The New York Times is failing readers with its awful, one-sided 2022 midterms coverage

“Think that poll looks good for Democ­rats? You’re prob­a­bly wrong,” read a fake yet sus­pi­cious­ly real sound­ing head­line tweet­ed yes­ter­day by Doug J. Bal­loon.

Doug J. Bal­loon is the screen name of the per­son respon­si­ble for the New York Times Pitch­bot, a par­o­dy account devot­ed to roast­ing the Times for the sad­ly too often ridicu­lous and prob­lem­at­ic premis­es of its sto­ries and guest essays.

Doug present­ly has over 200,000 fol­low­ers on Twit­ter, which is sub­stan­tial­ly more than some of the NYT’s high­est pro­file polit­i­cal jour­nal­ists. (For instance, Carl Hulse, the news­pa­per’s Chief Wash­ing­ton Cor­re­spon­dent, has 45.3k followers.)

Doug’s satir­i­cal tweets pok­ing at the Times have tak­en on par­tic­u­lar impor­tance dur­ing the Biden pres­i­den­cy, owing in part to the Times’ inde­fen­si­ble fix­a­tion with relent­less­ly pro­mot­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s elec­toral prospects and schemes for tak­ing pow­er. Though the Repub­li­can Par­ty has mor­phed into a polit­i­cal enti­ty that is incom­pat­i­ble with democ­ra­cy, the Times has inex­plic­a­bly cho­sen to regard the par­ty as a legit­i­mate polit­i­cal force and con­tin­u­al­ly award it friend­ly coverage.

The end­ing of the 2022 midterms has yet to be writ­ten, but NYT edi­tors and reporters are con­vinced they know what’s going to hap­pen. They are churn­ing out sto­ries that have Repub­li­can vic­to­ry is just ahead as the premise, with head­lines that end­less­ly play up Repub­li­cans’ chances and sug­gest Democ­rats are doomed.

Let’s take a look at some exam­ples of what the news­pa­per has pub­lished recent­ly that illus­trate what I’m talk­ing about. We’ll start with a piece by Carl Hulse, which ran not long before the attack on Paul Pelosi, titled Pelosi’s Last Dance?

Pelosi’s Last Dance? Speak­er Sprints Across U.S. as Repub­li­cans Close In.

Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi, who has raised $276 mil­lion this cycle, is in no mood to con­tem­plate a Demo­c­ra­t­ic defeat in Novem­ber, much less dis­cuss her legacy.

“Even as she fol­lows every twist and turn on the House map, the real­i­ty is that this could well be Ms. Pelosi’s final trip around the track as par­ty leader,” Hulse wrote, demon­strat­ing that he con­sid­ers Repub­li­cans to have these midterms pret­ty much sewn up. “The major­i­ty she has built and care­ful­ly nur­tured — not once, but twice — is in jeop­ardy of falling under the weight of pub­lic fears about crime and infla­tion along with heavy Repub­li­can cam­paign spend­ing and the tra­di­tion­al midterm drag on a president’s par­ty in Congress.”

At the end of his piece, Hulse reports that Pelosi showed no inter­est in answer­ing a ques­tion about what her next moves would be should Democ­rats lose. “Do you think I would respond to that ques­tion?” Hulse quotes the Speak­er as saying.

Anoth­er recent piece by one of Hulse’s col­leagues employed a head­line with the words “winds shift to the right,” employ­ing weath­er as a metaphor:

Repub­li­cans Tar­get a Top House Demo­c­rat as Winds Shift to the Right

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sean Patrick Mal­oney of New York is in charge of pro­tect­ing the House Democ­rats’ major­i­ty. But now he finds him­self at real risk in his own Hud­son Val­ley district.

Or take this one — “with major­i­ty in sight” (how can a major­i­ty be “in sight” for Repub­li­cans when we don’t know how the elec­tion is going to turn out?)

With Major­i­ty in Sight, Repub­li­cans Hush Talk of Impeach­ing Biden

Par­ty lead­ers have begun to equiv­o­cate about whether they would seek to impeach Pres­i­dent Biden if they won a House major­i­ty, but pres­sure is build­ing from those who have vowed to do so.

