The media has failed from the beginning to accurately and effectively respond to Trump. In the beginning because they couldn't figure out how to deal with an inveterate and prolific liar. Recently because of an utter lack of courage.
What does one expect when the publisher of the Times is a third-generation failson and the Executive Editor is the son of the Staples co-founder? A former Executive Editor was the son of the Chevron CEO. Wealth and privilege infest the corporate media.
So, that explains why my comment was left off the reply of one from Rome to the article about farm subsidies going to mostly the largest grain farmers affected by Trump's tariff tantrums. The Roman makes a comment about how some who vote for dear leader or do his bidding receive favors and others don't...leading to a civil war or revolution? I mentioned something I read in a book by a British author that I had never heard or learned before--that after the defeat of Japan during WW II, Truman authorized MacArthur to nationalize all Japanese industry out of the ruling Zaibatsu families control so that they could no longer take all of those profits to fund Japan's war machine & colonize/monopolize their Asian neighbors. That included land reform and no one could own or control any more land than the individual household's family members could farm themselves. Can one imagine if that were to happen here? I'm guffawing so loudly right now at the thought of WHY NYT didn't print THAT comment! Btw, I believe the book I read that in was The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the 21st Century by Walter Schiedel.
There are two groups of billionaires; I'm not sure which is larger. The first group thinks what is going on is great, because Trump cut their taxes and won't come after them for tax evasion. The second group realizes that what is going on now is a coup, and they'll soon meet the fate of oligarchs in Russia. The first group are fools. People like Dr. Krugman, who have some influence with the second group, need to treat this as a war, and get organized to roll back the coup. The average citizen is going to have little or no effect on the outcome on the process. The stakes are very high.
This. They are all fucking complicit in his rise. The billionaires had to buy out and corrupt all the media from the inside first or a man as repugnant as Trump could never have risen to such power.
Remember when wages caught up with inflation during COVID? It happened but since the lowest quintile gained the most and the upper wage pundits and their even higher income owners didn't the stories were all about OMG INFLATIONS IS THE CRAZY BADS NOW!!!
I am tired of excuse that media couldn't figure out Trump. Media, that means the shrewd bosses of these private news corporations, very well know what Trump is - a sadistic psychopath and a narcissist. But Trump is profitable to them and ventures of these corporations so they deliberately sane-wash and normalize him.
Sanjeev - agree 100%. They know what they're doing. And they're cool with everything Trump is doing. I mean, if it starts hurting the owners' bottom lines that will be a different story, but until then, as long as they are making $ they're cool with the destruction of this country.
The bottom line isn't really as important to them as stability and predictability are. If profits are a little lower but more reliable, that's the direction business will go.
Ever since that dark day in 2015 when he came down the escalator this mentally irregular dotard dreckmeister has been like a cockroach swimming in the soup bowl of daily American life poisoning the discussion in the public square.
Fearless prediction: The very people who attack the media as being liberal and woke (despite its bending backwards through sanewashing) will blame it for their own delusions.
Not just a lack of courage. It's pretty clear that so-called liberal press outlets, NYT foremost, are actively supporting administration narratives, because they disrespect their own readers. They've been on a tear recently:
- "Winning" on trade
- "Preventing this shooting was impossible" vs. "Mamdani's first test as mayor: responding to this shooting" (on the same day! and he's not even mayor yet!)
- A truly repulsive essay today by Christian nationalist and gross totalitarian mouthpiece Adrian Vermeule today about "The lower courts are defying SCOTUS, not Trump", on which the cowards at Times Opinion turned comments off; Georgetown law prof Steve Vladeck, who's more polite than me, called it "tendentious and nuance-light"
- The continued employment of Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens
There's a reason the Pitchbot exists. One day, Jessica Grose and Eli Saslow and a handful of others are going to decamp to Substack too, and Editor in Chief Kathleen Kingsbury, having taken full control of the paper with Sulzberger's blessing, will complete the transformation of the Republic to the Empire, with Patrick Healy as Darth Vader to her Palpatine.
I personally like reading Ross Douthat, Bret Stephens (though I don't bother on his Israeli articles) David Brooks, David French in the NYT. Their views are often different from mine, but I don't need a mirror. I want to read other perspectives that aren't completely divorced from reality. I find I learn more from people I disagree with than those I do.
We on the left are not immune from group think. If the Democratic leadership really thought Trump was the worst thing that could happen to America (which was true) they would have looked for a candidate in 2024 that would have appealed to the largest swath of voters, including those who wouldn't vote for a woman or person of color. Yes, it would have been a white man, but let's face it there are a lot of white men who would be infinitely better than Trump. Niki Haley or Ron DeSantis would have been better! We would have hated their policies, but they wouldn't be destroying the country the way Trump is.
I don't mind reading different opinions if they're well substantiated. I have changed my opinion over time on a number of issues, for instance the causes of housing shortages and the efficacy of private health insurance - all shifts from predominantly liberal narratives toward a more moderate position, as a result of persuasive writing.
Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens do not substantiate anything. They are awful writers whose claims and opinions do not stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny, and they are not worthy of a prominent position at the closest thing this country has to a paper of record. There are thousands of talented writers out there - NYT needs to separate them and hire other people.
By the way, that criticism extends to Brooks, Dowd, and Friedman. Five opinion writers whose columns are answered with a collective eye-roll. The quality of the product is deterioriating.
I stopped reading Maureen Dowd years ago. She's never admitted that she helped Trump look like a harmless, fun guy. And her disrespect to Obama was more than I could tolerate, along with her obsession with the Clintons.
Dowd columns are basically identical to one another now. Therefore, ChatGPT could write Dowd columns with no noticeable decline in quality. I'd like a portion of the proceeds from saving the Times money, please.
Wrong. Fascist DeSatan is just as bad as trump, if not worse. He doesn't care if his FEMA funded concentration camp cannot withstand severe weather, or what kind of inhumane conditions kidnapped victims are being forced to endure. He aided and abetted torture at Guantanamo during Dubya's disastrous presidency, so it's not surprising. He is eagerly participating in project 2025's destruction of this country, and suddenly friendly with trump again.
