Even The New York Times looks to be turning on President Joe Biden, especially when it comes to concerns with his declining mental faculties as our oldest president at 81-years-old. That the outlet is willing to call out the president as he insists he's running for reelection has not gone unnoticed, with POLITICO putting out a Monday headline of "NYT publisher: White House ‘extremely upset’ on Biden age coverage."
During an interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, publisher A.G. Sulzberger was asked about it being "a year of elections," during which he revealed that "we are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden." Speaking of Biden, he pointed out that "he is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it."
Such a revelation is hardly shocking, though it's nevertheless telling to be reminded of. Not only has Biden and his allies complained about what they deem to be unfair coverage, but the reelection campaign has been meeting with reporters from various outlets to tell them what they're getting wrong.
Biden currently has a 40.1 percent job approval rating according to RealClearPolling. His low job approval has been highlighted at greath length for being among the most unpopular for any recent sitting president.
To be clear, Sulzberger also added that he doesn't consider Biden's age and unpopularity to be the same as the indictments against Trump. "We are not saying that this is the same as Trump’s five court cases or that they are even. They are different. But they are both true, and the public needs to know both those things. And if you are hyping up one side or downplaying the other, no side has a reason to trust you in the long run," Sulzberger also shared.
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Trump's supporters have sought to use the indictments against him as a positive narrative, as has the Biden reelection campaign when it comes to his age. While Republicans have rallied to Trump over the weaponization and politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) being used as a form of election interference, even Biden's fellow Democrats don't seem to be too eager to buy the spin that his age, and thus wisdom and experience, is a good thing.
The POLITICO report also highlighted how that seems to be cause for disarray among those currently and formerly affiliated with The New York Times:
Last week, former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan said she found the coverage of this news, specifically in her old Times haunt, completely overcooked.
Sullivan wrote that she wishes that Sulzberger would instruct his opinion editor and the top news editor to cease “going overboard with both coverage and commentary about Biden’s age” and “tone it down.”
The White House also has plenty of material to point to, with the outlet facing criticism from some of the president's most die-hard supporters for their editorial section in the days following Special Counsel Robert Hur's report. That Biden is too old to charge for the mishandling of classified documents has no doubt led to questions and concerns from even the liberal mainstream media that the president may thus be too old to run for reelection.
Last week, the outlet also shared the findings of their focus group from undecided Independent voters, with 11 of the 13 leaning towards Trump, and many of them concerned with Biden's age, describing him as "senile" for instance.
And here’s what their editorial page looks like. I know their different sides of the newsroom, but that doesn’t excuse FOUR stories being about how bad Biden’s age is for him without ANY mention of Trump’s. Our media is failing us so badly it’s not funny. Do better @nytimes /END pic.twitter.com/MZL1lrXXdp
— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) February 10, 2024
Even more recently, Ezra Klein had his opinion piece published as an audio essay with the outlet, "Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden."
Pod Save America's Jon Favreau took a particularl interest in the piece, as he put out a rather long thread, with his more relevant posts shared below.
Also telling is the disarray that even just a willingness to acknowledge this conversation causes. As our sister site of Twitchy highlighted, Favreau was savaged in the quoted reposts and replies, with one user even referring to him as one of the "pod bro doofuses."
The challenge is, we just don't know - and will likely never know - if nominating Biden is riskier than letting Democratic activists and insiders pick a lesser-known and potentially weaker general election candidate at the convention with three months to go.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) February 17, 2024
Democrats have some real stars who've won races in the toughest states - Whitmer in MI, Shapiro in PA, Warnock in GA - but it's not at all clear that they'd a) be the choice of the delegates, or b) end up stronger than Biden against Trump
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) February 17, 2024
What Biden can do is take concerns about his age seriously, acknowledge that fears about his performance aren't media creations or Democratic bedwetting, and focus single-mindedly on crisp, strong, energetic appearances, which we've seen he's absolutely capable of (2023 SOTU, Jan…
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) February 17, 2024
Anyway, here's the piece if you haven't read it yet: https://t.co/ePF6kZIpMT
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) February 17, 2024
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