The New York Times keeps having to explain why it won’t use the word “lie” to describe it when Donald Trump repeats something that is not true again and again despite being repeatedly fact-checked and having every opportunity to know that it is not true. But somehow, the Times’ editors think the correct answer is to keep explaining the same thinking rather than re-evaluating their position.
“Most politicians obfuscate or exaggerate at times. But I wouldn’t use the word “lie” in a news story in cases like that,” executive editor Dean Baquet says, as if we are talking here about “most politicians” who merely “obfuscate or exaggerate at times” and not a particular individual who makes multiple false claims virtually every time he speaks publicly and who makes many of those false claims repeatedly, even dozens of times.
“The word ‘lie’ is very powerful. For one thing, it assumes that someone knew the statement was false,” Baquet continues, as if, again, we aren’t talking about a case where the person has every opportunity to know the statement is false, has been told that the statement is false, and yet continues to repeat it. “Another reason to use the word judiciously is that our readers could end up focusing more on our use of the word than on what was said.” As if your readers are not ending up focusing on your refusal to use the word. As if this is solid grounds for avoiding the truth.
“And using ‘lie’ repeatedly could feed the mistaken notion that we’re taking political sides.” Ah, see, now we’re getting somewhere. The New York Times is afraid to use accurate language because it might look biased, so it becomes actually biased by refusing to use the accurate language. Earlier in the statement, Baquet said something else that’s telling about his reasons for describing a lie as a lie: “I don’t think we should use that word every day in The New York Times.” It might happen every day, but they sure can’t say it every day! Just think of how it might look to people who don’t want to admit that it happens.
Oh, but Baquet wants us to know that “on a couple of occasions” they’ve used “lie” to describe something Trump said, like about his birther claims. “It was provable, it was offensive, it was flagrant, and to write around it would have been silly.” All true! It’s just that if the Times was applying that exact same standard consistently, they’d have used “lie” on far more than a couple of occasions.