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now? And if that is true—or, regardless of whether it’s true—I think that something that some people have been wondering is: Do you feel that there is a person in a high position of power who can be as explicitly self-critical of this organization as Roxane Gay has, and is in a position to be, because she’s on the outside? Do you think that we would benefit from that? 

This is about the spat in which NYT columnist Roxane Gay (who enjoys Intersectional Pokemon Points for being black, a woman, and obese) called the NYT’s deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman “unqualified” and he demanded an “enormous apology” from her. He wound up demoted, which probably tells you something about who is higher up on the diversity totem pole.

I really luv that: "I'm 'unqualified'? OK, just for that, you give me an Enormous Apology! Demoted? Huuuuhhhhh?"

And there's lots more good stuff.

A Newspaper, Or The Oberlin Faculty Senate?

It's long, but here are excerpts:

If you keep your eye on media news, you know that The New York Times, the most important newspaper in America, has been roiled internally over whether or not a headline it published over a Trump story (about his post El Paso speech) exonerated the president from racism. The original headline read “Trump Urges Unity Vs. Racism.” After a staff revolt, the headline was later changed to “Assailing Hate, But Not Guns”. 

The paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, met with the staff about the headline, and the paper’s coverage of race. Slate published the transcript of a leaked recording. I encourage you to read it to get an idea of how the people who put out the most influential newspaper in the world think about this stuff. They go on and on and on, torturing Baquet over this one measly headline that accurately and neutrally described Trump’s speech. 

... 

I bet he actually believes that his team is “independent,” and actually wants to “understand the segment of America that probably does not read” the Times. To be fair, I know a handful of people who work at the paper, and I trust their journalistic integrity. But overall, I don’t trust the Times (though I’m a subscriber) to tell this story anywhere remotely close to straight and honest. Read the transcript of that meeting, and tell me that The New York Times is prepared to understand this country outside blue precincts!

Byron York weighs in:

Byron York
@ByronYork

Did it sometimes seem like the New York Times' entire focus was Trump-Russia? Like it built its newsroom around one story? Now, top editor says it did just that. But after Mueller report, paper has had to retool. New focus? Trump racism.

5:26 AM - 16 Aug 2019