Nat­u­ral­ly, “red wave” also found its way into a head­line, not even in quotes:

Democ­rats, on Defense in Blue States, Brace for a Red Wave in the House

“Real­i­ty is set­ting in”: With two weeks to go, Repub­li­cans are com­pet­ing in Demo­c­ra­t­ic bas­tions like New York, Cal­i­for­nia, Ore­gon and even Rhode Island.

Next we’ve got “fear­ing a new shellacking”:

Fear­ing a New Shel­lack­ing, Democ­rats Rush for Eco­nom­ic Message

In the final stretch before the 2022 midterm elec­tions, some Democ­rats are push­ing for a new mes­sage that acknowl­edges the pain of ris­ing prices.

Anoth­er vari­a­tion — Red October:

Democ­rats’ Feared Red Octo­ber Has Arrived

Many Democ­rats hoped it would be a “weird elec­tion.” But with Elec­tion Day just three weeks away, the midterms aren’t shap­ing up that way.

Wor­ry and wob­bling (Dems in Dis­ar­ray!) made an appear­ance atop this piece:

Democ­rats Wor­ry as G.O.P. Attack Ads Take a Toll in Wisconsin

Man­dela Barnes, the party’s Sen­ate can­di­date, is now wob­bling in his race against Ron John­son, the Repub­li­can incum­bent. Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nees in oth­er states face sim­i­lar challenges.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State can­di­dates are described as struggling:

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State Can­di­dates Strug­gle Against Elec­tion Deniers

Democ­rats are out­spend­ing Repub­li­cans 57-to‑1 on tele­vi­sion ads for their sec­re­tary of state can­di­dates. It still may not be enough.

And turnout for Democ­rats is char­ac­ter­ized as expect­ed to be “weak”:

Bernie Sanders, Fear­ing Weak Demo­c­ra­t­ic Turnout, Plans Midterms Blitz

Mr. Sanders said he thought the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was “doing rather poor­ly” at sell­ing itself to work­ing-class voters.

While Repub­li­cans are described as winning:

Why Repub­li­cans Are Win­ning Swing Voters

The G.O.P. is gain­ing an edge in midterm elec­tions that will deter­mine con­trol of Congress.

There was even a “sto­ry” on lob­by­ists get­ting ready for a Repub­li­can majority:

Ahead of the Midterms, Ener­gy Lob­by­ists Plan for a Repub­li­can House

The oil and gas indus­try is already set­ting pri­or­i­ties for at least par­tial G.O.P. con­trol in Con­gress, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on under­cut­ting a Biden admin­is­tra­tion pro­gram to shift away from gas for home heating.

Got all that? Repub­li­cans close in, winds shift to the right, with major­i­ty in sight, brace for a red wave, fear­ing a new shel­lack­ing, wor­ry, wob­bling, Red Octo­ber, Repub­li­cans are win­ning swing vot­ers, the GOP is gain­ing an edge.

These are all phras­es that The New York Times’ reporters and edi­tors are using to char­ac­ter­ize the elec­toral dynam­ics of the 2022 midterms.

There are no com­pa­ra­ble swath of sto­ries in recent weeks that use a hope­ful or opti­mistic lens for Democ­rats as a bal­ance or a counter. Occa­sion­al­ly, there is one, such as this piece, that uses a lens which is some­what friend­lier to Democrats.

But that’s a rare specimen.

The Times’ jour­nal­ists would prob­a­bly dis­pute that they are cheer­ing the Repub­li­cans on. But they are. Look at what they’re pub­lish­ing. Look at how they are fram­ing their sto­ries. Whether they admit it or not, they’re total­ly invest­ed in a vic­to­ry for the Repub­li­can Par­ty and a Kevin McCarthy speakership.

The Times’ “data depart­ment” is all in on the nar­ra­tive, too.

A recent newslet­ter piece was sim­ply titled A Repub­li­can Advantage:

A Repub­li­can Advantage

As head­lines shift in the weeks before the midterms, so do vot­ers’ top concerns.

