The decision by the Times was wrong

Sept. 13, 2018 | G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

This week I’ve been asked several times about what I think about the New York Times publishing an anonymous editorial supposedly from a senior member of the Trump Administration.

If you’ve not read it allow me to give you a succinct summary: the president is erratic and there are people who work for him who are working against his worst characteristics.

At one point the article stated, there are people within the White House “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

Trump has called the editorial “gutless.”

This article comes out at a time when veteran reporter Bob Woodward’s book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” on Trump comes out as well.

The president has responded the book contains “so many lies and phony sources.”

So, back to the question at hand: what did I think of the anonymous editorial? I think it was a mistake on several counts.

When a news outlet does not credit its sources, the burden of proof doesn’t fall upon the source but on the outlet.  

This is why I’m old school: letters to the editor must be signed and we attribute the information used in our stories. I want people to be responsible for their comments.

I know that I’m not following today’s journalistic conventions but that’s how I see it.

Without a byline, all the Times has done is given the Trump base a big piece of red meat. This will be proof to many the “media” is out to get the president. The president will use this to further attack the press.

For once, I agree with Trump. This was “gutless.” If there is consensus within the administration the president is not doing the right thing, then it is the responsibility of those working with him to say or do something.

The president of the United States is not some sort of god-king. There is no divine appointment. Trump didn’t pull a sword out of a stone to get this job. The president is a human being, just like the rest of us, who is elected and then governed by a Constitution.

The problem is those members of the Administration who are “quietly resisting” the president want their cake and eat it too. They want to be in power to fulfill their agenda. A Constitutional crisis might throw a wrench into the machinery.

The intent of the editorial writer was to try to alert people to the internal problems in the administration while still keeping his or her job as long as possible.

Remember Elliot Richardson? The Attorney General ordered by Richard Nixon to fire the special prosecutor conducting the Watergate investigation? Richardson publically defied the president and resigned.

That was not “gutless.”
    
A word of clarification

A little inside baseball now to further shed some light on the journalistic process and what not to do if you invite a reporter to an event.

One of our staff members was invited to cover a campaign event involving Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito last week. When she arrived at the event she was told by a Polito campaign staffer that she could not come in. When the person who offered the invitation vouched for her, the reporter was then told she could not speak to anyone on record or take photos.

There was no point in her being there and the non-event wasted her valuable time.

Please understand we are happy to cover political campaigns but if you invite someone from this staff you had better let us do our job. None of us attend political events on the boss’s dime to socialize.

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