The NYT opinion writers you mentioned are all generally terrible with Mr. Brooks perhaps changing his idiotic ideology a tad since he's decided trump is intolerable. Why support a "news" site mainly interested in sanewashing the fascist, asinine trump?! There's a reason Paul Krugman left.
French is an excellent writer and very astute. Chances are he'll be bailing out of the NYT and onto Substack soon. Ultimately, this is a poor way of managing news though, so I hope that new media organizations start up to replace the embarrassing shells remaining of the old ones.
Times Opinion recently drove out another great writer. I won't tell you who it is, but his name rhymes with Dr. Kaul Prugman.
(Also Peter Coy. Coy's never publicly commented on it, but I strongly suspect the straw that broke the camel's back was one of his last pieces, which again I suspect he was forced to write, about how congestion pricing--another bugaboo that Times leadership absolutely hated despite its clear benefits--was failing, 3 days after the tolling started.)
I started to read that opinion piece by Adrian Vermeule and had to stop. It was utterly nauseating. And I, too, was angry that they turned comments off. I wanted to write: WTAF? In nicer prose, of course. :)
Yes, I saw that winning on trade. I think it was by Jason Furman and I read it. And then the next thing I know the stock market is tanking and he’s suddenly got his hair on fire! Part of the problem is the headlines are often disassociated from the content of the column. I feel sorry for the writers.
Agree. Lack of critical knowledge and courage are the main ingredients of the media willing to succumb to Trump’s cajoling them. Look atvtge US’s Ivy League colleges caving to Trump’s threats to defund them. Imagine if Trump is anlevto dissuade those businesses who champion him to stop taking out adverts in, say, The New York Times — a kind of “investment strike”.
"The latest maneuver comes from the Federal Trade Commission. Last month, it announced that it would approve the merger of two of the biggest ad agencies in the world only if the parties agree to an unusual condition: The merged company cannot refuse to place ads on websites for political reasons.
The move was a sharp break from its traditional practice. The F.T.C. is usually focused on such concerns as consumer protection and monopoly power; now it’s trying to dictate where businesses advertise their products.
While the move would theoretically affect platforms of any political persuasion, there’s little doubt that it is a thinly veiled attempt to prop up X."
A crafty publication would take those full page ad monies, but then let a free-lance op ed writer come up with a catchy headline to attract attention from a target audience basically challenging that audience to think about why an entity would purchase a full page ad or host an interviewee to persuade others to its way of ______(insert activity here), i.e. vote, etc.
I just saw a line in an NYT story that says that Trump had enacted “energy-friendly policies”. Without any further explanation or context. WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MSM???
You make two thoughtful, insightful points, especially the first. Thank you!
Your issues are like what I’m seeing in the new (to me) series “Newsroom.” I don’t think our current billionaire media moguls are finding (or maybe not even looking for) good, savvy, energetic reporters, investigators, columnists, and editors. They’re clearly not interested in granting them journalistic independence and seem to have no idea what bigger trends might be going on in the larger world. I’m not expecting to see an Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite again, but hiring at least a competent staff would be a welcome improvement.
Thank you for this! That “winning his trade wars” headline the other day drove me (and most other subscribers) crazy, and we commented on it “loudly.” But it was just one of many headlines that appear to just prop up Trump and avoid the truth.
This is probably the most important topic right now. I so appreciate you.
Last week, the Times had a headline that said Trump had successfully turned attention away from the Epstein files! It was so ludicrous that I laughed out loud.
That movement a week or so ago by MSM saying that he quashed that scandal was some of the most blatant manufactured consent I've seen, in an era full of it.
Times comments also heavily censors counter opinions, but doesn't censor obvious concern trolls and bad actors. Newspaper comments have always been bottom of the barrel, only slightly above the comments under Fox News Facebook posts haha
There’s a way to write directly to the column author. Look for her contact information at the bottom. I just did that.
And as much as I agree that economics is an important topic, it is not the most important topic the most important topics are the illegal and unconstitutional arrest of US citizens, and the imminent loss of voting rights of many of our citizens. Without those two things fixed we sunk on anything not to mention economy.
"There’s a way to write directly to the column author."
Pam, think about why you are here. You are here because Paul Krugman left the New York Times after he could not stomach the interference and second-guessing from his editors anymore.
And the person they saw fit to second-guess is a Nobel prize winning economist. What amount of respect will be afforded to a female reporter who isn't, and has no academic background in economics whatsoever?
In short, I don't believe that writing to the column author will have any effect other than you wasting your time, because the column author isn't the one who decides anything.
Think about why I am here? I wrote as I wished to, then told the rest of you. I’m a hyper aware of why I am here, but of course none of you have to agree with my style of responding to these outrages.
And the author of that NYT column wrote back to me asking if I had read the article. She said that my comments along the lines of others here were what the article was all about. Well I didn’t get that from it neither did the rest of you I think.
Keep firmly in mind that the person who writes the headlines is not the authors of the articles. The NYT has a rogue MAGA idiot writing headlines these days.
It’s really insulting to be told to keep something firmly in mind that is so obvious. It’s like a man trying to tell a woman to “calm down” when she’s feeling passionate about a subject.
An interesting point about WaPo comment boards: As of yesterday, they are restricting anything negative about Trump or his administration. The AI will automatically refuse to post it. Astonishing.
I used to write to the editors of the Times and the Washington post, offering my services as a headline writer. They didn’t want me, and as it turned out, I didn’t want them either. It’s easy to cancel a subscription. Special thanks to my 1950s high school journalism teachers, Mrs. Clover and Miss Lehman.
I know that. But hopefully her editor reads the comments about that, because there’s no way to write a critical comment to the writer of the headline. If you can tell me a better way I would do it.
