Alan Jacobs


unfair, unbalanced, and afraid

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I admire British journalism and have always thought American papers should be more like the British. But it is startling to see how vicious the New York Times has become and a little unfair to Trump. If he is paranoid, you can’t completely blame him. There is also the argument that you help him by encouraging victimisation, the idea that the eastern media elite is out to get him.
Michael Kinsley. I think Kinsley is right about this, and as a result, though I think Trump is a nightmarishly terrible President, I no longer read anything in the NYT except Ross Douthat's columns. In general, and with only the occasional exception, the Times does not care whether what its reporters say about Trump and his supporters is fair or not. Trump's description of the major news media as his "opposition" strikes me as an essentially accurate description, and while on one hand I think he deserves all the opposition he gets, on the other hand I'd like newspapers, magazines, and even some television networks to be places where I can go to find out what's actually happening in the world — rather than places to accumulate anti-Trump ammunition.