InvestigationDonald Trump’s chaotic presidency has been a hot topic for the New York newspaper, which has scrapped the former president’s lies. A fight which is worth today to this institution more than 7.5 million subscribers, a record, but also more and more despisers.
Fired for a simple tweet? This is the question which, the day after Joe Biden’s inauguration, ignited the American media. ” I have chills “, Journalist Lauren Wolfe posted on January 19, clearly showing her joy at the landing of the plane that brought the President-elect to Washington the day before his swearing-in.
The 45-year-old veteran reporter has been a freelance writer for nine months in the Live section of the New York Times who follows the hot news. On social networks, he was immediately criticized for lacking impartiality. She even receives name-calling and chauvinistic attacks. Two days later, Lauren Wolfe is fired. In question, this tweet and previous posts deemed too partisan by her chiefdom, she explained to the Washington post (the journalist did not respond to our requests).
The press seizes the subject and wonders about this express dismissal. A spokesperson for the group said on January 24 that the newspaper did not “Don’t fire someone for a simple tweet”, while indicating “That, out of respect for the individuals involved, we will not comment further”. If the incident sparked such controversy, the personality of the author of the tweet, specialist in violence against women, has nothing to do with it. The real cause is to be sought elsewhere, in the New York Times himself. Because, for a little over four years, the institution has been accused by some of no longer respecting the strict neutrality that has made its reputation.
At war with populism
By making everyday life his favorite adversary, Donald Trump has hysterized all that concerns the new York Times, but he put it at the center of the game, more than any other newspaper. Neither the Washington post nor the Wall Street Journal are only scrutinized so closely. The upheavals within the daily newspaper are dissected with a rare gluttony by its conservative detractors, who demonize it, and by the American left, which would like it more than perfect.
“Criticize the Times is a national sport ”, ironically, during a conference at Sciences Po in 2019, the very serious and reserved editor-in-chief of the daily, Dean Baquet, presented during his appointment, in 2014, as the first executive director Afro-American. Aged 64, from a working-class neighborhood in New Orleans (Louisiana) and a graduate of Columbia University, he knows the newspaper by heart: he joined it as a reporter almost twenty years ago. Today, if the NYT enjoys such attention, it is above all because Dean Baquet and his editorial staff have placed themselves at the forefront of a war against populism and untruths. A war in which they won a battle, with the failure of Donald Trump in the last presidential election.
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