New York Times staffers concerned paper wasn’t hard enough on Trump with ‘sanewashing’ coverage: report

The New York Times has developed a reputation as a liberal paper for a left-leaning audience after years of unflattering coverage of former President Trump, but some employees are concerned the Gray Lady has spent time “sanewashing” the GOP nominee. 

Times journalists gathered at the paper’s New York City headquarters late last month for a nearly 90-minute-long meeting with key editors where staffers aired grievances about coverage of Trump. The meeting was supposed to be off-the-record, but a recording was leaked to Semafor. 

Reporters Astead Herndon and Jodi Kantor, who moderated the meeting, “repeatedly pressed” executive editor Joe Kahn and managing editor Carolyn Ryan “about whether the paper’s coverage of Trump adequately reflected his authoritarian impulses, and whether the paper had deliberately grown more aggressive in the final weeks of the campaign,” Semafor reported. 

The Times editorial board recently published a scathing attack on Trump that declared he is “unfit to lead,” a “threat to democracy,” a “corrupt” liar, who will “use the government to go after opponents,” “wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers,” “damage the climate” and shatter alliances. On Monday, the top of the Times website stated “Trump has been enveloped in more scandals than any other president. A new term could bring more allegations and retribution.” 

On Sunday, a story headlined, “Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds,” was published on the Times website.

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Despite the unfavorable coverage on the eve of Election Day, some on the left feel the paper isn’t hard enough on the former president. During the leaked meeting, Herndon told Times leadership that people are concerned that the Times had been “sanewashing” Trump before coverage a recent uptick in critical coverage of the former president. 

According to Semafor, one staffer asked, “Can you talk about the decision to cover Trump’s age so aggressively in the last few weeks but not before that? Should we take that as a reaction to some of the external criticism? Why has there been a shift? Because it does seem like there’s been a more direct tone against Trump in the last couple months? Is that intentional?”

Times leadership said the paper, which has been extremely critical of Trump for years, respects internal criticism and some outside voices, but suggested most outside critics are agenda-driven. 

“What they’re interested in is having us be a mouthpiece for their already predetermined point of view. That’s what the most vocal critics are asking for. They’re asking us to do a better job projecting their point of view to more people. That of course is not our role, that is actually the opposite of independent journalism. That’s agenda-driven partisan journalism. They want to see The New York Times reaffirming their own priors,” Kahn said, according to Semafor. 

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New York Times journalists gathered at the paper’s New York City headquarters late last month for a nearly 90-minute-long meeting with key editors where staffers aired grievances about coverage of former President Trump. (Bloomberg/Contributor)

Kantor noticed that liberals who don’t believe the Times has been hard enough on Trump have been “very loud” in recent weeks. Kahn suggested there are a few “good-spirited critics on both sides who genuinely want to see the Times lift its game,” but he’s focused on doing the right things journalistically. He also suggested the people who leave negative feedback in the comments section of articles are a “very small percentage” of the paper’s audience. 

Last week, the Times was accused of working with far-left advocacy group Media Matters for America in order to get anyone who opposed Vice President Kamala Harris silenced on YouTube. 

Kahn also said critics of the paper on social media can’t “dictate what our approach to journalism is,” according to Semafor. 

Times leadership also addressed criticism from liberals that the Gray Lady “unfairly focused tremendously on Biden’s age and mental decline in the months after his disastrous presidential debate performance, while neglecting his opponent’s cognitive shortcomings,” according to Semafor. 

“We have very sharply told people what we are observing over time, and we have said it admirably and directly, and that’s part of the reason these stories are landing,” Ryan said, adding that the Times was preparing both for a second Trump administration along with “potential legal challenges or threats to itself as an institution,” according to Semafor. 

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A Times spokesperson declined comment but confirmed the reported quotes are accurate. 

Last month, the Times was called out for using a Harris campaign surrogate as a source who supported the notion that she worked at McDonald’s without disclosing that the source was a campaign surrogate. A spokesperson for The Times told Fox News Digital, “This was a thoroughly reported and edited piece of independent journalism. The Times stands behind it completely.”

Times editorial board member Mara Gay said in September that it’s “a little silly” for journalists to hold Harris to the same standards as Trump.

“It’s hard to hold both candidates accountable equally, because one is committed to democracy and is functioning as a normal candidate from a normal American party, and the other is not,” she said on MSNBC. 

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Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.