I also saw that headline in the NYT. I shook my head but didn't bother to comment. The moderators have already refused a couple of my posts on such occasions. They don't want to be told what they know too well.
That comments thread was one for the ages. Nary a whimper to defend the headline or the superficial reporting. The name Krugman was repeatedly invoked. He's apparently some kind of expert on such things and used to release edited columns twice a week in the NYT. Wonder what he's doing these days...
There is simply no analysis of any merit on the tariff "deals" in the NYT, just taking tRump's numbers and running with them. Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, and other Substack-based economic writers have utterly demolished these wildly unsupportable "wins" stenographed. by the MSM, and outed them for the arrant rubbish that they are.
We as a nation are so poorly served by the shite served up by media outlets who truly should know better, but who have succumbed to lazy, timorous, and frankly stupid journalism, that even for us non-specialists in law, economics, medicine, etc., we see the fatal flaws in such crippled reportage, ffs!
The headline on Jason Furman's essay today made my blood pressure go up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/opinion/tariffs-economy-inflation-recession.html If you don't want to click on that, the headline says, "The Tariffs Kicked In. The Sky Didn’t Fall. Were the Economists Wrong?". The most liked comment is one that essentially says, come back in 6 months and we'll see what happened.
Clicks are VOTES. Never forget this. Do NOT click on bogus headlines no matter how much you want to push back in the comment section.
I know, I’ve been guilty of doing the same myself, but every time we click on one of these bogus headlines, we are begging for MORE of this bogosity. They will serve it up to us as long as we click on it.
That's why so many European leaders are saying that they had capitulated, and are saying that the EU negotiator had signed a bad deal, because these new trade deals AREN'T wins for the U.S. Got ya.
I know it’s tempting to leave a comment objecting to the falsehoods in the article, but never forget that by doing so you are driving the false narrative.
Similar to the label "anti-vaxxers". If someone were to come out strongly against gravity, we wouldn't call them anti-gravity, we would call them WRONG!
Not only have media like the NYT given Trump far too much credit on economics, they’ve bought into his zero-sum worldview. The question I asked in a comment on that story in the NYT is, “If Trump’s winning, who’s losing?” The answer is not the EU, it’s us. The US.
The title is definitely eye-catching, but also misleading. The article does contain some nuance, yet the fact of the matter is: I couldn’t wait for you to dismantle the headline’s premise for me.
I’m honestly a bit sad to admit how much I needed you to say it the way you just did. Even that strong recent GDP number, if you don’t look closely, you miss the fact that it’s just a “simple,” yet damaging, result of a massive drop in imports.
Here’s the hard truth, Doc: with everyone else caving in to these convenient narratives, who but you is left to tell it like it really is?
Elon Musk demonstrated a corollary to the "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" concept when he tried to tweak the X version of ChatGPT to give less liberal sounding replies. The result was that the X-chat bot started screaming violent anti-semitic and anti-democratic nonsense.
When enough Ring doorbell cameras show a masked, camouflaged visitor at the front door, when the grocery bill has doubled or, better yet, when groceries have disappeared from shelves, when the electric bill has an AI surcharge tacked on -- maybe, just maybe, then 'enough' of the blissfully ignorant will get 'reason' and 'see' what is actually going on. (Too late?)
Everyone thinks of the media as being populated by armies of Woodwards and Bernsteins. But just like in any profession, most of the people who work in journalism are inherently lazy. Why do extra research on a complex topic when you could instead take press releases and talking points that are provided to you and build your article around that (and then kick off for the day a few hours early)?
Most people also have no sense of history, so they have no perspective on what's happening in the moment. I was 28-years-old when 9/11 happened, but even I at that age rolled my eyes at the dozens and dozens of articles at the time claiming with great solemnity that things had changed forever and that humor was now dead.
There's also in journalism (as in academia, as in film criticism, as in any intellectual profession) a pack mentality in which people in professions that have a finite number of paying jobs are unwilling to deviate from the pack leader out of a very real fear of likely being professionally ostracized. If going out on a limb and taking a position different from the pack leader will almost assuredly get you kicked out of the club with little hope of getting back in (since there are plenty of other people waiting in line who are willing to toe the institutional line), then that leads to group think.
IIRC, even the original Woodward and Bernstein was essentially a freak incident. "Deep Throat" first tried leaking Watergate to the actual political desk of the newspaper... whose people quickly went straight to the White House, which told them "no no, that's all nonsense, nothing like that is happening," and that was the end of it. DT then had to go looking for other journalists to break the actual story.
The media, of course, has been dining out on this aberration forever by pretending it's the norm.
Responding specifically to your reference to 9/11. What struck me most at the time was the press's automatic reaction of, "Oh, we all have to support the president now!" ((You know, the one who had ignored warnings about planes flying into buildings.) And then went along with the literally nonsensical idea that we were definitely in a "go to war" moment instead of a "track down the perpetrator" moment, etc. The press loves itself a good war and rallying around the flag and hates speaking truth to power.
Remember "Just keep shopping"? That's a hell of a rallying cry. Then the press declined to point out that GWB funded the "War on Evil" with deficit spending. You can look at the entire process as a case where the Saudis and Gulf States lent money to the US, to solve a problem they created. After which, the US taxpayer has to pay them back the money, with interest.
While I read your articles religiously, I also strongly suggest that you read the China Global South blog, by Eric Olander. Now THAT will truly make you depressed! China has already “ eaten our lunch “ and has surpassed us in every way. And Trump is making it even worse. Our country is truly asleep at the wheel. China is invested in every part of the world. We are in the Chinese Century now. But who wants to live in a Chinese Communist Party run world?
The Economist podcasts have shown a pretty balanced view of China. They see one man rule as unstable and problematic but China is doing some things very well...especially manufacturing and R&D. Trump is looking back to the 1950s and China is looking ahead to the 2050s.
If I had to choose between Xi and Trump, I'd take Xi. At least he's smart. I also think he sees the whole of society more than Trump, who only sees himself. But this is a choice of the two evils, not a real preference which for me is a functioning liberal democracy, slow and imperfect.
