April 25, 2022

"Asked about his high points as [NYT] executive editor, Baquet cited the [Harvey] Weinstein investigation and the Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project."

"Both efforts, said Baquet in an interview, became 'bigger than newspaper stories. They changed the whole conversation'.... Another high point for Baquet was the [Bill] O’Reilly exposé.... O’Reilly was dethroned as king of cable news.... Routine political coverage in Baquet’s Times occasionally showered undue respectability upon false and authoritarian pro-Trump talking points.... A Harvard study found that coverage in the final months of the 2016 campaign was a feast of false equivalency in which Trump’s controversies received slightly less attention than Hillary Clinton’s controversies...."

Writes Erik Wemple in "Dean Baquet’s hands-on Times run is coming to a close" (WaPo).

39 comments:

hawkeyedjb said...

I live on a different planet from Mr. Wemple, but we both seem to speak something like English. His words make no sense but I do sense that I understand what he is saying.

Mike Sylwester said...

Democracy Dies in Darkness!

tim in vermont said...

I would like to see the first piece of actual evidence that Trump is authoritarian under any normal definition of the word. Biden is the one ignoring judges, something Trump never did.

Mike Sylwester said...

Fox was lucky that O'Reilly got "dethroned".

If only Hannity would get "dethroned" too.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jupiter said...

How much does Bezos pay for the Wemple? Couldn't he get a better one, for less? I'm guessing Wemple could be replaced by a computer program.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

The crooked media learned their 2016 lesson.

Do NOT EVER focus on democrat's lies and corruption ever again. It hurts democrats!
Don't want to harm The Party.
Must remain loyal.

When discussing Trump, - throw the word "Authoritarian" in front of it.

Temujin said...

Among my favorites under Baquet were the Pulitzer Prize they won (with WaPo) for their shilling of the Russia Collusion conspiracy which turns out was entirely fake, and knowingly pushed by the boatload on the American public by those daring journalists at the Times.

Though I'm not forgetting another great time when Banquet got grilled for allowing an op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton.
Or the time that Bari Weiss had to quit because the paper had become so self-censoring that it was no longer in the news business. Ms. Weiss described Dean Baquet's Times thusly: “Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor,”

Certainly that's how he should be remembered.

Brent said...

Excellent comment Temujin. Hear hear!

Quayle said...

A wise teacher once said "Let him among you who is without sins cast the first stone."

Fortunately for the New York Times, they have no sins and they have lots of stones. It makes the editors job much easier.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Taking down conservatives is golden statue Pulitzer.

Hiding democrat crime is standard operating procedure.

Leland said...

Your high point is breaking what has been called the biggest open secret in Hollywood. I guess if low bars is all you got. You certainly didn't break the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Wince said...
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Wince said...

Routine political coverage in Baquet’s Times occasionally showered undue respectability upon false and authoritarian pro-Trump talking points.... A Harvard study found that coverage in the final months of the 2016 campaign was a feast of false equivalency in which Trump’s controversies received slightly less attention than Hillary Clinton’s controversies.

Reading that is like reading a cult missive.

"Wemple? My name is Tanya."

rhhardin said...

Two hoaxes as his highlights.

Iman said...

I recall how moving it was when the NYT wrote about some of the 9/11 victims that Fall… their backgrounds, their lives… I thought back then this is wonderful, as good as it gets.

My how the Times has fallen. Truly pathetic…

tim in vermont said...

Since defenestrating old blowhards like O'Reilly, the right has begun to win the culture wars.

Sebastian said...

"a feast of false equivalency in which Trump’s controversies received slightly less attention than Hillary Clinton’s controversies"

Russia hoax = private server crime, that sort of false equivalency?

StephenFearby said...

The comments in Whipple's Wapo piece also include posts like this:

If turning the NYT from the paper of record into a screeching Woke bible was the goal - it's been handily achieved. And I say this as someone who's subscribed to the NYT since 1992.

Baquet mentioned the 1619 project twice as a source of pride. The massive controversy over it, including the refutation of its basic premise by dozens of mainstream historians, should at least have been mentioned, particularly since the Wemple blog's topic is the media.

