XBradTC

GOP strategist and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich penned a column for Spero News that summarizes beautifully the journalistic malfeasance and lack of integrity on the part of the formerly great New York Times in their coverage of President-elect Donald Trump.  

Unfortunately, the New York Times is trapped within the obsolete establishment mindset which was wrong about Trump throughout the primaries, then was wrong about Trump throughout the general election, then was wrong about who would win. This elite mindset has learned nothing. It is now enthusiastically being wrong about the transition. All of this is great practice for the paper to be wrong about the new administration.

Thursday’s New York Times story on Trump and foreign policy was a perfect example of its willful ignorance.

The Times reported that “President-elect Donald J. Trump seemed to suggest on Wednesday that the deadly truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin vindicated his proposal during the presidential campaign to bar Muslims from entering the United States.”

That is a willfully false and malicious mischaracterization of the current Trump proposal. Trump has been very clear that he would focus “extreme vetting” on people from dangerous areas. He has rejected a general ban. Why would the Times deliberately ignore the current policy?

The Times went out of its way to assert that “It was not clear whether Mr. Trump was reaffirming his much-criticized call for a wholesale ban on Muslim immigration or his subsequent clarification that he would stop only those entering from countries with a history of Islamic extremism.”

The Times had to repeat the “much-criticized” line even though that is not Trump’s current position.

It underscores Mr. Trump’s challenge in fashioning a coherent approach to the problems he will inherit in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, especially working with a team that consists of retired generals and an oil executive, few of whom have experience in the daily cascade of crises that confront every White House.”

 

So, the Times believes General Jim Mattis lacks experience in “a daily cascade of crises”. They believe General John Kelly lacks experience in “a daily cascade of crises.” They believe Lt. General Mike Flynn lacks experience in “a daily cascade of crises.” It is unlikely anyone on the Times staff has experienced one day of the crises these combat-experienced veterans lived with for years.

I don't believe the Times ever described Hillary Clinton or John Kerry or Ash Carter or Susan Rice, or Barack Obama, for that matter, in such pejorative terms, despite their collectively much-greater lack of seasoning or qualification in their respective lines of work.  

Give the whole article a read.  Well worth the time.  And though I disagree with Gingrich's views on a number of things, I do believe he is right about this:

This entire article is typical of the inaccurate and misleading coverage the Times has given Trump for two years.

The arrogance of the Times is matched only by its willful ignorance.  It is a disservice to its readers and to what was once a great tradition of serious journalism.