Joey Fishkin

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 07:26 UTC

I think this is something more. Sinking your teeth into a huge story like Biden's decline or Clinton's purported fast-and-loose-with-national-security behavior feels to many journalists like the highest and best thing to do. Whether Harris will have any story like that is hard for me to predict.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 07:20 UTC

Good question. There's a baseline of extremely asymmetric heightened scrutiny of Democrats that is part of these editors' ultimately hopeless, pathetic effort to persuade conservatives (and themselves, I think) that they do not have a liberal bias. This never works, and it never stops. BUT...

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 04:29 UTC

Is this fair? No. But it should certainly figure heavily in any assessment of whether Biden should stay in the race or drop out. It provides a pretty strong reason to expect things to get worse not better. And if Biden stays in, he and his people should at least know what they're up against. ❗

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 04:27 UTC

The time for Democratic leaders—and especially the Biden team—to price this in to their assessment of how the next four months will go is now. There is not a way to get the Times to abandon this crusade, and a lot of media takes cues from the Times.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 04:26 UTC

As in 2016, both the House Republicans and the Times will be seeking many of the same documents and videos and audio and whatnot, but the Times is better at getting the goods. They will get the goods, from off-the-record quotes to materials for a multimedia package of some kind.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 04:23 UTC

This time, I think it means Democrats are in for four months of absolutely unrelenting coverage of Biden's alleged senility, no matter what Biden does. Good interviews? Good rallies? Doesn't matter, the Times still has grist for almost infinite news stories and editorials tracking his decline.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 04:21 UTC

@joshtpm.bsky.social has a good post about the NYTimes' crusade to push Biden to quit.

This is serious. The Times had less to work with when they made Hillary's emails the main story of the 2016 campaign, leading to Trump's election.

talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/times...

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 21:22 UTC

I wish EVERY accusation wasn't a confession but that does seem to be where we are with these guys these days.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 05:17 UTC

I think the media coverage is likely to be considerably more damaging over the coming months than the unmediated (or less-mediated) debate performance itself. Deciding whether Biden should drop out is way above my pay grade, but I hope his people are thinking this part through in a serious way. /2

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 05:15 UTC

I am beginning to see that the next few months are going to be a drip drip drip of NYT stories about Biden senior moments and limitations. Imagine the NYT's 2016 Hillary email coverage, but with more drips, and tons of potential sources. Do the people close to Biden see this iceberg? /1

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 04:36 UTC

SCOTUS to Presidents this week: Govern through notice-and-comment rulemaking? Courts will oversee your every move. Govern through expert agency adjudication? Nah, we'll oversee that in court. Govern by personally using official powers to commit crimes? Woah—THAT we couldn't possibly review... 🤨

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