The quote regarding crime has really become a meme in Trump's head, fed by his inherent racism. It is of interest how it is fed, in turn, by his take on narcotics. His attack on Canada is then based on the falsehood that large amounts of fentanyl are crossing from the north. It is hugely difficult for people who are awake, not woke, to negotiate with those who operate all day in a dream state.
Thanks Paul. Your argument is on-the-mark. I don’t know how history will judge media/ big business/ the Democrats/ the Republicans/ and various governments, institutions across the world, all of whom are trying to co-habitat with the Trump administration. ‘We’, out here in the test of the world, are frightened of alienating Trump… how will we be judged?
I also wish that ‘the rest of us’ (ie outside the US) challenged the Trump administration. The more important struggle, within and on behalf of the moral soul of the US, I leave to you, Americans of all beliefs. But, I wish we showed a bit more clarity about our own values!!
So, please keep up the good work, analysing and criticising well. You’ll keep my attention. ‘Reaistance’ starts with small, personal decisions which become incremental. I’ll leave you with a comment attributed to Lucia de Gasperi, daughter to Alcide de Gasperi (last Prime Minister of a democratic Italy before Fascism, and first Italian PM after the end of Italian Fascism:
“Quando tutto si oscura, rimane solo una luce, ma per vederla, bisogna essere abituati a cercarla”….
For those who don’t understand Italian, thos is my translation:
“When everything goes dark, only a (little) light remains, but to (be able) to see it, we must be used to looking for it (the light)”.
That is the endeavour that Paul Krugman, and so many others are engaged in. Keeping us attuned to looking for the light.
Your former colleague Ross Douthat took time out from trying to convert the world to Catholicism to give us his self-esteemed opinion on Trump tariffs yesterday starting with this brilliant analysis:
“This week, the European Union agreed to a trade deal with the United States that amounts to a capitulation to Donald Trump.”
Then in usual Douthat style he wandered off on tangents and somehow found his way to a conclusion that without the USA the world will not be free:
“Whatever your ideals or fears, whatever your beliefs about the good society, the battles you care about will be won or lost in the United States.
The refuges are illusory, the alternatives are compromised or weak, and the future of freedom will be American or it will not be at all.”
It seems to have escaped him or (given his stance on real freedom), pleased him, that the battles for freedoms people really care about have already been lost in America.
Somewhere in his rambling he proposed that the USA was the only country strong enough to fight for freedom. Conceit aside, is it really fighting for freedom if you’re extorting allies? Or does Douthat think protection rackets are freedom?
I saw the headline for Douthat's column and gagged but didn't read it since (1) I cancelled my subscription last year, and (2) reading his stuff always made me throw up in my mouth a bit anyway. Thanks for your summary which is actually worse than I would have expected. I assume he was reamed in the comments but, if I recall correctly, he doesn't read those. Presumably b/c he's always getting reamed.
I also read that article and had a similar reaction to his garbage. Interestingly no comments were allowed on it. Meanwhile Brett was talking about positive upswings in the Trump administration or some such drivial.
This is why I dropped subscriptions to the milquetoast New York Times and the traitorous Washington Post. I give my money to The Guardian, which is not afraid to call a lie a lie, and doesn't censor curse words when an story subject says one. Also, The Guardian has no paywall; it also has no corporate owners, as it's owned by a nonprofit. They'll happily take your money if you wish to donate, and I've happily supported it. https://www.theguardian.com/us for the U.S. edition.
The media has failed from the beginning to accurately and effectively respond to Trump. In the beginning because they couldn't figure out how to deal with an inveterate and prolific liar. Recently because of an utter lack of courage.
It isn’t just cowardice. The billionaire owners of the media want this brave new world. I think it is important to remember this.
What does one expect when the publisher of the Times is a third-generation failson and the Executive Editor is the son of the Staples co-founder? A former Executive Editor was the son of the Chevron CEO. Wealth and privilege infest the corporate media.
So, that explains why my comment was left off the reply of one from Rome to the article about farm subsidies going to mostly the largest grain farmers affected by Trump's tariff tantrums. The Roman makes a comment about how some who vote for dear leader or do his bidding receive favors and others don't...leading to a civil war or revolution? I mentioned something I read in a book by a British author that I had never heard or learned before--that after the defeat of Japan during WW II, Truman authorized MacArthur to nationalize all Japanese industry out of the ruling Zaibatsu families control so that they could no longer take all of those profits to fund Japan's war machine & colonize/monopolize their Asian neighbors. That included land reform and no one could own or control any more land than the individual household's family members could farm themselves. Can one imagine if that were to happen here? I'm guffawing so loudly right now at the thought of WHY NYT didn't print THAT comment! Btw, I believe the book I read that in was The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the 21st Century by Walter Schiedel.
They love the failson of the Real Estate broker who was the failson of the German pimp and draft dodger.
Report the bot someone! I can’t do it from an iPhone.
I have reported it as containing spyware, malware, or other malicious content per report received after googling the url.
And it’s gone!
I reported a second one here.
Thanks.
There are two groups of billionaires; I'm not sure which is larger. The first group thinks what is going on is great, because Trump cut their taxes and won't come after them for tax evasion. The second group realizes that what is going on now is a coup, and they'll soon meet the fate of oligarchs in Russia. The first group are fools. People like Dr. Krugman, who have some influence with the second group, need to treat this as a war, and get organized to roll back the coup. The average citizen is going to have little or no effect on the outcome on the process. The stakes are very high.
I suggest you > everyone, read and support The Guardian !
https://www.theguardian.com/us
This.
Honestly I think some of the "media bosses" are simply as dumb as Trump and need not necessarily be corrupt.
A case in point is CNN's current headline:
"Trump held firm and got exactly what he wanted from trade war"
Do they know how idiotic that sounds to anyone with any background in economics at all?
Why don't they have their economics people write articles on economics?
