The New York Times on Covering Trump

17 August 2019, 11:11 AM

From the executive editor, apparently at a staff meeting (h/t Axios and Slate):

quote:
The day Bob Mueller walked off that witness stand [July 24], two things happened. Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, 'Holy s---, Bob Mueller is not going to do it.'
And Donald Trump got a little emboldened politically, I think. Because, you know, for obvious reasons. And I think that the story changed. A lot of the stuff we’re talking about started to emerge like six or seven weeks ago. We’re a little tiny bit flat-footed. I mean, that’s what happens when a story looks a certain way for two years. Right?
I think that we’ve got to change. I mean, the vision for coverage for the next two years is: ... How do we cover a guy who makes these kinds of remarks? How do we cover the world's reaction to him? How do we do that while continuing to cover his policies? How do we cover America, that’s become so divided by Donald Trump? ...
How do we write about race in a thoughtful way, something we haven’t done in a large way in a long time? That, to me, is the vision for coverage.

17 August 2019, 11:28 AM

Nina

How about some actual investigative journalism? A deep dive into the effects of the tariffs? You know, with data. A look at the effects of the tax reform, what did the average person in each income bracket pay last year v previous year v next year? What about the ballooning deficit and what it will mean for our ability to finance in the future? What about a list of the policies/guidelines, etc. that have been either added or removed via executive order? What about a list of the bills that are sitting in Mitch McConnell's desk?

What I don't want is yet another breathless, clutching of pearls account of his latest tweet.

17 August 2019, 11:47 AM

RealPlayer

Nina, I think they do some of that, but those articles are isolated in the business section or page A21. Clearly they should be doing more!

The pearl-clutching is mostly in opinion pieces by the various pundits and "analysis" pieces. And I have concluded that "writers gonna write," they just keep churning out these pieces, they've got to earn their keep, to fill space. It's gotten so I don't need to read those pieces very much anymore.

17 August 2019, 07:11 PM

wtg

quote:
Originally posted by Nina:
How about some actual investigative journalism? A deep dive into the effects of the tariffs? You know, with data. A look at the effects of the tax reform, what did the average person in each income bracket pay last year v previous year v next year? What about the ballooning deficit and what it will mean for our ability to finance in the future? What about a list of the policies/guidelines, etc. that have been either added or removed via executive order? What about a list of the bills that are sitting in Mitch McConnell's desk?

What I don't want is yet another breathless, clutching of pearls account of his latest tweet.

I ran across an article in the StarTribune, a Minnesota paper. It contained a link the National Bureau of Economic Research that you might find interesting.

The Star Trib article: http://www.startribune.com/tra...ng-basket/547591262/

The NBER paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25672

The non-technical version of the NBER paper: https://www.nber.org/digest/may19/w25672.shtml

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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training

19 August 2019, 09:54 AM

wtg

Another tariff study. The link was in this NYT article.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/CGNT_0.pdf

21 August 2019, 12:12 PM

wtg

quote:
Originally posted by Nina:
How about some actual investigative journalism? A deep dive into the effects of the tariffs? You know, with data. A look at the effects of the tax reform, what did the average person in each income bracket pay last year v previous year v next year? What about the ballooning deficit and what it will mean for our ability to finance in the future? What about a list of the policies/guidelines, etc. that have been either added or removed via executive order? What about a list of the bills that are sitting in Mitch McConnell's desk?

Here's a broadish overview of some aspects of the economy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...-recession-data.html