In a frank internal meeting, The New York Times wrestled with its political role

The entrance to the New York Times building.

Semafor

In a frank internal meeting, The New York Times wrestled with its political role

It’s an extraordinary look inside a key American institution under intense external scrutiny and internal pressure.

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“This is not about answering a critique on the left. We’ve stepped up our coverage politically — it’s a big part of our home screen experience, even more so than before as we get into the final weeks of the campaign. Of course you’re going to see some [more] of our coverage as part of that experience. Is that because the left was critiquing us? No.”

The number one goal of the NYT is to—no matter what—not be seen as a 'leftist' outlet.

…despite the fact that the 'left vs right' framing doesn't apply to an election that's about democracy vs authoritarianism.

And he gestured to the conversation on Twitter, still a hub for media discourse: “It’s media-left Twitter, media-right Twitter. Those forums are catering to a very small subset of the audience out there that is consuming or eager to consume good journalism, and we are influenced by them. It’s really hard to ignore them, but we can’t let them dictate what our approach to journalism is, or what our confidence in our journalistic mission is.”

Actually, that's exactly what you promised to do when you got rid of your Public Editor.

“We would need to be structured in a way to cover the potential radical reshaping of the government. We’re talking about plans to have mass emigration. That will take a certain type of deployment for us. We’re talking about the Justice Department potentially being weaponized. The way we cover the Justice Department would have to be reshaped,” she said. “There have been very explicit threats from Trump about us in the media. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail, but as an institution, we have to prepare for that as well.”

That part, the part you don't want to get into? That's the only part that matters. And the way you could prepare for it? Talk about it! In your newspaper!