I looked up the author's bio to see why he is so misinformed and did not see any related background at all - none - zero.
This is misinforming the public, pure and simple, and makes CNN look just as dumb as the Trump administration.
This. They are all fucking complicit in his rise. The billionaires had to buy out and corrupt all the media from the inside first or a man as repugnant as Trump could never have risen to such power.
Indeed.
Remember when wages caught up with inflation during COVID? It happened but since the lowest quintile gained the most and the upper wage pundits and their even higher income owners didn't the stories were all about OMG INFLATIONS IS THE CRAZY BADS NOW!!!
I am tired of excuse that media couldn't figure out Trump. Media, that means the shrewd bosses of these private news corporations, very well know what Trump is - a sadistic psychopath and a narcissist. But Trump is profitable to them and ventures of these corporations so they deliberately sane-wash and normalize him.
Sanjeev - agree 100%. They know what they're doing. And they're cool with everything Trump is doing. I mean, if it starts hurting the owners' bottom lines that will be a different story, but until then, as long as they are making $ they're cool with the destruction of this country.
Rule 1 in business: no surprises!!!
The bottom line isn't really as important to them as stability and predictability are. If profits are a little lower but more reliable, that's the direction business will go.
Wow. This is pretty cynical thinking. The NYT and Guardian and LA Times are holding strong so far. And look at WSJ! Holy cow!
Media wanted their very own American Hitler for the ratings. Trump is the medias bastard creation, tho they’ll never take ownership of it
In the beginning (2015) the media was obsessed with trump. They gave him a lot of free campaign exposure, by constantly showing him.
And not only in the beginning! He never left the front pages in the last decade, president or not.
Ever since that dark day in 2015 when he came down the escalator this mentally irregular dotard dreckmeister has been like a cockroach swimming in the soup bowl of daily American life poisoning the discussion in the public square.
Great image!
You’ve got a great turn of phrase
Why I permanently cut the cord in 2016.
Me, too! 2016 was it for me. And I told the Times why I cancelled my subscription. Not that they cared.
The media created Trump. If it hadn’t promoted him starting 40 years ago, he would just be another local nepo baby real estate operator.
Fearless prediction: The very people who attack the media as being liberal and woke (despite its bending backwards through sanewashing) will blame it for their own delusions.
Direct threats or physical harm can reduce courage. All who issue threats should be arrested and jailed if found guilty.
Not just a lack of courage. It's pretty clear that so-called liberal press outlets, NYT foremost, are actively supporting administration narratives, because they disrespect their own readers. They've been on a tear recently:
- "Winning" on trade
- "Preventing this shooting was impossible" vs. "Mamdani's first test as mayor: responding to this shooting" (on the same day! and he's not even mayor yet!)
- A truly repulsive essay today by Christian nationalist and gross totalitarian mouthpiece Adrian Vermeule today about "The lower courts are defying SCOTUS, not Trump", on which the cowards at Times Opinion turned comments off; Georgetown law prof Steve Vladeck, who's more polite than me, called it "tendentious and nuance-light"
- The continued employment of Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens
There's a reason the Pitchbot exists. One day, Jessica Grose and Eli Saslow and a handful of others are going to decamp to Substack too, and Editor in Chief Kathleen Kingsbury, having taken full control of the paper with Sulzberger's blessing, will complete the transformation of the Republic to the Empire, with Patrick Healy as Darth Vader to her Palpatine.
I personally like reading Ross Douthat, Bret Stephens (though I don't bother on his Israeli articles) David Brooks, David French in the NYT. Their views are often different from mine, but I don't need a mirror. I want to read other perspectives that aren't completely divorced from reality. I find I learn more from people I disagree with than those I do.
We on the left are not immune from group think. If the Democratic leadership really thought Trump was the worst thing that could happen to America (which was true) they would have looked for a candidate in 2024 that would have appealed to the largest swath of voters, including those who wouldn't vote for a woman or person of color. Yes, it would have been a white man, but let's face it there are a lot of white men who would be infinitely better than Trump. Niki Haley or Ron DeSantis would have been better! We would have hated their policies, but they wouldn't be destroying the country the way Trump is.
French can be worth reading, but Douthat only "reasons" from his conclusions. He's a poor writer and worse thinker.
I don't mind reading different opinions if they're well substantiated. I have changed my opinion over time on a number of issues, for instance the causes of housing shortages and the efficacy of private health insurance - all shifts from predominantly liberal narratives toward a more moderate position, as a result of persuasive writing.
Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens do not substantiate anything. They are awful writers whose claims and opinions do not stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny, and they are not worthy of a prominent position at the closest thing this country has to a paper of record. There are thousands of talented writers out there - NYT needs to separate them and hire other people.
By the way, that criticism extends to Brooks, Dowd, and Friedman. Five opinion writers whose columns are answered with a collective eye-roll. The quality of the product is deterioriating.
I stopped reading Maureen Dowd years ago. She's never admitted that she helped Trump look like a harmless, fun guy. And her disrespect to Obama was more than I could tolerate, along with her obsession with the Clintons.
Dowd columns are basically identical to one another now. Therefore, ChatGPT could write Dowd columns with no noticeable decline in quality. I'd like a portion of the proceeds from saving the Times money, please.
Wrong. Fascist DeSatan is just as bad as trump, if not worse. He doesn't care if his FEMA funded concentration camp cannot withstand severe weather, or what kind of inhumane conditions kidnapped victims are being forced to endure. He aided and abetted torture at Guantanamo during Dubya's disastrous presidency, so it's not surprising. He is eagerly participating in project 2025's destruction of this country, and suddenly friendly with trump again.
The NYT opinion writers you mentioned are all generally terrible with Mr. Brooks perhaps changing his idiotic ideology a tad since he's decided trump is intolerable. Why support a "news" site mainly interested in sanewashing the fascist, asinine trump?! There's a reason Paul Krugman left.
