Tag: Washington Post

Biden coverage underscores the decline of print; plus, a couple of DNC media tidbits

The New York Times: No Joe zone

Early print deadlines meant that three of our national newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, have no coverage of President Biden’s keynote address. All of them, needless to say, go big with Biden’s speech online. It makes you wonder who’s still bothering with the legacy press’ shrinking print editions.

A fourth national paper, the business-focused Wall Street Journal, did manage to get Biden’s speech on page one, though it’s not the lead. Locally, The Boston Globe leads with the president as well. I have to assume that’s a late edition.

Biden was supposed to go on at about 10:30 p.m., but the Democrats veered off schedule and he didn’t start for another hour. They’d better fix that — the last thing the party wants is for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s acceptance speech on Wednesday and Vice President Kamala Harris’ on Thursday to get pushed out of prime time.

Stop talking at me

God bless C-SPAN. We tuned in around 9 p.m. and chose PBS, figuring the “NewsHour” crew would strike a good balance between carrying the speeches and offering a little bit of commentary and analysis. We were wrong. We missed Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s speech entirely. And when we finally switched over, we discovered that PBS had cut away from Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a major figure in the party.

At least PBS carried New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose fiery populism was probably the highlight of the evening, though Hillary Clinton’s address conjured up all sorts of emotions. Yes, it should have been her.

I’m not going to try to assess Biden’s speech except to agree with other observers that I respect his successful presidency and am grateful that his deep sense of patriotism led him to step aside, even though it was evident that he’s still angry he was forced to make that move.

New Haven crew hits Chicago

Normally I like to see local news organizations stay mission-focused when big national events occur. But I’ll cut the New Haven Independent some slack. After all, founder Paul Bass is no longer the editor, and he’s as knowledgeable about politics as anyone I know.

Bass and staff reporter Nora Grace-Flood are in Chicago while Babz Rawls Ivy, the morning host at the Independent-affiliated radio station, WNHH-LP, is back in New Haven offering some commentary. Oakland-based cartoonist Fred Noland of the Independent Review Crew is in Chicago as well, though he hasn’t started drawing yet.

And it’s not all national. Here’s a funny story, with video and photos, about Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar squaring off with New Haven Democrats about the virtues of New Haven apizza versus Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

The Washington Post: The early print bird misses the keynote
USA Today: Protests but no convention coverage above the fold
The Wall Street Journal: Biden’s speech, yes, but wow, Edgar Bronfman!
The Boston Globe: The president makes page one

The media rushed to publish the DNC’s hacked emails in 2016. So what about Trump?

Photo (cc) 2008 by Angus Fraser

Leaked emails from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign have made their way to major news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico.

Given what happened in 2016, when the press published a number of embarrassing emails that WikiLeaks had hacked from the Democratic National Committee’s email server, you might expect that the Trump files would be published as soon as they were vetted. Right? Well, no.

As Jon Passantino and Liam Reilly report for CNN:

But while the hacking incident, which occurred in June, set off a scramble in the Trump campaign, the FBI and Microsoft, the three news organizations that had received the files held off on publishing information from the trove. The decision marked a reversal from the 2016 election, when news outlets breathlessly reported embarrassing and damaging stories about Hillary Clinton’s campaign after Russian hackers stole a cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee, publishing them on the website Wikileaks.

The news media — especially the Times — have a long and mostly honorable tradition of publishing newsworthy documents regardless of how they obtained them, including the Pentagon Papers, the government’s own secret history of the Vietnam War, and reporting on the George W. Bush administration’s secret and illegal eavesdropping program.

So why the hesitance over the Trump files, which may have been hacked by Iran? As I told CNN:

News organizations should proceed with caution when dealing with hacked documents. As long as they’re verified and newsworthy, then they’re fair game, but motive is an important part of the story, too. In 2016, too many news outlets ran with stories about the Democratic National Committee’s emails without questioning why WikiLeaks, which had ties to the Russian government, had hacked them in the first place.

In other words, do two things at once. Report on the documents, and report on the motives of the leakers. It’s a standard that retired Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron espoused in his memoir, “Collision of Power,” in writing about his second thoughts regarding the Post’s decision to go big with the WikiLeaks files during the 2016 campaign:

There was a far more significant story taking shape, and it took the press too long to fully communicate it: Russia was aggressively interfering in a presidential election. A superpower adversary was doing what it could to propel Donald Trump into the White House. At The Post we learned a lesson: If there was a hack like this in the future, we would be putting greater emphasis on who was behind it and why, not letting the content of stolen information distract us from the motives of the hackers.

Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring told CNN: “Politico editors made a judgment, based on the circumstances as our journalists understood them at the time, that the questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how they came to our attention were more newsworthy than the material that was in those documents.”

Let’s see for ourselves.

