Liz Spayd, the public editor of the New York Times, published a shocking report on the newspaper’s tortured decision not to report on the federal government’s investigation of communications between the Trump camp and the Russian government.
The title of her article: “Trump, Russia, and the News Story That Wasn’t.”
The federal investigators did not want the story to get out because they did not want it to interfere with their investigation.
The Times’ editors debated whether they could report the investigation without disclosing any of the details.
They ultimately decided not to print the story about the investigation at all.
Spayd implies that she did not agree with the decision. She says that in the clash between the government and the newspaper, the government won.
All the “what ifs” keep coming up. If the Times had published the story that Trump was under investigation by the FBI, he very likely would not be president today.
What would you have done?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
While I do disagree, I do see that at least the times went through the struggle ethically. I do have some hope for a renewed press as they now realize that their role in democracy is even more important.
LikeLike
“But was that the right decision? Was there a way to write about some of these allegations using sound journalistic principles but still surfacing the investigation and important leads”
For a moment, forget this is about trump. Imagine, just for the moment, it was about president Obama. Or Joe Biden. Or pelosi. Schumer. Pick a name, any name. Like ravitch.
There is no evidence. Rumors. Yes. Tantalizing tidbits, sure.
The paper publishes. And YOUR name and reputation are slaughtered. Retractions are written on page 25 in the bottom left hand corner.
You cannot sue the paper, because after all, they acted in good faith.
There is no evidence. There is nothing which can prove the veracity of the story. And the reporter is worried about the reputation of the Times???
Remember a certain rape story last year? A schools name, a deans name, a student groups reputation are ruined.
So whether it is trump or Obama or a school, newspapers should print stuff like that only when there is hard evidence. Not insinuations and rumors.
Dare I mention a certain CBS newscaster? Unchecked statements kill people’s reputation.
Too many people have fallen victim to such careless behavior of the press.
And you probably think this is a trump defense again, and I really don’t care.
I know it has nothing to do with trump. What would I do? Sit on it till I have verifiable facts. Check them time and again before publishing innuendo and make beliefs.
LikeLike
The question was whether to print that there was an investigation. Exactly what they did to Clinton. They printed that Clinton was under investigation and why. They did not treat Trump the same.
At Congressional hearings, Comey was asked if Trump ties to Russia were under investigation, and he said we never comment on ongoing investigation. Senator King of Maine commented on the irony of that statement. Or hypocrisy.
LikeLike
My obvious response: there was a heck of solid evidence that Clinton had bypassed the system.
And again, the use of a private email ADDRESS was the so much the security risk as the use of a private SERVER.
No security. Open to any and all hackers. Problematic as yahoo and Gmail etc are, there is a heck of a lot of security in their systems than any home system!
LikeLike
Rudy, there was nothing in her emails. The investigation cleared her. It was all BS.
LikeLike
Rudy: You DO realize that your dogmatism and ideology are impenetrable? Just wondered.
LikeLike
Dogmatism: the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others.
It is incontrovertibly true that there were classified documents on Clinton’s email server.
Those who deny that must be dogmatic.
It is incontrovertibly true that teacher pay has no impact on student learning.
Those who deny that must be dogmatic.
It is incontrovertibly true that trump won the election.
Those who deny that must be dogmatic.
I have have changed my opinion on the use of vouchers and the meaning of “school choice.”
I have changed my ideology. So much so, that I’m trying to change the ideology of fellow republicans about these subjects.
Politically, I’m not dogmatic. I do have an ideology – just like everyone on this list.
And even religiously I am not dogmatic. I am open to evidence and argument.
LikeLike
Rudy,
You are dogmatic.
LikeLike
Riiiight. I’m about the only one who is willing to look at both sides of an issue.
Most here are so set in their opinions that even a statement from Hilary won’t convince them that yes, “I made mistakes with my email…”. Which, of course, was immediately followed by, “it was my staff who failed…”
But I’m the dogmatic one.
LikeLike
Rudy,
You think you look at “both sides” of issues but always end up seconding Republican doctrine.
LikeLike
Untrue. Many times I take no sides. Just pointing out that facts are sometimes against positions taken here.
LikeLike
Rudy: I rest my case.
LikeLike
Your case being that FACTS don’t matter to you.
Figured that one out a long time ago. Facts matter little to many on this list. A mind is made up, damn the evidence to the contrary.
LikeLike
Rudy,
You are so contemptuous of readers on this list that I suggest that you stop wasting your time by arguing here
LikeLike
Rudy: Please go away.