French is an excellent writer and very astute. Chances are he'll be bailing out of the NYT and onto Substack soon. Ultimately, this is a poor way of managing news though, so I hope that new media organizations start up to replace the embarrassing shells remaining of the old ones.
Times Opinion recently drove out another great writer. I won't tell you who it is, but his name rhymes with Dr. Kaul Prugman.
(Also Peter Coy. Coy's never publicly commented on it, but I strongly suspect the straw that broke the camel's back was one of his last pieces, which again I suspect he was forced to write, about how congestion pricing--another bugaboo that Times leadership absolutely hated despite its clear benefits--was failing, 3 days after the tolling started.)
I started to read that opinion piece by Adrian Vermeule and had to stop. It was utterly nauseating. And I, too, was angry that they turned comments off. I wanted to write: WTAF? In nicer prose, of course. :)
You can always use the all purpose southern curse "Bless your heart!" Or maybe stay with WTAF, but in an alternate font.
Yes, I saw that winning on trade. I think it was by Jason Furman and I read it. And then the next thing I know the stock market is tanking and he’s suddenly got his hair on fire! Part of the problem is the headlines are often disassociated from the content of the column. I feel sorry for the writers.
Agree. Lack of critical knowledge and courage are the main ingredients of the media willing to succumb to Trump’s cajoling them. Look atvtge US’s Ivy League colleges caving to Trump’s threats to defund them. Imagine if Trump is anlevto dissuade those businesses who champion him to stop taking out adverts in, say, The New York Times — a kind of “investment strike”.
It's worse than that. His lapdogs at the FCC are now conditioning an ad agency merger on their pledge to NOT refuse to place ads on websites because of "politics". You can read the whole article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/opinion/ftc-advertiser-media-boycott.html
But here's a snippet of it:
"The latest maneuver comes from the Federal Trade Commission. Last month, it announced that it would approve the merger of two of the biggest ad agencies in the world only if the parties agree to an unusual condition: The merged company cannot refuse to place ads on websites for political reasons.
The move was a sharp break from its traditional practice. The F.T.C. is usually focused on such concerns as consumer protection and monopoly power; now it’s trying to dictate where businesses advertise their products.
While the move would theoretically affect platforms of any political persuasion, there’s little doubt that it is a thinly veiled attempt to prop up X."
A crafty publication would take those full page ad monies, but then let a free-lance op ed writer come up with a catchy headline to attract attention from a target audience basically challenging that audience to think about why an entity would purchase a full page ad or host an interviewee to persuade others to its way of ______(insert activity here), i.e. vote, etc.
I just saw a line in an NYT story that says that Trump had enacted “energy-friendly policies”. Without any further explanation or context. WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MSM???
Thank you for saying nothing.
You make two thoughtful, insightful points, especially the first. Thank you!
Your issues are like what I’m seeing in the new (to me) series “Newsroom.” I don’t think our current billionaire media moguls are finding (or maybe not even looking for) good, savvy, energetic reporters, investigators, columnists, and editors. They’re clearly not interested in granting them journalistic independence and seem to have no idea what bigger trends might be going on in the larger world. I’m not expecting to see an Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite again, but hiring at least a competent staff would be a welcome improvement.
Thank you for this! That “winning his trade wars” headline the other day drove me (and most other subscribers) crazy, and we commented on it “loudly.” But it was just one of many headlines that appear to just prop up Trump and avoid the truth.
This is probably the most important topic right now. I so appreciate you.
Last week, the Times had a headline that said Trump had successfully turned attention away from the Epstein files! It was so ludicrous that I laughed out loud.
That movement a week or so ago by MSM saying that he quashed that scandal was some of the most blatant manufactured consent I've seen, in an era full of it.
Yes I saw the 2400 comments to the Times articles.
Like so many of their articles the Comments section was closed. Seems like they allow very limited responses.
The truth may set us free but first the truth must be set free.
Ross Duthort or whatever he's called wrote a particularly absurd article yesterday but oddly no comments were allowed
Times comments also heavily censors counter opinions, but doesn't censor obvious concern trolls and bad actors. Newspaper comments have always been bottom of the barrel, only slightly above the comments under Fox News Facebook posts haha
There’s a way to write directly to the column author. Look for her contact information at the bottom. I just did that.
And as much as I agree that economics is an important topic, it is not the most important topic the most important topics are the illegal and unconstitutional arrest of US citizens, and the imminent loss of voting rights of many of our citizens. Without those two things fixed we sunk on anything not to mention economy.
"There’s a way to write directly to the column author."
Pam, think about why you are here. You are here because Paul Krugman left the New York Times after he could not stomach the interference and second-guessing from his editors anymore.
And the person they saw fit to second-guess is a Nobel prize winning economist. What amount of respect will be afforded to a female reporter who isn't, and has no academic background in economics whatsoever?
In short, I don't believe that writing to the column author will have any effect other than you wasting your time, because the column author isn't the one who decides anything.
Well, I felt better so it wasn’t a waste of time!
Think about why I am here? I wrote as I wished to, then told the rest of you. I’m a hyper aware of why I am here, but of course none of you have to agree with my style of responding to these outrages.
I had intended to write a friendly comment.
I'm sorry if it didn't come across that way, and for any irritation or dissatisfaction caused.
And the author of that NYT column wrote back to me asking if I had read the article. She said that my comments along the lines of others here were what the article was all about. Well I didn’t get that from it neither did the rest of you I think.
Keep firmly in mind that the person who writes the headlines is not the authors of the articles. The NYT has a rogue MAGA idiot writing headlines these days.
Are you sure the word rogue is applicable?
The Times continues to publish Opinions by Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat that are thinly veiled propaganda for Trump,
The legacy media is near death in this country. It is a suicide.
Brett and Ross are an appalling duo who legitimise the Trump regime.
True, but try reading David French instead.
It’s really insulting to be told to keep something firmly in mind that is so obvious. It’s like a man trying to tell a woman to “calm down” when she’s feeling passionate about a subject.
