The New York Times is very sorry that they were reluctant to publish and highlight credible allegations that the President of the United States is a rapist.
Many have written to ask us why we didn’t give the allegations more attention on our website and in print. (The Times published an 800-word story on Friday evening, but did not promote the story on its home page until late Saturday morning and did not run a print story until Sunday.) Some questioned whether the lack of prominence showed too much deference to the president’s denials, or whether it even suggested misogyny or an unwillingness to believe a victim’s account.
But upon reflection, maybe, they might have handled E. Jean Carroll’s account of being attacked by Donald Trump just a tad better. So says (now) the Times’ Executive Editor, Dean Baquet.
He said the critics were right that The Times had underplayed the article, though he said it had not been because of deference to the president.
Why, then, when presented with these charges, did the Times demur? Well, you see, because they didn’t break the story. It was first published by a pesky competitor.
[T]he Carroll story, Mr. Baquet said, was different because the allegations were already receiving broad attention, with New York Magazine publishing an excerpt from Ms. Carroll’s book detailing the incident. “We were playing by rules that didn’t quite apply,” Mr. Baquet said. “They’ve allowed us to break major stories, from Bill O’Reilly to Harvey Weinstein. But in this case, it was a different kind of story.”
Felony rape allegedly committed by an American president was… a “different kind of story.” OK then…
In other words, it wasn’t their story. Not the fact that the elected leader of our country very likely assaulted a woman, pinning her against a wall and shoving his penis halfway inside her without her consent. Hey, it’s not our story. So we’ll relegate it to the “book section.” Just in case anyone’s actually interested.
Never mind the fact that dozens of women have accused this creature of similar behavior.
Baquet admits that the Times’ reporters did follow up and verify the accounts by the two women whom E. Jean Carroll told about Trump’s alleged rape of her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store. Baquet’s excuse here is that the Times ‘ “informal guidelines” in such cases required them to seek alternative, independent sources for the claims, which they apparently could not locate. He now admits that’s a pretty lame excuse under the circumstances.
In retrospect, Mr. Baquet said, a key consideration was that this was not a case where we were surfacing our own investigation — the allegations were already being discussed by the public.
The fact that a well-known person was making a very public allegation against a sitting president “should’ve compelled us to play it bigger.”
Ya think? Maybe we should go over it one more time for you.
The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips. I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights.
I am astonished by what I’m about to write: I keep laughing. The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle. I am wearing a pair of sturdy black patent-leather four-inch Barneys high heels, which puts my height around six-one, and I try to stomp his foot. I try to push him off with my one free hand — for some reason, I keep holding my purse with the other — and I finally get a knee up high enough to push him out and off and I turn, open the door, and run out of the dressing room.
The Columbia Journalism Review is not impressed with Baquet’s excuses.
{T]hey ultimately come down to whether the Times is willing to put its institutional imprimatur behind the credibility of women making allegations against powerful men. And while Baquet says he regrets not giving Carroll’s claims more prominent placement in the paper and on the Times website, he also mentions another informal rule that privileges newsroom ego over the interest of the reader: a reluctance to follow up on another outlet’s scoop: “In retrospect, Mr. Baquet said, a key consideration was that this was not a case where we were surfacing our own investigation—the allegations were already being discussed by the public.”
In other words, it only merits the Times’ attention (and by inference, the public’s attention) if they’re the ones who broke the story.
One problem with that attitude is that the Times is generally viewed—and touts itself—as one of the few predominant and premiere vehicles for news in this country. Other media outlets with a less significant reach tend to follow the Times’ lead in determining their own priorities. The other, more obvious problem is that a credible charge of rape against a U.S. president is by definition a very serious news matter, whether a Fox-addled segment of the electorate chooses to believe it or not. Because as a general proposition most of us really don’t want serial rapists and abusers as our leaders.
Perhaps Baquet and the Times really did choose to bury Ms. Carroll’s account because they were miffed by the fact that she disclosed it in another publication. Or perhaps (just maybe) this is simply another instance of yet another so-called American “institution,” normalizing this president’s revolting behavior.
So much for the “paper of record.”