LikeLike
Hey, Rudy, you must have nothing to do with your time, if you go to a ‘room’ where the ongoing discussion is based on observable reality, and you blow smoke and mirrors.
Something is wrong with a person who will not grasp that his voice/behavior here, is more than a mere argument, more than an annoyance and a distraction or a ‘joke’ — it is and indication of deep DISRESPECT to Diane and all of us.– very smart, EARNEST people who are looking to find answers to real problems.
Get a hobby. Start a blog of your own where you can preach to a choir of others who are impervious to TRUTH.
AND RUDY, save yourself the trouble… if you answer this, you will be talking to my hand.
LikeLike
One of the things that astonishes me, Diane, is those people who, like Rudy, are impervious to evidence.”The new word of the year: post-truth! https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-post-truth-world-of-the-trump-administration-is-scarier-than-you-think/2016/12/02/ebda952a-b897-11e6-b994-f45a208f7a73_story.html?utm_term=.8af4d7575869&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1 “This was the year of “fake news,” in which pure fiction masquerading as truth may have spread wide enough to influence the outcome of the election. But framing the issue solely in terms of lying actually underplays and mischaracterizes the grand deception being perpetuated inside the internet’s fun house of mirror; we must distinguish lying from deception.”
I read hundreds of articles and essays about this phenomenon…like this one by KENAN MALIK, who points out that “Disinformation and disputed facts are old problems. but, what’s new is the erosion of any authority that defines what’s true.”
“All the Fake News That Was Fit to Print” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/opinion/all-the-fake-news-that-was-fit-to-print.html?emc=edit_ee_20161205&nl=todaysheadlines-europe&nlid=50637717&_r=0
The President’s inner circle utterly dismisses the existence of facts., and today, as one of his first acts, took down the government website on climate. His is a post-truth administration that thrives on people who cannot tell fact from fiction.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-post-truth-world-of-the-trump-administration-is-scarier-than-you-think/2016/12/02/ebda952a-b897-11e6-b994-f45a208f7a73_story.html?utm_term=.8af4d7575869&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1 “We used to say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. In the new world of Donald Trump, everyone has their “facts.”But now it’s time to cross another bridge — into a world without facts. Or, more precisely, where facts do not matter a whit.
On a live radio recently, Scottie Nell Hughes sounded breezy as she drove a stake into the heart of knowable reality: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, as facts,” she declared on “The Diane Rehm Show.” Hughes, a frequent surrogate for Trump during the campaign, and a paid commentator for CNN during the campaign, kept on defending that assertion at length.”
And those who do not ‘get’ the lies about Hillary prove her correct.
LikeLike
Ms Schwartz, I really love it when you say that I am “impervious to truth.”
I have said from the very beginning that trump has no relationship to truth. And, neither does Clinton. There were classified emails among those she processed through her own server. There is no way you can argue around that. Well, there IS a way, but that would take you away from :truth.”
I have said that much of modern news (?) makes use of “factoids” – something that is claimed as “fact” so often, that people believe it to be “truth.” One of those factoids is that Hilary did not process classified material through her personal email server.
Another “factoid” is that Clinton was responsible for getting health insurance for children. It was not her work, but Senator Ted Kennedy who made that happen.
The above are researchable FACTS.
Seems that those who take a broader view of reality have a better grasp of truth.
LikeLike
Rudy,
Did you forget that Comey cleared Clinton and said “no reasonable prosecutor” would find any cause of action?
LikeLike
Do you remember him saying she was “extremely careless” and that a number of classified documents were found on her server? It was in the same statement.
From politifact.com
“In total, the investigation found 110 emails in 52 email chains containing information that was classified at the time it was sent or received. Eight chains contained top secret information, the highest level of classification, 36 chains contained secret information, and the remaining eight contained confidential information.”
LikeLike
Rudy,
Comey cleared her completely of any violations of law. He said that “no reasonable prosecutor” would prosecute her.
Yet you continue to spew lies. Please stop. Or go away.
LikeLike
So now politifact lies???? It does not agree with your point of view.
There is a difference between the statement that no prosecutor will file a case and the FACTS. This sounds more like a case of class justice.
LikeLike
Comey didn’t file charges. Shall we have this exchange another 10 times? Stop!
LikeLike
Rudy,
A reminder: this is still under investigation. Collaboration with a foreign power to influence our presidential election is treason. T-R-E-A-S-O-N.