Insults and drinks only affect one if taken.
An interesting point about WaPo comment boards: As of yesterday, they are restricting anything negative about Trump or his administration. The AI will automatically refuse to post it. Astonishing.
But the reporter doesn’t write the headlines.
I used to write to the editors of the Times and the Washington post, offering my services as a headline writer. They didn’t want me, and as it turned out, I didn’t want them either. It’s easy to cancel a subscription. Special thanks to my 1950s high school journalism teachers, Mrs. Clover and Miss Lehman.
I know that. But hopefully her editor reads the comments about that, because there’s no way to write a critical comment to the writer of the headline. If you can tell me a better way I would do it.
I agree with this. Sometimes I leave a simple comment like “have you no shame?” I want the writer to know we see right through them.
Sometimes I write directly to commend and thank the author — particularly those on the Guardian. They are amazing.
I also saw that headline in the NYT. I shook my head but didn't bother to comment. The moderators have already refused a couple of my posts on such occasions. They don't want to be told what they know too well.
That comments thread was one for the ages. Nary a whimper to defend the headline or the superficial reporting. The name Krugman was repeatedly invoked. He's apparently some kind of expert on such things and used to release edited columns twice a week in the NYT. Wonder what he's doing these days...
Yes, I loved seeing all the links to this particular substack in that comment thread! It was great. 🙂
There is simply no analysis of any merit on the tariff "deals" in the NYT, just taking tRump's numbers and running with them. Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, and other Substack-based economic writers have utterly demolished these wildly unsupportable "wins" stenographed. by the MSM, and outed them for the arrant rubbish that they are.
We as a nation are so poorly served by the shite served up by media outlets who truly should know better, but who have succumbed to lazy, timorous, and frankly stupid journalism, that even for us non-specialists in law, economics, medicine, etc., we see the fatal flaws in such crippled reportage, ffs!
The headline on Jason Furman's essay today made my blood pressure go up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/opinion/tariffs-economy-inflation-recession.html If you don't want to click on that, the headline says, "The Tariffs Kicked In. The Sky Didn’t Fall. Were the Economists Wrong?". The most liked comment is one that essentially says, come back in 6 months and we'll see what happened.
I didn't even bother to read it....pandering to the toddler in charge.
Clicks are VOTES. Never forget this. Do NOT click on bogus headlines no matter how much you want to push back in the comment section.
I know, I’ve been guilty of doing the same myself, but every time we click on one of these bogus headlines, we are begging for MORE of this bogosity. They will serve it up to us as long as we click on it.
Restraint!
That's why so many European leaders are saying that they had capitulated, and are saying that the EU negotiator had signed a bad deal, because these new trade deals AREN'T wins for the U.S. Got ya.
“These new trade deals AREN'T wins for the U.S”. Correct!
They are an extra tax on US citizens. You got it right.
I know it’s tempting to leave a comment objecting to the falsehoods in the article, but never forget that by doing so you are driving the false narrative.
The media can’t even say “lie.” If they try, it comes out as “falsehoods” or “misstatements.”
Newspeak
Similar to the label "anti-vaxxers". If someone were to come out strongly against gravity, we wouldn't call them anti-gravity, we would call them WRONG!
Or "said without evidence."
Not only have media like the NYT given Trump far too much credit on economics, they’ve bought into his zero-sum worldview. The question I asked in a comment on that story in the NYT is, “If Trump’s winning, who’s losing?” The answer is not the EU, it’s us. The US.
What ever happened to win-win?
It was ground down to dust by the oligarchs. Laissez Faire rules the day.
There's no such thing. Just ask DonnyJon.
Tariffs aren’t win-win.
Yeah, Doc, I saw the headline in the NYT.
The title is definitely eye-catching, but also misleading. The article does contain some nuance, yet the fact of the matter is: I couldn’t wait for you to dismantle the headline’s premise for me.
I’m honestly a bit sad to admit how much I needed you to say it the way you just did. Even that strong recent GDP number, if you don’t look closely, you miss the fact that it’s just a “simple,” yet damaging, result of a massive drop in imports.
Here’s the hard truth, Doc: with everyone else caving in to these convenient narratives, who but you is left to tell it like it really is?
Here are three - Jared Bernstein, Phillips P. O’Brien, and The Contrarian. The last one is a group that includes the old WP journalist Jenifer Rubin.
There are others, but you have to work to find them. Just as you worked to find Professor Krugman.
And Minna Ålander provides a view from Europe. You may be able to find her on O'Brien's Substack.
Elon Musk demonstrated a corollary to the "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" concept when he tried to tweak the X version of ChatGPT to give less liberal sounding replies. The result was that the X-chat bot started screaming violent anti-semitic and anti-democratic nonsense.
Yeah, and calling itself "MechaHitler".
Which proves, l guess, that AI is now self aware.
Seemingly more so than its creators.
When enough Ring doorbell cameras show a masked, camouflaged visitor at the front door, when the grocery bill has doubled or, better yet, when groceries have disappeared from shelves, when the electric bill has an AI surcharge tacked on -- maybe, just maybe, then 'enough' of the blissfully ignorant will get 'reason' and 'see' what is actually going on. (Too late?)
Yeah, too late.
I am not hopeful.
Everyone thinks of the media as being populated by armies of Woodwards and Bernsteins. But just like in any profession, most of the people who work in journalism are inherently lazy. Why do extra research on a complex topic when you could instead take press releases and talking points that are provided to you and build your article around that (and then kick off for the day a few hours early)?
Most people also have no sense of history, so they have no perspective on what's happening in the moment. I was 28-years-old when 9/11 happened, but even I at that age rolled my eyes at the dozens and dozens of articles at the time claiming with great solemnity that things had changed forever and that humor was now dead.
There's also in journalism (as in academia, as in film criticism, as in any intellectual profession) a pack mentality in which people in professions that have a finite number of paying jobs are unwilling to deviate from the pack leader out of a very real fear of likely being professionally ostracized. If going out on a limb and taking a position different from the pack leader will almost assuredly get you kicked out of the club with little hope of getting back in (since there are plenty of other people waiting in line who are willing to toe the institutional line), then that leads to group think.
