Score One For A.G. Sulzberger

I don't read many book-length works by newspaper reporters, for the same reason I read fewer law review articles than I used to: At my age, I consider it reasonable not to suffer through more bad writing than is strictly necessary. Even so, I have long had a pre-order in for Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book Original Sin, and today's review in the Times is certainly a nice amuse-bouche before the main event. Discussion of the book takes my recollection back to a briefly popular media-centered discussion from Biden's presidency, centering on whether the Times was being tough on Biden about his age because its publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, refused to give the Times a sit-down interview. Although the whole thing will befuddle those who think, with or without specific reasons, that the Times was always easy on Biden, the Biden administration and some of its apologists were convinced otherwise.

This Politico story gives much of the background. It is relevant, perhaps, to both current criticism of the press for "covering up" problems with Biden and retrospective understanding of how and why the administration did its own covering up, to note that the Politico story, which was published a couple of months before the disastrous June debate, describes administration anger at the Times for Peter Baker's "unrelenting focus on Biden’s advanced age." It is likewise now noteworthy that the story notes Biden staffers' view that the Times's perceived harshness was especially wrong given an upcoming election that they viewed as "a matter of democracy’s survival." So did I, more or less, and I sure do now--and Biden and his staffers could not have failed that test more completely.  

One striking element of the so-called feud between Biden and the Times was the Times's push for a sit-down, on-the-record interview with Biden and the Times. As the Politico piece notes, every president since Roosevelt had sat for such an interview--except Biden, who had "sat for interviews with only two print reporters in more than three years" and never did so for the Times. The story notes:

Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger....But the pleas for an interview have gone nowhere. As Sulzberger often tells colleagues and as he and Kahn have stressed in private conversations with the administration, every modern president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has done an interview with the Times. That, however, is an argument deemed uncompelling by Biden aides and one that, to some White House officials, smacks of entitlement....In Sulzberger’s view, according to two people familiar with his private comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.

The whole story is worth reading or rereading, for those who are litigating or relitigating all the Biden/age/press issues. Much press criticism is like most cultural and political debate: it starts with the desired conclusion and works backwards. So views on the contretemps tended to follow political lines. But it's certainly worth noting that a great many people took the Biden administration's side, thinking it hoity-toity of the Times to insist on an interview and accusing Sulzberger of bending coverage against him because of it. (Unsurprisingly, one of those people was Margaret Sullivan, a former Times public editor and a terrible press critic. And here's a two-fer, with Sullivan and Dahlia Lithwick. And one from another terrible press critic, Dan Froomkin. Pardon the pun, but those views didn't age well.) Sulzberger denied directing coverage, while insisting that, "For anyone who understands the role of the free press in a democracy, it should be troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term....Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors." (Another bad press critic, Jeff Jarvis, called the first sentence a "hissy-fit.") 

I'm not a big fan of Sulzberger; the Times is not the paper it should be, and Sulzberger dishonored the paper when he caved to pressure and fired James Bennet. But one must give him his due on this one. The Times and other media outlets will get their share of criticism for possible failings to more aggressively investigate Biden's condition, just as they do and will for failing to more aggressively investigate Trump's condition. But it's hard to do a good job investigating the condition of a man who deliberately shielded himself, and was shielded, from public exposure to anyone who might be unfriendly, or at least indifferent to his wants. Sulzberger was right to push.

I hope this adds a nail to the coffin with regard to the usual euphoric writing about why the partisan, under-resourced, and under-trained "citizen press," or "non-corporate journalists," or whatever you want to call them are a fine and fitting successor to the more staid but more professional standard-issue press. More importantly, I hope it is a useful reminder that every time administrations, from Obama on, have talked about wanting to "speak directly to the people" and not have to communicate through an arrogant, non-substantive, or old-fashioned press, what they actually mean is that they prefer to propagandize in an unmediated fashion. (This is why, although I give Trump favorable marks for speaking to the press regularly, despite his administration's general lack of transparency, I take a star back for his administration's elevation of social-media worshippers, whose fawning questions embarrass even his fans.)