New York Times Is Enabling Republican Lies

Noth ing is more important to the survival of a democracy than the ability of its citizens to distinguish between fact and fiction. Not surprisingly, this is exactly where Donald Trump and other Republicans have waged their war. Yet amid an avalanche of lies from the president and his allies, the most influential members of the mainstream media are taking refuge in a poisonous version of both-sides-ism that treats truth as a matter of taste, as if the evidence presented by the witnesses in the House impeachment proceedings were of equal value to the absurd outbursts of Trump’s supporters. But as New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg observed, “Trump’s weaponized disinformation” is proving “corrosive to democracy” regardless of its target, because it has eroded “the political salience of reality.” Among the most egregious offenders in this journalistic malpractice is the country’s most important media institution: Goldberg’s own New York Times. Its reporters have repeatedly failed to draw distinctions between one side’s lies and the other’s facts. This happened in the wake of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election when, in a front-page article, reporters Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos explained, “In an era of deep polarization, Mr. Mueller’s 448-page report quickly became yet another case study in the disparate realities of American politics as each camp interpreted it through its own lens and sought to weaponize it against the other side.” Nowhere in this piece did the reporters mention that only the Democrats’ version of events relied on evidence. Read Full Article »