Fox News reported that the publisher of The New York Times, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., penned a letter to readers Friday which hints that the NYT failed in its coverage of the presidential elections:
“After such an erratic and unpredictable election there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?… As we reflect on this week’s momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories we bring to you… We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.”
The New York Times’s public editor, Liz Spayd, took the paper to task for its election coverage. She pointed out how its polling feature Upshot gave Hillary Clinton an 84 percent chance as voters went to the polls. The paper’s biased stories made Clinton look functional and organized and the Trump discombobulated.
Spayd wrote, “Readers are sending letters of complaint at a rapid rate. Here’s one … from Kathleen Casey of Houston: “Now, that… you are all, to a person, in a state of surprise and shock, you may want to consider whether you should change your focus from telling the reader what and how to think, and instead devote yourselves to finding out what the reader actually thinks.”
Another reader asked that the paper should focus on the electorate instead of “pushing the limited agenda of your editors.” “Please come down from your New York City skyscraper and join the rest of us.”
Former Times reporter Michael Goodwin wrote, “because it (The Times) demonized Trump from start to finish, it failed to realize he was onto something. And because the paper decided that Trump’s supporters were a rabble of racist rednecks, it didn’t have a clue about what was happening in the lives of the Americans who elected the new president.”