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Drew Magary
Will the NYT Ever Call Racism Racism?
Why the Grey Lady has such a hard time saying what it means
Today I present two delightful studies in obfuscation. In the first study, we have Sinclair Media, the cloven-hoofed broadcasting empire that once forced all of its local station anchors to recite right-wing propaganda from a prepared script. Last week, Sinclair commanded all its affiliates to run this video “commentary” from Boris Epshteyn — who looks like a failed assistant football coach but whom Sinclair routinely calls upon, blowback be damned, to say all the shit that the Tom Brokaw of KSXF Sioux Falls might be reluctant to say — denouncing any and all criticism of Trump and the Republican party for the mass shootings that happened last week:
In a second study, we have New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, who went out of his way to explain to The Atlantic’s Lizzie O’Leary why his paper has an eternal hard-on for describing racism and lying, two very basic concepts, in the most tortured language humanly fucking possible:
My view is that we are always better off telling and laying out comments rather than characterizing them. All the best journalism I have read about race and racism — and I grew up in the South — is usually describing what people say, and I think that’s a lot more powerful than to just use the word “racist” loosely. I think the same is true of “lie.” I think it is much more powerful to describe what someone says with some historical perspective than it is to use the word. I just do. I know many people disagree with me, and I understand that. But that’s my own view.
Baquet granted O’Leary the pleasure of listening to his mealy-mouthed bullshit as a failed attempt at containing damage the Times brought upon itself for using Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism as a headline after a white…
