Could we please just stick to reporting what he said?
Trump’s bestie the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal wants his reporters to report JUST THE FACTS dammit, like “Trump said some words this evening,” not this stinking opinion crap. Objectivity, god damn it!
[Gerard] Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated.
“Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” Mr. Baker wrote at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning to a group of Journal reporters and editors, in response to a draft of the rally article that was intended for the newspaper’s final edition.
He added in a follow-up, “Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?”
Just reporting what he said would actually be misleading, because there was more to it than just saying. His gestures and grimaces and pauses contributed a great deal to the venom and frenzy of the event. It would be dishonest to omit that.
The draft, in its lead paragraph, described the Charlottesville, Va., protests as “reshaping” Mr. Trump’s presidency. That mention was removed.
The draft also described Mr. Trump’s Phoenix speech as “an off-script return to campaign form,” in which the president “pivoted away from remarks a day earlier in which he had solemnly called for unity.” That language does not appear in the article’s final version.
Meanwhile, Gerard “Objectivity” Baker is chummy with Trump. Remember that interview?
This month, Politico obtained and published a transcript of a White House interview with Mr. Trump conducted by Mr. Baker and several Journal reporters and editors. Unusually for an editor in chief, Mr. Baker took a leading role in the interview and made small talk with Mr. Trump about travel and playing golf.
When Ivanka Trump, the president’s older daughter, walked into the Oval Office, Mr. Baker told her, according to the transcript, “It was nice to see you out in Southampton a couple weeks ago,” apparently referring to a party that the two had attended.
The Wall Street Journal is owned by the media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who speaks regularly with Mr. Trump and recently dined with the president at the White House.
So it’s not newsworthy if “what he said” was not accurate or truthful? It’s not newsworthy to state that Trump lied? Would the same standards apply to reporting on a company’s quarterly statement or a CEO trying to spin poor profit figures?
More than likely. Wouldn’t want to harm advertising revenue or be left off the Southampton invite list.
It’s important for the WSJ to be delivering transcripts of the President without interpretation, just as it did throughout the Obama presidency. *snort*
Devoutly held wishes had me reading “…recently died with the president…”