Daily Kos user TomPasked a very important question just a few days ago:
Yeah, what’s up with that indeed?TomP is referring to hit pieces in the New York Times on Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams that ran late in the 2018 campaign, all too reminiscent of another hit piece that ran in the New York Times late in the 2016 campaign, and that ultimately cost Hillary Clinton the election. With Gillum at least having significantly under-performed the polls(1), I feel there’s a pattern here that needs to be investigated.
A similar story during October surprise weekTomP’s point didn’t gone unnoticed by others. Nancy LeTourneau had an excellent article in the Washington Monthly back on October 19 about the New York Time’s peculiar slant on Andrew Gillum.
xThe Gray Lady’s story has no direct accusations about Gillum. It simply throws around a bunch of anecdotes that are designed to raise questions. https://t.co/pFxFocWWaH
— Washington Monthly (@washmonthly) October 19, 2018It’s hard to pull a single blockquote from the entire awfulness that was the hit piece on Gillum. The entire article, from start to finish, was a stunningly impotent and ham-handed casting of aspersions. The authors relied solely on guilt by association and innuendo. And the best part is, the whole article concluded they could find no evidence of guilt or wrongdoing, but the whole affair has cast clouds and shadows over his campaign(2).
But there’s more.
When we look at the things Gillum is accused of, they are things any politician would come in contact with. Is Andrew Gillum ambitious? Yes. Did Andrew Gillum receive donations from wealthy people? Yes. Did Andrew Gillum accept a gift? Yes, and he reported it. At the time, all this scrutiny directed at Gillum was really hard to square with the walking emoluments clause violation in the White House. From Nancy LeTourneau:
The whole thing seems to be an attempt to hint at the possibility that Gillum is corrupt. But the best they can come up with is that he’s ambitious and knows how to play the game of politics. Since that is true of pretty much every successful politician, it is hard to avoid the subtle message emanating from this piece that it is not OK for black politicians to posses those qualities.
It’s really not what clear what qualities are okay for a black politician to possess in the mind of the New York Times, as even the benign wearing of a tan suit and playing golf are also out of the question.
Now while authors Matt Flegenheimer and Patricia Mazzei were flopping around trying to score a hit on Gillum, their coworker Alan Feuer was busy in the cubicle next door whitewashing Mister McInness as just a hipster provocateur, right after he lead a vicious attack on civilians on the streets of New York back in October.
xPart 8,451,039 in the New York Times’ ongoing series, “How Not To Cover Fascists†pic.twitter.com/3j0Kh8Cef2
— Ed Overbeek 🗽 (@EdOverbeek) October 17, 2018And the Times’ peculiar fixation isn’t limited to Gillum, probably because (thankfully and amazingly) he isn’t the only black candidate running for high office this cycle(3). The New York Times felt the need to waste precious bandwidth on Stacey Abrams burning the traitor’s flag as a freshman in college 26 years ago. By all means, whatever immaterial youthful transgression is scaring Trump’s base at the moment, the New York Times is on that. But let’s not forget to talk civilly about her opponent, who somehow loaned himself $800,000 from a bank, and legitimately stole an election from her:
xFixed the headline. pic.twitter.com/Jn0siMFb5B
— Patrick Kowalczyk (@Patmix) October 20, 2018All of these articles were published by the same organization within a 72 hour period, showing plain and simple, the New York Times has a white supremacy problem.
“Now hold on”, you may say, “The New York Times isn’t the Ron Paul Newsletter(4).”
I like to say that one can best envision white supremacy as an iceberg. There’s the tip you can see out in public. That’s the Wikipedia definition of white supremacy:
The belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society.
That’s the double standard of conduct mirroring our (in)justice system(5); Grown white men are boys being boys, engaging in locker room talk, suffering from afluenzia, and partaking in shenanigans, while black men and women are held to a standard of political conduct nigh impossible to meet.
But there’s also a lot more lurking beneath the tip of that iceberg.
Lurking beneath the surface is the notion that white people are just more legitimately American than people of color. Look no further than the media’s inane obsession with interviewing Trump voters in R+42 districts. How many interviews did the media conduct with Obama voters in 2009? Elite New York Times reporters may never express notions of racial superiority at Brooklyn loft parties, and all may have close minority acquaintances. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a newsroom culture that allows them to be wooed by the notion that (certain types of) white people are just more American than others.
That’s still white supremacy, and it seeps into the journalistic coverage of the politicians who represent the interests of those deemed less American(6). A great example is the (economically) anxious manner in which a better economy under Obama used to be discussed by the New York Times, and how that economic coverage repeatedly differed (and again) from the manner in which a worse economy under Trump is touted as strong and healthy(7).
Thinking emoji...A lot of this racial double standard is difficult to disentangle from run-of-the-mill Both Sides atrocity™, since one party represents white supremacy and the other opposes it. False equivalency is a logical fallacy -- white supremacy is a consistent (yet evil) philosophy.
There was a great diary not too long ago on how “Both sides" is the most dangerous and insidious narrative in today's political climate. I agree with this diary in its entirety. I once stated that both sides journalism greased the skids for our decent into fascism.
Sometimes false equivalency is used innocuously to provide (false) balance. Sometimes it is used nefariously to conceal a defense of the indefensible, like from the former master of Both Sides™ journalism, Ron Fournier.
But observe closely how there is no attempt at equivalency, true or false, in the attacks on Gillum and Abrams. That’s the white supremacy distinguishing itself from run of the mill pandering to conservatives to achieve “balance”. Gillums and Abrams are attacked for what the Times would consider laughable indiscretions by a white (male) politician.
This may sound like a distinction without a difference, but making this distinction, in my opinion, is crucial to correcting journalistic coverage of the Democratic Party. Journalists are ingrained with the notion from years of training that they must treat both sides fairly. While dim (or nefarious) journalists may slip into false equivalency, journalists are highly defensive and protective of their trade. Criticism of both sides is routinely shrugged off as the yelping of wounded partisans. The New York Times is a left of center publication(8), yes, a self-conscious one(9), but still a left of center publication. That doesn’t mean their newsroom isn’t permeated with a white supremacist mindset.
But as we’ve seen since the decent of the Republican Party into madness, accusations of false equivalency against corporate media have zero impact. They instinctively circle their wagons to protect what they believe is treating both sides fairly, and such criticism will be dismissed as trying to work the referees. It’s a difficult task to separate false equivalency from racial bias, but if we can refine our criticisms, pointing out racial bias when it occurs may have a greater impact on newsroom coverage.
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(1) Polls that were otherwise very accurate.
(2) They didn’t use those exact words. This time.
(3) Andrew Gillum or Stacey Abrams would be only the third black governor elected in the United States. Abrams would be the first female black governor. That’s how amazing 2018 is.
(4) The connection between Ron Paul’s strain of conservatism, rooted in white nationalism and inherited by his Senator son slash likely Russian asset, was the predecessor to Trumpism.
(5) Here are the results of a great study showing that black men serve longer prison sentences for the exact same crime as white men to share with the racist Trump supporter in your life.
(6) Even if those politicians are white or male.
(7) Not unlike the adjectives white supremacists love to use for Trump himself.
(8) That doesn’t mean the Times is still too far to the right for the Nation.
(9) Yes, Dean Baquet has a well-documented neurotic fear of being branded a liberal. Why he needlessly suffers so is beyond me, as the Times’ entire business model consists of... liberals.