LikeLike
Not treason, Dianne. Prosecutable yes. Treason, no.
Of course, from a purely historical point of view it’s interesting. Here the US government had meddled in many “elections” over the past sixty years, and felt justified in doing so. Now it happens to us, and we cry “foul.”
Hopefully, a lesson is learned – should this indeed be the case!
LikeLike
No, Rudy. Treason.
LikeLike
On the other hand, collaborating with a foreign power to rig our presidential election is treason.
LikeLike
That is a supposition. Not a fact. O wait, that will become a factoid…;-)
LikeLike
Yeah, Rudy.
What you wrote is pretty much a Trump defense.
The NY Times sat on this particular Trump & Mother Russia story. Yet it DID keep writing about those Russian intelligence agency hacked – and altered – emails. Again and again and again.
The fact is that Russian intelligence agencies interceded in the election against Clinton and on behalf of Trump. IN the last month of the campaign, Trump cited those emails 164 times, and he and his surrogates passed off fake news from a Russian website. And then he kept denying there was any Russian involvement.
Thomas Rid, professor in theDepartment of War Studies at Kings College London, who studies and writes about technology and cyber warfare said this about the Russian hacking: “the evidence is so rich that there are only two reasons not to accept it — one, because you don’t understand the technical details, or because you don’t want to understand it for political reasons… It’s really not controversial that we’re looking at a major Russian campaign.”
Conservative pundit Kathleen Parker put it this way in describing Trump’s continual denial of the Russian hacks: “when the president-elect persists in a state of denial, siding with the enemy against his own country’s best interests, one is forced to consider that Trump himself poses a threat to national security. In Russia, they’d just call it treason.”
Guess what?
We should call it what it is too.
LikeLike
Diane: Irony? Maybe. Or just double standards that just hang in the air unanswered?
LikeLike
As I read the Times article, I wondered how much Trump’s constant criticism of the Times influenced their decision-making.
Also, as an aside, I saw coverage of a street protester speaking to a small group in Washington D C. saying the most transcendent thing I’ve heard so far. He said this: That Trump knows he is a fraud, and we all know that he is a fraud. No double-speak there.
LikeLike
This reminds me of an article I read recently in the New Yorker about a lawsuit Hulk Hogan won: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/gawkers-demise-and-the-trump-era-threat-to-the-first-amendment
It seems the norms have changed in the interpretation of the First Amendment…
LikeLike
wgersen: I read the Hulk Hogan article–thanks. Yes–to your “it seems the norms have changed” comment about the Press and the First Amendment.
However, there is a difference between (a) Gawker’s “publish anything, regardless” and (what I agree is) a breach of Hogan’s privacy, regardless of his despicable character; and (b) a sociopath’s inability to distinguish between (a) what’s in his own mind and (b) truth, or between (a) what he WANTS or doesn’t want to be the case and (b) what IS the case. That’s the fundamental difference between being sane and not being sane.
In a court of law, where we still have the highest regard for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I cannot see how privacy would play into THAT judgment? Can you?
LikeLike
Since none of the media outlets had any trouble repeatedly “reporting” on Hillary Clinton’s email issue that wasn’t an issue, or Benghazi, also a non-issue, then the times should have shared this information with the public. The government should never win over the media unless it is a clear situation of compromising the safety of the people. Fair and balanced reporting? Not during this past election cycle! The Fourth Estate has been woefully inadequate and needs to rededicate themselves to their true purpose. The newly elected emperor is, in fact, naked.
LikeLike
The New emperor is a tyrant
Thank you, NY Times
LikeLike
It is pretty clear that the Times decided to protect its brand, and let others go with the story first, not in time to provide information to voters.
“But was that the right decision? Was there a way to write about some of these allegations using sound journalistic principles but still surfacing the investigation and important leads? Eventually, The Times did just that, but only after other news outlets had gone first.”
LikeLike
Oh good gawd. Haven’t used the NYT for news/ political coverage for YEARS. They’ve proved themselves countless times to be craven panderers to neolibs, always checking the establishment Dem water temp before deciding how to slant things. Their hateful coverage of the Clinton campaign can only be explained by blind ingrained sexism combined with stupidity about potential election outcome.
Doesn’t mean I’ll cancel the piddling cost of my NYT weekender. I like the Sat business & sports, & the Sun obits & cultural coverage. I use a google news filter for news/ politics, & find that 99% of the time, WaPo is what I end up reading. Doesn’t hurt that they cover ed news often & from several points of view.
