On August 8th, after about three weeks of the mainstream press, led by the New York Times, complaining repeatedly that Kamala Harris hasn’t been taking questions from reporters, Harris stopped on her walk to Air Force Two to take some questions from reporters.
The questions asked did not make the press seems essential. Did she have any reactions to Trump’s latest press conference? Why did she think Trump pulled out of a debate? The final question, from a Politico reporter:
Madam Vice President, there’s been a lot of questions about when you’re going to sit down for your first interview since being the nominee. Do you have any update on that?
“Thank you for finally taking our questions. When will you next be taking questions?” isn’t a question that makes me feel the press is in touch with what matters about this race.
But this cartoon is only incidentally about that. It’s mainly about the conventions of “objectivity” by which the mainstream media, very much including the New York Times, tends to find a story – any story – that could be said to be bad for Democrats, and flogs it over and over and over again. This has been going on for decades. Remember Al Gore’s sigh? Well, if we had a decent press corps, we wouldn’t remember it, because it was a completely trivial incident that didn’t matter at all. Remember Obama’s minister?
And of course, we all remember Hilary’s emails. Vox published this graphic illustrating how obsessively the New York Times reported on this one issue, with front-page above-the-fold stories, in a single week, shortly before election day:
In a Columbia Journalism Review study of the same election, they found that mainstream media covered Clinton’s “scandals” – the email server, the John Podesta hacks – far more than they covered her policies, while Donald Trump got the reverse treatment:
…roughly four times as many Clinton-related sentences that described scandals as opposed to policies, whereas Trump-related sentences were one-and-a-half times as likely to be about policy as scandal. Given the sheer number of scandals in which Trump was implicated—sexual assault; the Trump Foundation; Trump University; redlining in his real-estate developments; insulting a Gold Star family; numerous instances of racist, misogynist, and otherwise offensive speech—it is striking that the media devoted more attention to his policies than to his personal failings. Even more striking, the various Clinton-related email scandals—her use of a private email server while secretary of state, as well as the DNC and John Podesta hacks—accounted for more sentences than all of Trump’s scandals combined (65,000 vs. 40,000) and more than twice as many as were devoted to all of her policy positions. […]
In just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election.
Eight years later, the coverage hasn’t improved. The AP reports:
At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received. […]
Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of these embarrassing missives, and mainstream news organizations covered them avidly.
“Objectively” is less about being objective than it is about looking objective. Objectively, Donald Trump is more scandalous than any President of our lifetime by far. He’s been convicted of more felonies, tells more lies, commits more nepotism, foments more coup attempts. But covering Trump objectively would not look objective, because they’d be reporting more scandals about Trump than about Harris.
So the mainstream media, in order to look objective, abandons objectivity.
This leads to ridiculous stretches like this fact check from Washington Post reporter Amy Gardner:
Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again,” Biden said. But that’s not true. Trump just hasn’t said that he would accept. And he previously said the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.
In other words, Trump has said that he won’t accept the legitimacy of an election he loses – which is exactly what Biden claimed.
Aside from how inane that “fact check” was, why isn’t this an enormous story?
Trump has indicated that he won’t accept the election results if he loses. Why is that not a story requiring multiple front-page above-the-fold stories?
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels.
PANEL 1
A woman with glasses and short dark hair is leaning down to look at a rack of copies of The New York Times paper edition. Standing on top of the pile of newspapers is an andromorphized cartoon issue of The New York Times, with a big grin, cartoon dot eyes, and black arms leading to three-fingered hands in white gloves, a la Mickey Mouse.
WOMAN: Hi, New York Times! What’s in the news today?
NEW YORK TIMES: Elections! The Republican candidate says if elected he’ll end democracy and rainbows!
PANEL 2
The woman has picked up the New York Times and is looking at it as the New York Times cheerfully continues talking, raising a forefinger to make a point, it’s adorable little feet kicking in the air.
NEW YORK TIMES: He also said that if not elected, that would prove Democrats cheated and he won’t accept the result.
PANEL 3
A shot of just the New York Times, still talking cheerfully, its arms folded.
NEW YORK TIMES: In equally important news, the Democratic candidate still hasn’t accepted my request for an in-depth interview. GOP sources suggest this could be because she’s a scaredy-cat.
PANEL 4
Now placed in a public garbage can, the New York Times is still cheerfully prattling on. The woman appears to have left entirely.
NEW YORK TIMES: Don’t miss today’s four op-eds about this important story!
NEW YORK TIMES (thought balloon): Oh my gosh, I’m killing it today! Just listen to how objective I’m being!
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is a long-dead cartoonists’ term for unimportant but hopefully amusing details stuck into a cartoon.
Panel 1: The woman has a tattoo on her upper arm with a drawing of the famous pipe from René Magritte’s painting “The Treachery of Images,” but instead of saying “this is not a pipe” the caption says “this is not a tattoo.”
On the newsstand in the background, there are some magazines on display. Three magazines have the titles “This,” “That,” and “the Other,” and two more are entitled “Here” and “and There.” All the magazines feature a head-and-shoulders photo of a model, but on the cover to “the Other” the model is Snoopy in his “Joe Cool” get-up.
Panel 2: The woman’s arm tattoos have changed, almost as if this was easier for the artist than keeping the designs consistent would have been. :-p
Panel 3: At the bottom of the New York Times, a headline says “Weather,” and the smaller text below that says “yes there will be weather.”
Panel 4: There are two fliers taped to the wall in the background. One has a picture of a scowling penguin, with “PENGUINS” in big letters and in smaller lettering below that “secretly hate you.” The other flyer has a confused looking man looking out, and a big caption saying “BIG.” A smaller caption says “SMALL,” and a tiny caption below that says “tiny.”
Hanging out of the trash can is a flier that says “LOST” in big letters. The smaller print says “was a really good TV show that didn’t have an ending.”
“Lost” was a TV show that started out great but became silly and pointless about the time the invisible dinosaurs showed up. I was watching it while riding my stationary bicycle years afterwards and I complained about it at work. One of my coworkers asked if I’d mind hearing what the ending was and when I said I didn’t, she told me. My response?
“Cool. Thanks. Now I don’t have to watch any more of this.”
Otherwise, I think you’re spot on with this comic and your commentary. :)
LOL! Thank you!
The creator Lost has said that what Lost taught him was the importance of having an ending in mind when you begin.
‘instead of saying “this is not a pipe” the caption says “this is not a tattoo.”’
That is a great idea for a tattoo. If I ever get one done, this will be it.
That would be cool!
As far as I know that tattoo is my own idea, but it’s one of those ideas that I bet a lot of people have thought of independently.
Image searches for “This is not a tattoo” and “ceci n’est pas un tatouage.” confirm that it has indeed been thought of independently, though perhaps not by a lot of people.