Of course, the NY Times editorial board is right. It is extremely dangerous to promote right wingers and incompetents for any reason whatsoever, and certainly so when it comes to elected office. As the Times editorial says:
Anyone who proclaims concern about the future of democracy shouldn’t come within a whiff of these democracy-denying candidates, let alone help them win votes…
What if these election deniers actually win?
Exactly. But there’s just one problem. At the bottom of this post is a screenshot of the Times Web site today, the very same day that the Times printed the editorial above. Biden is mentioned exactly one time. T**** is mentioned three times.
This disproportionate number is actually closer than it was during the 2020 election when, on a typical day, I was counting between 4 to 6 mentions of T**** for each Biden mention. The Times did the same thing during 2016, btw, hyping that incompetent racist and misogynist clown over a responsible centrist candidate to the point where it often felt to me that he was running unopposed.
Why does the Times continue to promote dangerous political figures at a level far above reasonable ones? For exactly the same reason that they complain about: it is in their interest. In the case of the Times, articles about extremists sell papers.
The Times would argue that I’m the cynic here. Their business is not politics but the news; they simply print what is newsworthy. That is utterly disingenuous. In this case, when they are printing article after article about an extremist candidate who simply knows how to prey on the press’s bias for attention-getting stunts, the media’s high-minded mission descends to mere publicity and promotion. Seriously, the amount of free publicity that man receives from the mainstream media every year would cost anyone else hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from top PR firms.
So, Mr and Ms Times Editorial Board and General Editor, it’s high time to eat your own dogfood. As you yoursefl have said, don’t come within a whiff (or a woof) of democracy-denying candidates. Stop giving them so much free access to your newspaper.