LikeLike
Even BuzzFeed rejected the story according to Glen Greenwald.
LikeLike
But it is true. The FBI is investigating links between Trump allies and Russia. The Times reported that the FBI was investigating Clinton. Comey announced it. The FBI was also investigating Trump. Comey knew it. The Times knew it. Double standard or cover-up?
LikeLike
Hello Diane: What happened to your Gene Glass thread? I wrote a response, but then the thread disappeared. Here’s my response anyway because it’s about teaching social justice, propaganda, and Trump’s attitude towards truth. If it comes back, I’ll re-post there.
DOUG1943 writes: “‘Social Justice’, like other words in the political sphere, does not ‘have’ a definition.”
Just a course correction here: When you teach a course in college, you distinguish common usage of your term(s)–a mixture of meanings at best and your exploration may include a political context, especially where “justice” is concerned. You give some history of the term’s usage and define YOUR more technical meaning to use throughout the course; so that the course doesn’t get confused at the definition phase. If that’s what you mean by “how it’s being used,” then that’s just another way of talking about its meaning or its definition.
I don’t know any from the left (in my experience) who indoctrinate, though I am sure some do–as do some on the right. I had a new teacher in my class once who thought, finally, she could religiously proselytize her students now and, when she found out the State laws forbade it, she thought that the State was infected with “liberal bias.” Of course, in a democracy, indoctrination in education should be avoided and clearly distinguished from educating. But here’s the BIG HOWEVER: Trump and his camp seem to have come together with the Republicans on this one method from their playbook:
If it’s true but WE don’t like it, or it makes us look bad, or we don’t want to own the sticky consequences, then talking about it is propaganda from the other side. From that view, there is no truth–there’s just my “truth” or the highway. Indoctrination or death. And so to explore the different meanings of social justice or to understand what is really social and what is really just is to indoctrinate your students against the other side–in this case, the Right. That’s straight out of the fascist playbook, BTW, as that Forbes article explains.
Note how Trump can never apologize, nor can he take criticism. He hates truth. How can he ever be wrong or apologize for something if he IS the truth? For him truth-telling is interpreted as “they hate me.” He’s the king who thinks he will kill the truth by silencing everyone or, if they keep telling the truth, by killing the messenger.
LikeLike
As a regular reader of the NYT for many years, I was also aghast at what I perceived as a double standard in a newspaper which is perceived by many to be slanted in the support of the Dems. My concern, even though I faulted the Dems packaging of Clinton was inadequate for the general public and their real concerns which was picked up by Trump and benefited him, Was the issue sexism? I think it needs to be examined, but even-handed reporting is what I rely on this paper for honest, appropriate factual reporting. Very disappointing! At the same time,, Bernie Sanders was literally ignored even though he attracted numerous young people as had Obama done. Double standard? Confusion? Reexamination is in order, and congratulations to this new columnist for revealing what she is SUPPOSED to for the readers to decide. .Instead of concentrating on new technology, perhaps the PAPER OF RECORD should review its mandate.
LikeLike
Those of us who follow the media know about how the news is slanted simply by the publication something on the front page or not at all.
The NY Times to those of us who watch it is flagrant manipulator of the truth….especially about education.
LikeLike
That’s a tough moral dilemma. I will add it to my other dilemma stories in my book “How to Teach Morality”. We found that working through such dilemma stories is the most effective way to increase one’s moral-democratic competence.
Trump might lose his job soon anyway because his popularity had already been down on an all time low level, before he signed the order to rid health insurance for poorer Americans and before thousands of women protested. The Republicans do not want a land slide victory of the Democrats next mid-term elections. Trump’s only chance to survive in his office is to step up psychological or real warfare with his favorite enemies. That’s what despotes usually do. God safe America and the rest of the world!
LikeLike
Gee whiz… how very …hmmm… thoughtful? Moral? of them… but they were fast to front page the Comey shout-out, that the FBI was GOING TO investigate… Hilary’s computer.
Although they had not even looked at it, The Time said that this was “news”!
Ironic?
SAD!
LikeLike
OUTRAGEOUS! Clearly biased coverage in favor of Trump. I am beyond appalled.
LikeLike
Wow. Knowing and withholding this investigation, while publishing the FBI announcement of its super short re-opening of the Clinton investigation.
Did it not dawn on NYT editors they had been played?
LikeLike
Does the Obama administration now realize the value of whistleblowers?
LikeLike