A week before that, there was this:

NYT/Siena Poll Is Lat­est to Show Repub­li­can Gains

Is four points the real mar­gin nation­al­ly? That’s a good question.

Anoth­er piece, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between The Upshot’s Nate Cohn and reporter Shane Gold­mach­er, was pro­mot­ed with this head­ing and subheading:

Polls in Four Swing Dis­tricts Show G.O.P.‘s Strength in Midterms

Repub­li­cans are poised to retake Con­gress this fall in races shaped by forces that are beyond the red and blue divide, Times/Siena Col­lege polling shows.

“How do you get this head­line when you poll four swing dis­tricts and one is tied and three have Dems ahead?” asked an incred­u­lous Josh Mar­shall.

The arti­cle itself uses a dif­fer­ent, more neu­tral head­line and subheading:

The 2022 Race for the House, in Four Dis­tricts, and Four Polls

Swing-dis­trict polls by The New York Times and Siena Col­lege show how the midterm races are being shaped by larg­er, sur­pris­ing forces, beyond the tra­di­tion­al red and blue divide.

How­ev­er, the front page pro­mo head­ing that drew ire on Twit­ter and else­where was actu­al­ly a fit­ting title for the piece, giv­en that it inex­plic­a­bly char­ac­ter­ized good news for Democ­rats as bad news for Democ­rats in its open­ing paragraphs:

Pres­i­dent Biden is unpop­u­lar every­where. [This isn’t true.] Eco­nom­ic con­cerns are mount­ing. [Data shows that unem­ploy­ment is low and the econ­o­my is not as unhealthy as media cov­er­age sug­gests.] Abor­tion rights are pop­u­lar but social issues are more often sec­ondary. [Abor­tion rights are also an eco­nom­ic issue.]

A new series of House polls by The New York Times and Siena Col­lege across four arche­typ­al swing dis­tricts offers fresh evi­dence that Repub­li­cans are poised to retake Con­gress this fall as the par­ty dom­i­nat­ed among vot­ers who care most about the economy.

Democ­rats con­tin­ue to show resilience in places where abor­tion is still high on the minds of vot­ers, and where pop­u­lar incum­bents are on the bal­lot. Indeed, the Democ­rats were still tied or ahead in all four dis­tricts — three of which were car­ried by Mr. Biden in 2020. But the party’s slim major­i­ty — con­trol could flip if just five seats change hands — demands that it essen­tial­ly run the table every­where, at a moment when the econ­o­my has emerged as the dri­ving issue in all but the country’s wealth­i­er enclaves.

“We rely on our jour­nal­ists to be inde­pen­dent observers. So while Times staff mem­bers may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or cam­paign for can­di­dates or polit­i­cal caus­es,” a modal that often appears in sto­ries on nytimes.com reads. “This includes par­tic­i­pat­ing in march­es or ral­lies in sup­port of a move­ment or giv­ing mon­ey to, or rais­ing mon­ey for, any polit­i­cal can­di­date or elec­tion cause.”

Clear­ly not for­bid­den, though, is writ­ing sto­ry after sto­ry after sto­ry after sto­ry that uses Repub­li­can or Repub­li­can-friend­ly fram­ing. The metaphor of an assem­bly line is not far off, accord­ing to peo­ple who have worked for the NYT.

“By and large, tal­ent­ed reporters scram­bled to match sto­ries with what inter­nal­ly was often called ‘the nar­ra­tive,’ ” Michael Cieply wrote in 2016. “We were occa­sion­al­ly asked to map a nar­ra­tive for our var­i­ous beats a year in advance, square the plan with edi­tors, then gen­er­ate sto­ries that fit the pre-des­ig­nat­ed line.”

The nar­ra­tive. The pre-des­ig­nat­ed line.

It seems to still be true today: it’s evi­dent from what is being published.

