Trump double standard on full display in New York Times’ latest coverage

The New York Times headquarters in New York City

Wednesday brought new allegations from the Department of Justice on Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election, and Thursday’s print edition of The New York Times wedged its story on them into one skinny column that appeared mostly below the fold. This stands in stark contrast with the paper’s treatment of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016. 

On Wednesday, a federal court filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team was unsealed. In the document, the Justice Department alleges that Trump “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process” in 2020. The filing notes that after an aide told Trump about the threat that the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol posed to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to subvert the 2020 election results, Trump replied, “So what?”

The document also lays out evidence bolstering the charge that Trump knew his claims of election fraud were false, even as his campaign pushed to undermine vote counts.

But The New York Times’ front-page story, headlined “Judge Unseals New Evidence In Jan. 6 Case,” was placed below a photo of hurricane rescue efforts and two stories about the ongoing war in the Middle East.

In the paper’s Oct. 29, 2016, print edition, the lead photo was of Clinton and aide Huma Abedin, and the lead all-caps headline of the day read “New Emails Jolt Clinton Campaign In Race’s Last Days.”

In fact, all three above-the-fold stories were concerned with the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.

The New York Times, frequently described as the “newspaper of record” for the United States, has come under criticism for the tone of its election coverage.

According to a study published in June by Media Matters for America, the Times published 32 articles about the ages of Trump and President Joe Biden, but 78% of those stories focused on Biden’s age alone, while only 6% (two articles) focused on just Trump.

The paper has also underplayed June’s positive inflation report, which was released as the Trump campaign attacked the Biden administration over the issue. The Times also provided scant coverage of a policy proposal by Trump that experts have said would raise food costs.

In his Sept. 10 presidential debate against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Trump pushed the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which falsely claims that immigrants are being brought to the U.S. to replace white people. In a fact-check of Trump’s statement, the Times merely noted that his claim “lacks evidence” and did not connect it to its roots in the white supremacist movement.

There are also issues with the Times’ coverage of Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate. The paper reported on Vance’s false claim that Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, left military service because his unit had been ordered into service in Iraq, but it did not inform readers that this was a lie.

In a July 15 report on Vance’s stance on abortion, the paper edited a quote from the candidate to make it appear as if he opposes a federal abortion ban. However, the full context makes clear Vance backs a “minimum national standard” on the issue—which is a ban.

The Times’ influential reporting has historically had a significant effect on world events. Possibly the most negative episode of this occurred in the case of the paper’s amplification of false claims by the George W. Bush administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.