I chose to read the article from 2018 about Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s evolving relationship with President Trump. As a print institution—as well as a website—the NYT has achieved the amazing feat of remaining prominent in American culture while newspapers have had less influence. At first, I found the article credible but then thought it missed something. Now, I wonder if my reaction to this article had anything to do with possible political biases or flaws in reporting.
The Editorial department of the NYT leans left. The most ardent republican supporters vilify the NYT for such a left of center political bent in its editorial content, calling it partisan reporting (other outlets like CNN also take such scrutiny from the right, and often much more viciously). All political morals aside, exposed in this article lies a contradiction about the brand of the NYT: for a paper that chases truth and facts above all else, a sense of unreality pervades many of their articles.
In talking about the unreality of the narrative, I do want to take a shot at its credibility. I simply found myself thinking throughout ‘well, of course Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have not pushed back against the President’s policies as decisively as the authors suggest.’ After all, they play a subordinate role. From the start, the article projected a vision onto Trump’s daughter and son-in law concerning the role they should play in the white house.
While projecting such a narrative does not specifically go with facts, it does reveal some truths about the situation at-hand. For example, this article portrays accurately that Trump became emboldened by attacks from the left. Throughout his presidency, journalists have talked about such attempts to temper him have unfortunately had the opposite effect on his Trumpian personality and style.
Diving into the bios of Maggie Haberman and Katie Rodgers, one can see that they both continue to cover the White House for the NYT. Both have extremely impressive resumes. Ms. Haberman worked at Politico before taking on her role at the New York Times and Ms. Rodger had a similarly strong political background. Whatever biases they possess, suffice it to say both have the credentials to tell the story.
Unrivaled in its political and arts coverage, the New York Times serves as a great general interest newspaper. Due to the fact that it continues to attract people to general news, it should come as no surprise it attracts such top journalists like our authors here.
Nevertheless, this article in the NYT demonstrates certain narratives the press forces on situations that do not necessarily exist. I do not think anyone ever assumed Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would take on such an outspoken role that authors Maggie Haberman and Katie Rodgers assumed they would. Although this article gets at many underlying truths about Trump’s time in office, one cannot help but think something gets left out. Perhaps inherent bias, perhaps shaky reporting, this article simply does not fall within conventional expectations.
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