Showtime’s new series ‘The Fourth Estate’ provides a rare and partial glimpse into the newsroom at The New York Times following the victory of Donald Trump after the 2016 Presidential election.
Director Liz Garbus captures the dynamic of the newsroom. Journalists on a steady supply of Starbucks coffee chasing big stories. Editors making decisions before publishing content online through their custom-built content management system. And management handling unprofessional behavior of staffers are all part of life at the Times.
“I think it’s (covering Trump) going to be a huge test for us in a lot of ways.
Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of The New York Times‘The Fourth Estate’ doesn’t touch the deeper political bias that blinds the Times from being able to cover Trump objectively. The culture of the left and political alliances are what has given rise to the fake news phenomena.
Covering politics in Washington when it’s in a meltdown because of a Donald Trump presidency will be complicated. The long-standing political establishment including The New York Times
Russia Witch Hunt by The Fourth Estate
With more reporters than any other news organization on the plant, how can they still publish false reports on the Russian Collusion narrative? According to a statement made by former FBI Director James Comey under oath, their reporting was mostly false.
According to Baquet, the Russian Collusion story is the most competitive story of the year. The Times assembled a special Russia team to investigate it. The casual viewer may be lead to believe that this type of investigative reporting is “really expensive” and a great service to democracy.
The investigative team was duped into taking a fake dossier, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign, as credible evidence. A big (false) story like this needs to be reported aggressively otherwise the Times will be beaten by their competition. Being first to report a negative story about Trump seems more important than being right.
Baquet leads you to believe the perfect storm of competitive journalists trying to be first on complex investigative stories, combined with the declining ad revenues is the cause of the faulty reporting. These are only superficial factors that barely scratch the surface.
The documentary doesn’t explore the Times overt political endorsement of Hillary Clinton leading up to the 2016 election. Dean does admit they were wrong in the first episode. Maggie Haberman also questions the validity of the poll that ran daily on the front page showing Hillary had a +80% chance of winning.
All the Dupes Fit to Print
According to David Horowitz and Paul Kengor, Ivy league educational institutions produce student journalists with a far-left worldview. These people are incapable of looking at Trump in a fair and rational way. The Fourth Estate is basically full of dupes.