Many read­ers noticed that The Times’ cov­er­age of the debate in Penn­syl­va­nia zeroed in on Fet­ter­man’s per­for­mance rather than Oz’s, even though Oz’s com­ments on repro­duc­tive rights were arguably the sto­ry of the night:

Fetterman’s Debate Show­ing Rais­es Demo­c­ra­t­ic Anx­i­eties in Sen­ate Battle

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic nominee’s per­for­mance in Penn­syl­va­nia thrust ques­tions of health to the cen­ter of a piv­otal Sen­ate race, adding uncer­tain­ty to the con­test and wor­ry­ing some in his party.

Penn­syl­va­nia Vot­ers Absorb an Unusu­al Debate: ‘I Felt Sor­ry for Fetterman’

In inter­views, Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans had a range of reac­tions to the state’s Sen­ate debate, includ­ing alarm, pro­tec­tive­ness, empa­thy and wor­ry about the polit­i­cal implications.

Fetterman’s Debate Chal­lenges: Sell­ing Poli­cies and Prov­ing He’s Fit to Serve

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date for Sen­ate in Penn­syl­va­nia will use closed cap­tion­ing to assist with the after effects of a stroke.

There have been no sim­i­lar col­lec­tion of sto­ries from The Times in recent days about Oz’s flaws and dif­fi­cul­ties. The PA-Sen sto­ries the news­pa­per is run­ning have focused on Fet­ter­man, repeat­ed­ly ques­tion­ing his fit­ness for office. That’s the pre-des­ig­nat­ed line, appar­ent­ly, and the sto­ries must adhere to the line.

Note the use above of the phrase “Demo­c­ra­t­ic anxieties”.

Con­trast those with this head­line that says Repub­li­cans aren’t wor­ried about Ohio:

In Ohio’s Sen­ate race, Democ­rats are pre­dict­ing an upset, but the G.O.P. isn’t wor­ried.

Polls show Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tim Ryan com­pet­ing with­in the mar­gin of error against his Repub­li­can oppo­nent, J.D. Vance, in the high-pro­file Ohio Sen­ate race.

But again, Democ­rats are often char­ac­ter­ized as wor­ried, ner­vous, anxious:

New York’s Governor’s Race Is Sud­den­ly Too Close for Democ­rats’ Comfort

Tight­en­ing polls, fears about crime and apa­thy in their base are dri­ving a wave of Demo­c­ra­t­ic hand-wring­ing and a piv­ot by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

… while again, Repub­li­cans are often char­ac­ter­ized as very confident.

Ste­fanik Says She’s Con­fi­dent a Red Wave Is Com­ing to the House

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Elise Ste­fanik, the No. 3 House Repub­li­can, also spoke about her PAC’s suc­cess in back­ing female can­di­dates, 23 of whom are run­ning in the fall.

Head­lines play up Repub­li­cans’ aggres­sive­ness with­out sug­gest­ing any downsides:

With Ads, Imagery and Words, Repub­li­cans Inject Race Into Campaigns

Run­ning ads por­tray­ing Black can­di­dates as soft on crime — or as “dif­fer­ent” or “dan­ger­ous” — Repub­li­cans have shed qui­et defens­es of such tac­tics for unabashed defiance.

One of my favorite ridicu­lous quotes of the year was in a New York Times sto­ry pub­lished ear­li­er this year. The sto­ry quot­ed a for­mer Repub­li­can state par­ty chair as say­ing that Repub­li­cans were des­tined to win and sug­gest­ing there was absolute­ly noth­ing that Democ­rats could do about it, which is nonsense:

“Their peo­ple are depressed,” said Rob Glea­son, a for­mer chair of the Penn­syl­va­nia Repub­li­can Par­ty. “Nothing’s going to be able to save them this year.”

I can imag­ine a Times edi­tor or reporter read­ing this cri­tique, shrug­ging at their com­put­er, and going, “So? We just call it like we see it.”

But that defense does­n’t work. Their sight is clear­ly compromised.

We don’t know how the elec­tion is going to turn out. No one knows the future. Guess­es, pre­dic­tions, and spec­u­la­tion are not facts. It’s irre­spon­si­ble and improp­er, there­fore, for cov­er­age to be dri­ven by a set of expec­ta­tions held by reporters or edi­tors. To deliv­er objec­tive cov­er­age, jour­nal­ists must be open-mind­ed… com­mit­ted to explor­ing all of the angles and pos­si­bil­i­ties. And right now, the NYT isn’t.

