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Reading the slate article, I cannot imagine what contortions your mind goes through to arrive at the characterisation you're offering here. First of all, the w

Reading the slate article, I cannot imagine what contortions your mind goes through to arrive at the characterisation you're offering here. First of all, the whole article is about the editor-in-chief explaining why they cannot and will not consider themselves as the "Anti-Trump" paper, and how they'll teach their readers to live with the fact that Trump was elected (once). As to "find a racial angle to as much as possible", I believe you're referring to the following: As Audra Burch said when I talked to her this weekend, this one is a story about what it means to be an American in 2019. It is a story that requires deep investigation into people who peddle hatred, but it is also a story that requires imaginative use of all our muscles to write about race and class in a deeper way than we have in years. In the coming weeks, we’ll be assigning some new people to politics who can offer different ways of looking at the world. We’ll also ask reporters to write more deeply about the country, race, and other divisions. I really want your help in navigating this story. To interpret "Us[ing] all our muscle" as "doing nothing else" or "pushing it into everything:" takes a strong mixture of motivated reasoning and bad faith. First, he mentions class along with race, so the focus is already split in two. Then, he specifies what is meant by "all our muscle": reassigning some talent with different perspectives to the politics beat, and asking others to "write more deeply" about not just race but country, race, and other divisions.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
It doesn't take any contortions to see. Just read what Baquet said: > And I do think that race and understanding of race should be a part of how we cover the American story. Sometimes news organizations sort of forget that in the moment. But of course it should be. I mean, one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that. Race in the next year—and I think this is, to be frank, what I would hope you come away from this discussion with—race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story. And I mean, race in terms of not only African Americans and their relationship with Donald Trump, but Latinos and immigration. And I think that one of the things I would love to come out of this with is for people to feel very comfortable coming to me and saying, here’s how I would like you to consider telling that story. Anyone who's read the NY Times regularly over the years has noticed this shift. Zach Goldberg has put numbers to the phenomenon,[1] but the trends are so large that you don't need a detailed statistical analysis to notice them, as a casual reader of the newspaper. 1. https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888?s=20 https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888?s=20
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  That's not an expression of an intent to make race the story next year. It's his believe that race is a core issue hurting the American soul these days, and that he is committing the paper of record to cover the topic in proportion to its significance. Edit: I previously included a paragraph here pointing to this issue being brought up even though it's one among many as evidence for race being a top issue. But reading some past comment of yours, you seem more reasonable than I expected, on that issue and in general. Our disagreement may just be smaller than it appears, or concern "the media" more than the issue of race. If one were to stipulate that BLM was a major story, and maybe even that some of the President-unelect's words and deeds can be interpreted as not entirely lacking a resemblance with something that may, in a certain light, be considered to possibly fall under the umbrella of "being a racist", or even just that he was frequently misinterpreted in such a way by a bit more than half of the population... then race is, de facto, a major issue. Add to that some coverage that's been criticised as tone-deaf, and my starting point of considering the Times to not be the worst, and I think there's a good-faith interpretation of Banquet's intentions. If, instead, you believe journalism in general, and the Times specifically, have been circling the drain for decades, it may sound different.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Given the actual trajectory of the NY Times' reporting over the last few years, I don't share your interpretation of what Baquet is saying. The trends pointed out by Zach Goldberg (which I linked to above) are really striking, though not surprising to people who have read the Times for a while. The 1619 Project, which the Times presented as its flagship project last year (and which Baquet discusses in the transcript), is a case in point. The really wild historical claims they made, and then the way they dismissed a pretty impressive group of historians (Gordon Wood, James McPherso, Sean Wilentz ... these are really major figures in the historical profession) who asked for corrections, while at the same time hiding the fact that their own fact checker had asked for the very same correction, and finally the way the lead author of the project attacked the historians on social media - the whole thing was really shocking. That's not how the NY Times is supposed to behave. To me, it signaled that they really didn't care about accuracy - this was their big statement, it was selling well, and they weren't going to let a few historians spoil it for them.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

It doesn't take any contortions to see. Just read what Baquet said: > And I do think that race and understanding of race should be a part of how we cover the American story. Sometimes news organizations sort of forget that in the moment. But of course it should be. I mean, one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that. Race in the next year—and I think this is, to be frank, what I would hope you come away from this discussion with—race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story. And I mean, race in terms of not only African Americans and their relationship with Donald Trump, but Latinos and immigration. And I think that one of the things I would love to come out of this with is for people to feel very comfortable coming to me and saying, here’s how I would like you to consider telling that story. Anyone who's read the NY Times regularly over the years has noticed this shift. Zach Goldberg has put numbers to the phenomenon,[1] but the trends are so large that you don't need a detailed statistical analysis to notice them, as a casual reader of the newspaper. 1. https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888?s=20 https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888?s=20

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
That's not an expression of an intent to make race the story next year. It's his believe that race is a core issue hurting the American soul these days, and that he is committing the paper of record to cover the topic in proportion to its significance. Edit: I previously included a paragraph here pointing to this issue being brought up even though it's one among many as evidence for race being a top issue. But reading some past comment of yours, you seem more reasonable than I expected, on that issue and in general. Our disagreement may just be smaller than it appears, or concern "the media" more than the issue of race. If one were to stipulate that BLM was a major story, and maybe even that some of the President-unelect's words and deeds can be interpreted as not entirely lacking a resemblance with something that may, in a certain light, be considered to possibly fall under the umbrella of "being a racist", or even just that he was frequently misinterpreted in such a way by a bit more than half of the population... then race is, de facto, a major issue. Add to that some coverage that's been criticised as tone-deaf, and my starting point of considering the Times to not be the worst, and I think there's a good-faith interpretation of Banquet's intentions. If, instead, you believe journalism in general, and the Times specifically, have been circling the drain for decades, it may sound different.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Given the actual trajectory of the NY Times' reporting over the last few years, I don't share your interpretation of what Baquet is saying. The trends pointed out by Zach Goldberg (which I linked to above) are really striking, though not surprising to people who have read the Times for a while. The 1619 Project, which the Times presented as its flagship project last year (and which Baquet discusses in the transcript), is a case in point. The really wild historical claims they made, and then the way they dismissed a pretty impressive group of historians (Gordon Wood, James McPherso, Sean Wilentz ... these are really major figures in the historical profession) who asked for corrections, while at the same time hiding the fact that their own fact checker had asked for the very same correction, and finally the way the lead author of the project attacked the historians on social media - the whole thing was really shocking. That's not how the NY Times is supposed to behave. To me, it signaled that they really didn't care about accuracy - this was their big statement, it was selling well, and they weren't going to let a few historians spoil it for them.