Your morning reads: The Evan Gershkovich talks, Will Lewis’ folly and changes at CBS

I’m heading out on vacation, though I may post from the road if there’s any big news to catch up on. Meanwhile, here are three morning reads, including gift links for those of you who aren’t subscribers to The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times.

  • The Journal has published a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the negotiations that led to the release of journalist Evan Gershkovich and others, including U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan and journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. Be sure to read the last paragraph.
  • Back before he came under the scrutiny of Scotland Yard, Will Lewis was hired as publisher of The Washington Post because of his supposed skill in attracting a younger audience. Now The New York Times reports that his side hustle aimed at doing just that is an embarrassing failure.
  • Norah O’Donnell, who’s stepping down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” later this year, will be replaced by two anchors: John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who will be based in New York. Margaret Brennan, in Washington, will be a third anchor, sort of. The Hollywood Reporter has the story.

Will Lewis is back in the news. And once again, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis. 2019 public domain photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Few media executives have benefited from the political chaos of the past month more than Washington Post publisher Will Lewis.

Before the presidential debate of June 27, Lewis seemed to be hanging by a thread over revelations that he was involved in covering up the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids back in 2011. He’s also come under fire for approving payments to a source while he was working at another paper and, more recently, demanding that journalists — including Post executive editor Sally Buzbee, who later left the paper — not report on his transgressions.

Since the debate, which led to weeks of frenzied coverage regarding President Biden’s age and fitness, his subsequent withdrawal from the race, and the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris (not to mention an assassination attempt against Donald Trump), Lewis’ fate had been forgotten.

Until now.

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, who earlier revealed that Lewis promised him an exclusive interview if Folkenflik would give Lewis’ ethical problems a good leaving-alone, reported on Tuesday that new documents show Lewis has been accused of making up a story 13 years ago “to shield evidence from police of possible crimes at Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids.” The accusations were leveled as part of a lawsuit brought against Murdoch’s tabloids by Prince Harry and other prominent political figures in the U.K.

Folkenflik’s story is filled with names and details, but essentially Lewis is accused of faking a security threat “to justify the deletion of millions of emails dating from the start of 2008 through the end of 2010.” Here’s the heart of Folkenflik’s report:

In July 2011, when police first learned of the deleted emails, Lewis explained that Murdoch’s company was compelled to get rid of them because of a tip that he and a senior executive received nearly six months earlier: an “outside source” told them that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was conspiring with a News UK employee and another person to steal the emails of the CEO. That unnamed person was said to be Tom Watson, then a leading member of parliament and critic of the Murdochs. The IT person was later alleged to have been a former News UK staffer.

Brown has denounced the claim as false and outrageous. He’s asked Scotland Yard for a criminal investigation of the episode involving Lewis. Watson, who is among scores of litigants suing News UK alleging illegal invasions of privacy, has denied it. In court, the lead trial attorney for Watson, Harry and the others called the story “a ruse.”

Writing in The Guardian, Caroline Davies goes into detail about minutes of a meeting between police officials and Lewis in July 2011. In the excerpt below, “Rebekah” is Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of Murdoch’s News International company, and “BCL” is the law firm that was representing Murdoch’s interests. Here’s what Lewis reportedly told detectives:

We got a warning from a source that a current member of staff had got access to Rebekah’s emails and had passed them to Tom Watson MP.

This came to Rebekah. I was asked to meet the source. I will consult with BCL as to whether I can tell you the identity of the source. The source repeated the threat. Then the source came back and said it was a former member of staff and the emails had definitely been passed and that it was controlled by Gordon Brown. This added to our anxieties. We took steps to try and be more specific around her emails.

Folkenflik and Davies report that Lewis is also accused of leaking an audio recording aimed at harming a critic of Murdoch’s proposed acquisition of the Sky broadcasting service. That acquisition was nixed after the phone-hacking schedule came to light.

Lewis has denied any wrongdoing, though he would not speak with Folkenflik.

The Post, along with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, is one of our three great daily newspapers. We all have an interest in its surviving and thriving after several years of losing circulation and money. It’s been clear for some time that Lewis lacks the ethical compass needed to lead the Post.

Owner Jeff Bezos might have hoped that Lewis had survived the worst of it. But as the most recent developments show, this saga is not done playing out. It’s hard to see how it will end well for Lewis.

Earlier coverage.

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The three national newspapers say that Biden should pull out or at least consider it

President Biden in May 2023

The editorial pages of the three national newspapers are calling on President Biden to end his re-election campaign or to strongly consider it. The most forthright of the three is the liberal New York Times, which argues that Biden’s disastrous debate performance on Thursday shows that he’s no longer the strongest candidate to stop the threat (free link) that Donald Trump poses to democracy should Trump win election this November:

As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency. There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.

The Times does say that it will endorse Biden if he persists with his candidacy: “If the race comes down to a choice between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, the sitting president would be this board’s unequivocal pick.”