Objec­tive jour­nal­ism is sup­posed to be fair and impar­tial. The word “fair” is used repeat­ed­ly in the Soci­ety of Pro­fes­sion­al Jour­nal­ists’ Code of Ethics. Among the first words of the code are: “Eth­i­cal jour­nal­ism should be accu­rate and fair.”

Admit­ted­ly, it can be dif­fi­cult to be objec­tive. Advo­ca­cy pub­li­ca­tions like this one have opt­ed for the free­dom not to be. The exer­cise of that free­dom can cer­tain­ly be lib­er­at­ing, but we think a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety ben­e­fits from objec­tive, fact-dri­ven, rig­or­ous news cov­er­age that lacks a par­ti­san or ide­o­log­i­cal slant.

The New York Times has cho­sen the objec­tiv­i­ty cre­do rather than the advo­ca­cy tra­di­tion, but its polit­i­cal writ­ers are not deliv­er­ing objec­tive news cov­er­age to the news­pa­per’s read­ers. That’s a prob­lem. The Times is not the only pub­li­ca­tion that’s guilty of polit­i­cal jour­nal­ism mal­prac­tice this cycle, but they are def­i­nite­ly one of the worst offend­ers, which is why we’ve sin­gled them out for criticism.

We are in the lead­up to an elec­tion in which any­thing could hap­pen. Occa­sion­al­ly, the truth has slipped into The Times’ head­lines, sub­head­lines, and sto­ry copy (such as in Nate Cohn’s piece titled If These Poll Results Keep Up, Expect Any­thing on Elec­tion Night) but as you can see from the many pieces cit­ed above, this mind­set of open­ness to pos­si­bil­i­ties is the excep­tion rather than the rule.

Our friend Dante Atkins, who is one of the more thought­ful pro­gres­sive com­men­ta­tors we know, got so fed up with the NYT and its awful cov­er­age that he imag­ined how the New York Times might cov­er Trump’s return in 2025 with a par­o­dy arti­cle attrib­uted to buck­rak­er Mag­gie Haberman.

The head­line? “Amer­i­ca’s Emerg­ing Dic­ta­tor­ship Has Lib­er­als On Edge. But for Some, the Sta­bil­i­ty and Absence of Hard Choic­es Is a Wel­come Change.”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Boing Boing laid it out in the NYT’s for­mat and pub­lished it:

Respond­ing to right wing mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion is impor­tant, but the likes of Steve Ban­non and Joe Kent are not the only threat to democracy.

So are apa­thy and indifference.

So are false equiv­a­len­cy and both-sidesism.

So are buck­rak­ing and access journalism.

The New York Times’ exec­u­tive lead­er­ship, edi­tors, and reporters could do this coun­try a great ser­vice by rethink­ing how they cov­er Amer­i­can politics.

The news­pa­per’s cov­er­age of Vladimir Putin’s war of aggres­sion in Ukraine is decent, and it still pub­lish­es qual­i­ty inves­tiga­tive reporting.

But in the elec­toral are­na, the Times is doing a ter­ri­ble job at a time when the Unit­ed States needs the Fourth Estate to rise to the defense of democ­ra­cy. That’s why it is so impor­tant that the Times hear from its read­ers that it is fail­ing them.

“I would love to see a Wash­ing­ton news­room with great reporters who enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly and pow­er­ful­ly expose, explain, and sound the alarm about how dan­ger­ous­ly delu­sion­al, decep­tive, racist, misog­y­nis­tic and author­i­tar­i­an the GOP has become,” Dan Froomkin wist­ful­ly tweet­ed the oth­er day.

So would we.

If you’d like to write to the Times’ Pol­i­tics Edi­tor to urge the NYT to do bet­ter, you can send a tweet or DM to David Halbfin­ger or reach out via his con­tact form. You may also sub­mit a let­ter to the edi­tor con­cern­ing what the Times has pub­lished.