For those who consider themselves the first recorders of history, this is an uncomfortable moment in American political history.
Last Friday, just a day after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump, the New York Times editorial board called for Biden to step aside for another Democrat. The following day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which has not endorsed a candidate for mayor or governor in years, ran its own front-page editorial calling on Biden to “pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders.”
The Times’ exhortation for Biden to drop “to serve his country” might have sounded a tad more high-minded had the relationship between the president and the paper not already been “remarkably tense, beset by misunderstandings, grudges and a general lack of trust,” as a Politico story put it back in April. A particular sore point was Biden’s refusal to grant the Times an exclusive interview, as has been customary with previous administrations.
Whether the call for Biden to step aside has anything to do with these previous frictions or not, the Times and the AJC have taken this sky-high editorial stance at a time when their ability to influence outcomes is less than it was even a couple of election cycles ago. Biden may still call it quits, but if so, it will not be the paper he’s already brushed off that will speak loudest.
Both the Times and AJC editorials make closely reasoned arguments for why the threat of a Trump presidency is too great to entrust to Biden after his performance last Thursday. What has been singularly lacking in all the press coverage of the debate, however, is the quality spoken of by an obviously exasperated Bob Woodward: curiosity.
“It was so bad, the way I look at it as a reporter, there must be some explanation. What really happened?” The Washington Post associate editor of Watergate fame said on MSNBC.
Indeed, Biden looked strikingly different in demeanor from the moment he walked onto the CNN stage than he did in recently appearances, international trips, or a rally in North Carolina the next day. It was reported after the debate that he had a cold, which raises the obvious question, why didn’t his campaign mention this before the debate? Woodward is right that the first obligation of the press is to ask these kinds of questions, not make pronouncements about what to do next.
“I think the answer here is in reporting, in seeking very aggressively, an explanation — what happened here?” Woodward said. “We don’t want it to come out in some book or some memoir in a couple of years or a decade. We need to know now.”
That is exactly the kind of book Woodward is famous for writing, so his tongue may have been slightly in his cheek, but what he said is true.
While the Times has been engaged in its feud with the Biden administration, the Washington Post has been embroiled in turmoil surrounding its new CEO and publisher, Will Lewis. There are a lot of stories about Lewis questionable practices as a publisher in the United Kingdom, but what really seems to be at stake is the continued financial commitment of billionaire investor Jeff Bezos.
Most ominously, from the perspective of those who believe in the importance of a free press, two of the largest newspaper chains in the country, Gannett and McClatchy, have dropped or trimmed their contracts with the Associated Press.
The AP announced last week that it is raising $100 million to fund a new 501(c)3 charitable organization to fund local and state news, part of a larger shift in the news business spurred by the reality that it’s not the business it used to be.
The remainder of this presidential campaign could test these news organizations in many new ways. It will be a time to remember that asking questions comes before answering them.
“Everything in a campaign or a presidency, she (Didion) writes, is carefully choreographed in much the same way as a movie set. This a sign of political decline, a category error that renders politics as flat, useless and commodified.” I couldn’t say it better.
And, minutes after the debate conclusion Biden was his usual self at a post-debate rally. Bob Woodward is right….what happened caused poor debate performance is the story.