The Washington Post, more centrist than the Times but just as anti-Trump, begins its editorial (free link):

If President Biden had weekend plans, he should cancel them in favor of some soul-searching. His calamitous debate performance on Thursday raises legitimate questions about whether he’s up for another four years in the world’s toughest job. It’s incumbent on this incumbent to determine, in conversation with family and aides, whether continuing to seek reelection is in the best interests of the country.

Unlike the Times and the Post, the right-wing editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is more concerned that an enfeebled Biden might actually win (free link) and prove that he’s not up to a second term:

Well, that was painful — for the United States. President Biden’s halting, stumbling debate performance Thursday night showed all too clearly that he isn’t up to serving four more years in office. For the good of the country, more even than their party, Democrats have some hard thinking to do about whether they need to replace him at the top of their ticket.

Closer to home, The Boston Globe has not weighed in. But three of its columnists have. Adrian Walker, Scot Lehigh and Brian McGrory all write that the time has come for Biden to step aside in favor of a Democrat who might stand a better chance of beating Trump. Walker has the line of the day in describing the president’s excruciating debate performance: “Biden was not merely bad. He was bad in a way people running for president are never bad.”

Biden could have pulled out a year or two ago but chose not to. The argument in favor of his staying in the race is that the chaos that would be unleashed by throwing the nomination to an open Democratic convention would be a greater risk than keeping him at the head of the ticket. Now it seems likely that the greater risk is to stick with Biden, a good and decent man and a successful president who just may not be up to the task of stopping the authoritarian menace that looms this fall.

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Margaret Sullivan on The Washington Post and the demise of the public editor

Good conversation this week with Margaret Sullivan on the Editor & Publisher vodcast. She and host Mike Blinder talk about the turmoil at The Washington Post, where she used to be a media columnist, and the disappearance of the public editor — a reader representative who holds the institution to account, a position she once held at The New York Times. Sullivan now writes a column for The Guardian and a newsletter at Substack, and holds a top position at the Columbia Journalism School. Listen in (or watch).

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Why Lewis’ checkbook journalism in the U.K. will taint The Washington Post

Roy Moore. Video clip (cc) 2017 by Folsom Natural.

Everything you need to know about why Will Lewis can’t stay as publisher of The Washington Post. And this is about one of his lesser scandals: his paying £110,000 to a source in return for information about a parliamentary spending scandal. The Atlantic’s Stephanie McCrummen writes (free link):

Hours after my Washington Post colleagues and I published the first of several articles in 2017 about the Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore’s history of pursuing teenage girls, the Republican nominee’s powerful allies launched an elaborate campaign seeking to discredit the story.

The best-known of these efforts was an attempt carried out by the far-right activist group Project Veritas to dupe us into publishing a false story, an operation we exposed. But there were others, perhaps none more insidious than the spreading of false rumors across Alabama that The Washington Post had paid Moore’s accusers to come forward, and were offering thousands of dollars to other women for salacious stories about him.

So now Robert Winnett is out and Lewis, his enabler in the pay-to-play scheme, remains in his job, at least for the moment. This will not stand.

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Photo (cc) 2016 by Dan Kennedy

Every Thursday I post a newsletter that’s exclusively for supporters of Media Nation. I’m especially proud of the new one — a look at how critics of Jeff Bezos’ stewardship of The Washington Post and John Henry’s ownership of the Red Sox have converged into a miasma of resentment and envy. Each newsletter also includes photography, a round-up of the week’s posts and a Song of the Week. I’m especially pleased with what I dug up this week, and I think you’ll be, too.

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Drip, drip, drip

Three new data points in the ongoing implosion of Washington Post publisher Will Lewis:

• While working for then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Lewis reportedly urged Johnson and other senior officials to “clean up” their phones — that is, to remove photos and other incriminating information that could be used against them in an investigation into violations of COVID-19 lockdown rules. Spokespeople for Lewis and Johnson deny it (The Guardian).

• We’ve been waiting for a Post legend to weigh in. Neither Bob Woodward nor Marty Baron has been heard from yet, but Pulitzer Prize-winning associate editor David Maraniss has broken his silence. In a post on Facebook, Maraniss wrote: “I don’t know a single person at the Post who thinks the current situation with the publisher and supposed new editor can stand. There might be a few, but very very few. Jeff Bezos owns the Post but he is not of and for the Post or he would understand. The issue is one of integrity not resistance to change.” The “new editor” is Robert Winnett, a longtime associate of Lewis’ who is supposed to become executive editor of the Post this fall (Facebook).

• Post owner Jeff Bezos has written a message to the newsroom assuring the staff that “the journalistic standards and ethics at The Post will not change” and offering his support for Lewis — “though not explicitly,” as CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy observes. It sounds like Bezos wants to buck up Lewis while leaving open the possibility that he’ll have to go. Frankly, that point was reached days ago (CNN.com).

Earlier coverage.

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