IIRC, even the original Woodward and Bernstein was essentially a freak incident. "Deep Throat" first tried leaking Watergate to the actual political desk of the newspaper... whose people quickly went straight to the White House, which told them "no no, that's all nonsense, nothing like that is happening," and that was the end of it. DT then had to go looking for other journalists to break the actual story.
The media, of course, has been dining out on this aberration forever by pretending it's the norm.
Good point.
Responding specifically to your reference to 9/11. What struck me most at the time was the press's automatic reaction of, "Oh, we all have to support the president now!" ((You know, the one who had ignored warnings about planes flying into buildings.) And then went along with the literally nonsensical idea that we were definitely in a "go to war" moment instead of a "track down the perpetrator" moment, etc. The press loves itself a good war and rallying around the flag and hates speaking truth to power.
Remember "Just keep shopping"? That's a hell of a rallying cry. Then the press declined to point out that GWB funded the "War on Evil" with deficit spending. You can look at the entire process as a case where the Saudis and Gulf States lent money to the US, to solve a problem they created. After which, the US taxpayer has to pay them back the money, with interest.
While I read your articles religiously, I also strongly suggest that you read the China Global South blog, by Eric Olander. Now THAT will truly make you depressed! China has already “ eaten our lunch “ and has surpassed us in every way. And Trump is making it even worse. Our country is truly asleep at the wheel. China is invested in every part of the world. We are in the Chinese Century now. But who wants to live in a Chinese Communist Party run world?
James
The Economist podcasts have shown a pretty balanced view of China. They see one man rule as unstable and problematic but China is doing some things very well...especially manufacturing and R&D. Trump is looking back to the 1950s and China is looking ahead to the 2050s.
If I had to choose between Xi and Trump, I'd take Xi. At least he's smart. I also think he sees the whole of society more than Trump, who only sees himself. But this is a choice of the two evils, not a real preference which for me is a functioning liberal democracy, slow and imperfect.
The quote regarding crime has really become a meme in Trump's head, fed by his inherent racism. It is of interest how it is fed, in turn, by his take on narcotics. His attack on Canada is then based on the falsehood that large amounts of fentanyl are crossing from the north. It is hugely difficult for people who are awake, not woke, to negotiate with those who operate all day in a dream state.
He's been thinking and talking like that for his entire measly existence.
Thanks Paul. Your argument is on-the-mark. I don’t know how history will judge media/ big business/ the Democrats/ the Republicans/ and various governments, institutions across the world, all of whom are trying to co-habitat with the Trump administration. ‘We’, out here in the test of the world, are frightened of alienating Trump… how will we be judged?
I also wish that ‘the rest of us’ (ie outside the US) challenged the Trump administration. The more important struggle, within and on behalf of the moral soul of the US, I leave to you, Americans of all beliefs. But, I wish we showed a bit more clarity about our own values!!
So, please keep up the good work, analysing and criticising well. You’ll keep my attention. ‘Reaistance’ starts with small, personal decisions which become incremental. I’ll leave you with a comment attributed to Lucia de Gasperi, daughter to Alcide de Gasperi (last Prime Minister of a democratic Italy before Fascism, and first Italian PM after the end of Italian Fascism:
“Quando tutto si oscura, rimane solo una luce, ma per vederla, bisogna essere abituati a cercarla”….
For those who don’t understand Italian, thos is my translation:
“When everything goes dark, only a (little) light remains, but to (be able) to see it, we must be used to looking for it (the light)”.
That is the endeavour that Paul Krugman, and so many others are engaged in. Keeping us attuned to looking for the light.
Come for the sermon. Stay for the music.
Thanks.
Same! 💕
the real terrorists are now in control of the government
and they need to be voted out -
every last one of the republican lying terrorists.
Your former colleague Ross Douthat took time out from trying to convert the world to Catholicism to give us his self-esteemed opinion on Trump tariffs yesterday starting with this brilliant analysis:
“This week, the European Union agreed to a trade deal with the United States that amounts to a capitulation to Donald Trump.”
Then in usual Douthat style he wandered off on tangents and somehow found his way to a conclusion that without the USA the world will not be free:
“Whatever your ideals or fears, whatever your beliefs about the good society, the battles you care about will be won or lost in the United States.
The refuges are illusory, the alternatives are compromised or weak, and the future of freedom will be American or it will not be at all.”
It seems to have escaped him or (given his stance on real freedom), pleased him, that the battles for freedoms people really care about have already been lost in America.
Somewhere in his rambling he proposed that the USA was the only country strong enough to fight for freedom. Conceit aside, is it really fighting for freedom if you’re extorting allies? Or does Douthat think protection rackets are freedom?
I saw the headline for Douthat's column and gagged but didn't read it since (1) I cancelled my subscription last year, and (2) reading his stuff always made me throw up in my mouth a bit anyway. Thanks for your summary which is actually worse than I would have expected. I assume he was reamed in the comments but, if I recall correctly, he doesn't read those. Presumably b/c he's always getting reamed.
I also read that article and had a similar reaction to his garbage. Interestingly no comments were allowed on it. Meanwhile Brett was talking about positive upswings in the Trump administration or some such drivial.
Douthat is a virulent white Christian nationalist.
Non compos mentis. Thiel-Vance examining the 25th Amendment.
This is why I dropped subscriptions to the milquetoast New York Times and the traitorous Washington Post. I give my money to The Guardian, which is not afraid to call a lie a lie, and doesn't censor curse words when an story subject says one. Also, The Guardian has no paywall; it also has no corporate owners, as it's owned by a nonprofit. They'll happily take your money if you wish to donate, and I've happily supported it. https://www.theguardian.com/us for the U.S. edition.
And News From the States, through which you can also find your local affiliated nonprofit journalism sources.