Join us while we take a look at several New York Times tweets. To avoid cherry picking, we will focus only on tweets from today, Tuesday, August 13. We will seek to illustrate how the NYT's writers forge their particular narrative.
Given that few people actually read the articles attached to tweets (ahem), we will focus on the tweet itself.
The upshot will undoubtedly fail to surprise our readers, but the exercise is worthwhile inasmuch as the Times is still, nominally, the paper of record. Its interactions within the space of the unofficial media of record--that being X--is worthy of scrutiny.
Picture a liberal Protestant church (the Times) sitting in the middle of a massive stadium (X). Let's drop in on the dying institution within the thriving one.
In this first example, the Times tweet writer seeks to reduce the magnitude of a mind-boggling spectacle: Elon Musk, perhaps the world's most dynamic living figure, interviewing the most influential living populist (who just happened to survive an assassination attempt).
The Times downplays the event by casually mentioning the "bumpy start." Never mind that the delay was due to a massive Distributed Denial-Of-Service (DDOS) attack.
They then go on to make X sound technologically unreliable by questioning their ability to "handle big events". We can chalk this up to legacy media envy, but its pettiness cannot be overstated. In the same breath, the Times attempts to smear Musk for "[using] the site to further his own political interests."
First, Musk paid dearly for Twitter. It's his. Second, questioning free speech has become a new hallmark of the party that once championed the First Amendment. Not to mention that the Times has been using their platform to shape public opinion for nearly 175 years. The claim is absurd on its face. For shame.
In a tweet regarding "election updates," the Times chooses to lead with Tim Walz making a solo campaign appearance...over the Trump/Musk interview that garnered 1 billion views.
95 mph DUI guy who abandoned his National Guard unit before it was deployed talking to a few (paid?) attendees...or ONE BILLION VIEWS. Your call, tweet writing intern! Burying the lede deeper than the Mariana Trench.
The history of Jeffrey Epstein and liberal politicians fills volumes. Yet the true crime isn't Bill Clinton flying on the Lolita Express 26 times or Prince Andrew's settlement after his fling with Virginia Giuffre. It isn't Giuffre's testimony that Trump was never a guest on Little St. John's.
No: the real crime is that one of Trump's jets was...ONCE OWNED BY EPSTEIN!
In other words, they have nothing of substance on Trump, so they're tossing in proximal association as a substitute for proof of wrongdoing. It would surprise no one if it turned out the plane purchased by the Trump Organization turned out to have belonged to Jeff Epsteen, a la the Seinfeld episode where George purchases a car owned by John Voight instead of Jon Voight.
We will end on this tweet--yet another in just a single morning of tweets from the Times--that twists truth not-so-cleverly to present a brighter progressive picture. This falls into the "HEY! Orange Man exaggerated!!" category.
Trump, a master orator, often uses bombast in a way that speaks to how much the mainstream--like the NYT--colors the truth so casually. If he says no one was at Kamala's rally, well, any sane human knows he means that her turnout was nothing like the throngs that show up at Trump rallies.
After all the awful tricks Trump has endured--the early photos of the inauguration crowd after access was closed down to a single entrance, for instance--he has earned the right to his signature style of Mark Twain-esque proselytizing.
Moreover, his grandiose barbs are often the sole voice loud enough to reach American ears that conveys a deeper truth: that the press, as exemplified by the New York Times, is truly the enemy of the people.
Nice article