New York Times Public Editor Liz Spayd must have written this piece before I posted my blog on Friday decrying the media’s insistence on “false equivalence,” the presumption that what Hillary Clinton did with her email server was in any way comparable to Donald Trump’s refusal to release his income tax statements or a range of other far more serious statements and actions.
It sure must be a sensitive subject at the Times. Spayd called this discussion “one of the more consequential debates to engage the media in years.”
She naturally defends the Times by saying that writers should not “apply their own moral and ideological judgments to the candidates.” I agree. The media should maintain as much balance as possible.
But it also should supply perspective to readers who may not know any better. For Trump to invite Russia’s Vladimir Putin to continue hacking into Democratic Party servers and release the results is an act of national betrayal. No other nation, particularly one as nettlesome as Russia, should be invited to play any sort of role in the American democratic process. Has any presidential candidate ever invited a foreign power to interfere? Shouldn’t the American people be helped to understand the consequences of inviting Russia to muck about in American politics?
The argument goes on and on, of course. Does Trump understand the checks and balances among the different branches of our government? Does he understand that we are a nation of immigrants and once we start expelling millions of people, we are tearing at the fabric of our own society? The media can at least be asking the right questions. Right now, the New York Times is one organization that is not.
