For all of those liberals living in denial…, well here you go, straight from the horse’s…, uh, I mean the editor’s mouth!

Jill Abramson, a veteran journalist in her own right, and the former executive editor at The New York Times newspaper from 2011 to 2014, says “The Times” has a financial incentive to bash the president and that the imbalance is helping to erode its credibility.  She added that, the paper’s “news” pages have become “unmistakably anti-Trump.”

Please go on Ms. Abramson, but tell us something we don’t already know.

Being the executive editor for four years during President Obama’s tenure was obviously a pretty boring time at “The Times.”  The “biased, liberal, fake news media” wasn’t interested in any hard hitting investigative “journalism” concerning President Obama or his administration.  There were no daily attacks of President Obama, the first lady, or his family. There was only properly spun propaganda or propaganda by omission.

I’m sure “The Times,” version 2017-2018, looks and sounds quite different today compared to the paper she left four years ago.

I do wonder, however, what she is referring to when she says “The Times has a financial incentive to bash the president….” What “financial incentive” exactly do they receive for bashing the president, and from whom?

This definitely does not sound like something a “fair and balanced” news source would practice.  Does it?  Fair minded people of course would say “no,” but how do my liberal friends respond to this?  I’m just wondering, and I hope they give me some feedback.

I can’t see any possible justification for this behavior unless you’re okay with a major media outlet being a propaganda tool for any ideology or political party, while claiming to be objective.

According to Howard Kurtz, of Fox News, for Media Buzz, “In a soon-to-be published book, ‘Merchants of Truth,’ that casts a skeptical eye on the news business, Abramson defends the Times in some ways but offers some harsh words for her successor, Dean Baquet.  And Abramson, who was the paper’s only female executive editor until her firing, invoked Steve Bannon’s slam that in the Trump era the mainstream media have become the “opposition party.”

‘“Though Baquet said publicly he didn’t want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,’ Abramson writes, adding that she believes the same is true of the Washington Post. ‘Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis.’”

“Abramson describes a generational split at the Times, with younger staffers, many of them in digital jobs, favoring an unrestrained assault on the presidency. ‘The more “woke” staff thought that urgent times called for urgent measures; the dangers of Trump’s presidency obviated the old standards,’ she writes.”

President Trump routinely claims that he “is keeping the failing New York Times in business.”  Some would say this is an exaggeration, but the former editor acknowledges a “Trump bump” that saw digital subscriptions during his first six months in office jump by 600,000, to more than 2 million.

I would call that quite significant!

‘“Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for the Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative…,’ Abramson added.”

When her boss, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. decided to let her go, he called her in, fired her, and handed her a press release announcing her resignation.

Abramson says she replied, “Arthur, I’ve devoted my entire career to telling the truth, and I won’t agree to this press release.  I’m going to say I’ve been fired.”

Just one more attempt at “fake news” I guess!

Of course the rest of the “biased, liberal, fake news media” claim that a result of losing her job she is now being vindictive and making false claims against The New York Times.

It’s funny, but I never hear “the biased, liberal, fake news media” claiming that former Trump appointees or employees are acting in a vindictive manner or making false claims against him.

Just sayin’.

 

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