'Pro-Democracy' Journalism's Problem With the Facts
Facts And Fact Checking,New York Times Bias,Media Industry
It takes all of two paragraphs in her memoir-cum-polemic Newsroom Confidential for press critic Margaret Sullivan to unwittingly undermine her thesis that journalism in the age of Donald Trump needs to "shout…from the rooftops" that the fate of democracy itself hinges on the victory of truth over (mostly right-wing) lies.
"By the spring" of 2021, Sullivan writes, in a passage deploring conservative "denialism" about the January 6 Capitol riot, "a Republican congressman would describe the violent attack as something that looked like 'a normal tourist visit.'"\
Sullivan, the recently retired Washington Post media columnist best known for her 2012–2016 stint as New York Times public editor, does not name the allegedly denialist congressman, so I did a quick search to double-check the quote and context. It was Rep. Andrew Clyde (R–Ga.), at a May 2021 House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing titled "The Capitol Insurrection: Unexplained Delays and Unanswered Questions," at which he began his remarks like this:
This hearing is called "The Capitol Insurrection." Let's be honest with the American people: It was not an insurrection, and we cannot call it that and be truthful.
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