THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. REALCLEARPOLITICS

[Geee]

Real Clear Politics

Ten days after the 2020 election, Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of RealClearPolitics, received an email from a New York Times reporter who covers the media. The reporter, Jeremy W. Peters, advised Bevan that his newspaper was working on a story about RCP and asked for responses to various questions and accusations. Four days later, Peters’ critique was published under the headline “A Popular Political Site Made a Sharp Right Turn. What Steered It.”

The sleight-of-hand was right there in the headline. The New York Times simply declared that RCP “made a sharp right turn,” and suggested it will document how this happened.

The Times’ story asserted that during the period of counting absentee and late-arriving mail-in ballots, RCP took three days longer than other news organizations to call Pennsylvania for Joe Biden. It noted disapprovingly that we aggregated stories from other news outlets quoting Trump supporters who questioned the election results. It suggested that the RCP Poll Averages were manipulated to be favorable to Donald Trump. Peters focused on RCP staff layoffs in September 2017, and claimed we’d hired partisan Republicans to replace them. He reported that the RealClear Foundation, a nonprofit that supports our journalism, receives contributions from conservative donors. He also called into question a RealClear Investigations exposé naming the whistleblower whose complaints led to Trump’s first impeachment.

 

Jeremy Peters declined to be interviewed for this rebuttal, though he was courteous about it. Nor did he reach out to me in 2020, beyond contacting Tom Bevan. It didn’t hurt my pride, but I’m the most experienced newsman at RCP; I oversee our original content, I direct our reporters, and I have written more words for RealClear than anyone else.

 

Nor was there any bad blood between me and the “paper of record.” In the 1980s, the Times credited my groundbreaking coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. In the 1990s, Howell Raines tried to hire me. Three books I’ve co-authored have been positively reviewed by the Times. When I covered the White House for National Journal, the Times’ book editor asked me to review a book about Dick Cheney. I have had friends at that newspaper. Although I’m not famous, I’m not unknown in Washington journalism. What I’m best known for is being relentlessly nonpartisan. If someone is writing about bias at my organization, calling me would have been the obvious place to start.

I shouldn’t have waited three years to respond to the Times but will do so now.

[Valin]

Quote

As the administration lurched from one crisis after another – impeachment, the coronavirus, a lost election the president refuses to concede – Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents, through a mix of its own content and articles from across conservative media.

(Snip)

One article from October 2019, for instance, purported to name and identify in a photo the anonymous whistle blower who reported the phone call between Mr. Trump and the Ukrainian president that led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Other news organizations knew the identity but declined to publish it because of concerns that the person’s safety could be jeopardized. Facebook prevented people from sharing the Real Clear article, saying it violated the social network’s policy against inciting harm. Fox News cautioned its staff at the time not to identify the person on the air.

My response is simply that I think the New York Times, Facebook, Fox News, and all the rest are on the wrong side of this question, and not adhering to traditional journalistic norms or impulses. Whistleblower protections don’t always automatically ensure anonymity – and certainly not from the media. They mean protection from being fired or prosecuted or being subject to other professional reprisals. Launching an impeachment effort against a sitting president and hoping to keep your name out of the newspaper is a lot to ask.

Translation: They Didn't adhere to The Narrative.

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[Valin]

I'll be waiting to see IF thee is a response from the Rag.