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Dan Froomkin
Editor in Chief
Sondland’s testimony that he informed Pence about Trump’s Ukranian squeeze – and that Pence simply responded with a nod -- elicited what at first glance appeared to be denials from Pence’s office, but really weren’t.
They were “non-denial denials” – a term that made it into the pop-cultural lexicon in 1976, when it was employed by Jason Robards, playing Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee in the Watergate movie “All the President’s Men.”
RECENTLY
How Not to Cover the Impeachment Hearings
Bothsideism has perhaps never been more inappropriate in the news coverage of a major event than it is right now, as fact witnesses are providing consistent, credible, and compelling evidence of presidential abuse of power, and Republicans are throwing around vile and scurrilous insinuations about patriots, spouting bizarre conspiracy theories, and adopting at last count 22 different and often contradictory defenses of conduct that history will condemn as indefensible.
Played Again: Press Corps Spreads the White House’s Lies About Trump’s Sudden Hospital Visit
The complete inability of the political press corps to respond properly to even the most obvious deceptions emerging from the Trump White House has never been more evident than this weekend, when Trump was rushed to Walter Reed Hospital, his press office provided an explanation that was not remotely credible, and the press swallowed it.
They Can Say He Lies, They Can Say He’s Racist, But They Still Can’t Bring Themselves to Call Out His Misogyny
The clearly misogynistic nature of Trump’s attacks on Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is hard to miss -- but isn't likely to be a major factor in the news reports produced by our major news organizations. That’s because political reporters don’t write from the heart. And calling out misogyny is outside their professional comfort zone.
Reuters News Article That Called Impeachment Hearing ‘Dull’ Sparks a Social Media Revolt
A Reuters news article pronouncing Wednesday’s illuminating, alarming, and historic kickoff of the Trump impeachment hearings “dull” has sparked a small but passionate social media revolt against political reportage that values theatrics over substance.
New York Times Tees Up Impeachment Hearings With Epic False Equivalence and Both-Siderism
The paper of record takes a position of neutrality on what is true and what is not as it limbers up to cover the public phase of the impeachment process.
TIMIDITY
They Can Say He Lies, They Can Say He’s Racist, But They Still Can’t...
The clearly misogynistic nature of Trump’s attacks on Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is hard to miss -- but isn't likely to be a major factor in the news reports produced by our major news organizations. That’s because political reporters don’t write from the heart. And calling out misogyny is outside their professional comfort zone.
New York Times Tees Up Impeachment Hearings With Epic False Equivalence and Both-Siderism
The paper of record takes a position of neutrality on what is true and what is not as it limbers up to cover the public phase of the impeachment process.
ADVOCACY
FACT-CHECKING
Fact-Checking Needs to Make Way for Reality-Testing and Gaslighting-Fighting
Fact-checking has had huge practical and symbolic value. But as it’s currently practiced at the national level, it feels a bit quaint. Political journalism needs to find a better solution to calling out misinformation and disinformation – and soon.
COVERING RACE
Newsrooms Are Struggling to Cover Race
The role of race and racism in American politics has always been significant. These days, it is central to the political divide in our country. Understanding and being able to explain its complexities is essential to cover this moment coherently. And yet the gaze of our elite American newsrooms remains intractably white and male. So they fail.
Trump isn’t just using anti-immigrant rhetoric — he’s fomenting anti-immigrant hysteria
The debate over whether Donald Trump is racist or not has been an absurd distraction from reality, which is that he has been stirring up the most virulent strain of anti-immigration hysteria there is: he’s not only asserting an invasion by dangerous people with dark skin, he’s saying it poses an existential crisis to white America.
Jonathan Weisman, Deputy Washington Editor for the New York Times, Reveals His Own Toxic Political Geography
Weisman essentially asserted that urban areas -- not just Detroit and Minneapolis, but Atlanta, and Austin -- are not a part of America's geography at all. What's even more telling is that he obviously thought this was non-controversial -- even self-evident.