Baquet and 100+ NYT staffers said, "context doesn't matter," in regards to the Donald McNeil fiasco. Unforgivable. I haven't visited their site since reading about McNeil's firing. Baquet was a disaster.

Yes, the Times is famous for, er, not reporting the news. lol

Or conveniently burying it, say, in paragraph 18 of the article.

tim in vermont said...

New York Times, Sept 11

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/books/no-regrets-for-love-explosives-memoir-sorts-war-protester-talks-life-with.html

Amadeus 48 said...

"Among my favorites under Baquet were the Pulitzer Prize they won (with WaPo) for their shilling of the Russia Collusion conspiracy which turns out was entirely fake, and knowingly pushed by the boatload on the American public by those daring journalists at the Times."

NYT establishes its claim to be the World's Tallest Midget. Their excuse is that this is what our sources told us.

Bah!!

Kevin said...

His real high point was not getting fired the day the Mueller Report was released.

n.n said...

Long before the charter and founding of America, People of Conservative principles stood against slavery, diversity, inequity, and exclusion. The 1619 Project is a handmade tale full of misinformation and disinformation that struts and frets with one step forward, two steps backward.

PM said...

He exemplified Forgotten but not gone.

Michael K said...

Thee "1619 Project" is a hoax and the NY Times likes hoaxes. Look at the Russia hoax.

Alan Sokal could have written it.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

So one of the two "high points" of Baquet's tenure was the fraudulent and dishonest "Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project".

Ranks right up there with the "Pulitzer-winning" suppression of the Holodomor

Clyde said...

Another leftist hack. Screw that guy.

Owen said...

So I guess "to wemple" is now a verb meaning, roughly, "to administer with repellent enthusiasm a tongue-bath of obviously fraudulent praise to another, similarly slimy but more senior, pseudo-journalist."

Feel free to refine the definition.

Yancey Ward said...

No, I think that definition is spot on as is, Owen.

hawkeyedjb said...

Yep. They wempled Joe Biden right into the White House.

David Begley said...

The 1619 Project is a dangerous pack of lies and has been shown to be so. He’s proud of printing lies!

David Begley said...

Dean Baquet went to Columbia but did not graduate.

holdfast said...

So one was a giant pack of lies designed to further rip apart the country, and the other was a story that was broken only 10 or 15 years too late. Great job.

Gospace said...

holdfast said...
So one was a giant pack of lies designed to further rip apart the country, and the other was a story that was broken only 10 or 15 years too late. Great job.


Didn't scroll through the comment- glanced at the post, went right to the end and was pretty much going to post this but in different words. Holdfast beat me to it.

Tom said...

There is no way the NYT didn’t know about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior long before the story broke.

Ronan Farrow broke the story that everyone in New York and Hollywood already knew.

Next the NYT will say they’d didn’t know what was happening in Epstein’s jet and island.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

So "slightly more" is a feast? And that is not even considering the relative weight of the "controversies." Talk about false equivalency.

wendybar said...

The New York Times pretended it didn't know about Hunters laptop...yet we all know that they KNEW..kept it hidden, and called anybody who talked about it a conspiracy theorist. The problem we have today, is all the conspiracy theories have turned out to be true so far.

Lurker21 said...

"The Bill O'Reilly expose"? I don't think anybody really remembers that. I gather now that it was a sexual harassment story. Possibly the story cost O'Reilly his show, but it seems like pretty small stuff compared to the all other #MeToo stories that the Times didn't cover. Wasn't it Ronan Farrow who broke open the Harvey Weinstein investigation?

I wonder if Pinch regrets putting all his eggs in one Baquet.

BTW, the paper went from Punch to Pinch to the grandson. What do we call him? Punch? Paunch? Panch? Pench? Running out of vowels ...

Tina Trent said...

Since the Times is now all hepped up on being pro-Ukraine, this would be an excellent time for them to return the Pulitzer they received for colluding with Stalin to suppress the facts about his genocide of millions of Ukrainian people during the Holodomor.

They have been called on to return that Pulitzer countless times, and countless times, including some involving Basquet, they have refused.

So he should add holocaust denier to his list of accomplishments.