>>5064794
It would appear that the Publisher thinks that POTUS declares all press to be the enemy of the people. This, of course, is a blatant mischaracterization and yet the Publisher used that mirepresentation as the basis for his conclusion about the exchange he had with POTUS.
Excerpt from the exchange between POTUS and publisher of NYT:
POTUS:
I would say this. I don’t mind a bad story if it’s true. I really don’t. You know, we’re all, like, big people. We understand what’s happening. I’ve had bad stories, very bad stories, where I thought it was true. And I would never complain. But when you get really bad stories where it’s not true, then you sort of say, that’s unfair. And, you know, you have a tremendous power. You have the power of the pen, the power of the ink. You have a tremendous power.
———
A G Sulzberger
I certainly wasn’t expecting the full back-and-forth, his level of interest and engagement in the conversation. At one point, Maggie jumped in.
———
Maggie Haberman
But what do you see the role of the free press as? What is it that you think that the press does?
[…]
President Trump
It describes, and should describe, accurately what’s going on in anywhere it’s covering, whether it’s a nation or a state or a game or whatever. And if it describes it accurately and fairly, it’s a very, very important and beautiful thing.
———-
A G Sulzberger
Well, I think his definition is accurate, but it’s also narrow. I view the core responsibility of The Times not just as helping people understand the world, but in seeking the truth wherever it leads, holding power to account. Those parts of our job can be hard to be on the other side of, and I’m sympathetic to that. But those are essential parts of how we meet our responsibility to inform the public. But I was really struck. There was this moment — it was a very human moment, and it seemed like a very sincere moment — when he talked about being a Queens-born kid.
President Trump
But I came from Jamaica, Queens, Jamaica Estates, and I became president of the United States. I’m sort of entitled to a great story from my — just one — from my newspaper. I mean, you know.
———-
A G Sulzberger
And he just wanted his hometown paper to write one positive story about him.
Michael Barbaro
He just wants The Times to say something nice about him.
A G Sulzberger
That’s what he said.
———-
President Trump
I’m sort of entitled to one good story in The New York Times. I started off, I ran against very smart people and a lot of them.
———-
A G Sulzberger
I don’t buy his premise that he hasn’t had that positive story. The first story he got was “Trump Triumphs.” You know, that was literally the headline. But he’s a disruptive political figure who has had an incredibly divisive approach to governing, and the coverage has reflected that.
[…]
I mean, obviously, this is a man whose public posture is that journalists are the enemy of the people. And I’ll tell you, part of what troubles me so much about that phrase is what do you do with enemies? You fight them. You lock them up. You kill them in war. But that’s never been President Trump’s private posture with journalists. And I think what this conversation showed is this is actually a man with a lot of respect for The New York Times as an institution. And I think he wants to feel that respect back. But he wants to feel it in a certain kind of way, with celebration of his actions, with validation of his performance, that I’m not sure a serious news organization, an independent news organization, can give any president. And so we have this tension between a president who, in a room with three journalists, can have a really interesting, open conversation about the role of journalism and the role of his own rhetoric in putting journalists at risk. But in public, I’m not sure we can expect change. I hope it’ll change. I really do. But I’m skeptical.