michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” In the time since the 2016 presidential campaign, the media’s coverage of that race has come to be criticized for operating under three key assumptions. That Hillary Clinton’s Democratic nomination was inevitable.

archived recording She has no competition.

michael barbaro

That Donald Trump’s Republican nomination was unlikely.

archived recording 1 Could he actually win? [LAUGHTER] archived recording 2 I know you don’t believe that.

michael barbaro

And that once Clinton and Trump had become their party’s nominees, she would win.

archived recording 1 — 100 percent chance. Do you still think she has a 100 percent chance of winning the election? archived recording 2 I do.

michael barbaro

Today: With voting for 2020 set to begin in Iowa on Monday, a conversation with the executive editor of the New York Times, Dean Baquet, about the lessons of 2016. It’s Friday, January 31. O.K., we’re gonna start. Welcome to “The Daily” studio. I believe this is your —

dean baquet

This is my first time here.

michael barbaro

— first time here.

dean baquet

Thank you.

michael barbaro

Thank you. So Dean, I actually want to start in a kind of unexpected place, with a hiring announcement that The Times made a few years back. So I’m going to ask you to read this email.

dean baquet

“I’m delighted to announce that Amy Chozick will be joining our political team with a special focus, reporting on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton family. Amy is an unusually gifted reporter with a unique ability to penetrate tight-lipped institutions and delivered dazzling and detailed stories from within. She is relentless and not easily intimidated. Her coverage of News Corporation prompted Rupert Murdoch to call her personally to debate the lead in one story.”

michael barbaro

And I want you to do one more thing —

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

— which is, do me a favor and read the date on that announcement.

dean baquet

“July 2, 2013.”

michael barbaro

O.K.

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

So what does that date mean to you?

dean baquet

I mean, we have been criticized for assigning a reporter to cover Hillary Clinton and the Clintons very early, long before —

michael barbaro

You knew what I was up to?

dean baquet

Yeah, yeah, of course. And look, it’s a legitimate question. It really is a legitimate question.

michael barbaro

Why?

dean baquet

Because it’s highly unusual for a news organization to — I don’t even think she had announced at that point.

michael barbaro

It would be two years.

dean baquet

Yes, right. So she hadn’t announced. I think most people thought she would be a candidate, but she had not announced. And I get the criticism. So let me talk about it a little bit.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

The criticism is, by focusing on her so early, we were anointing her the Democratic nominee. That we were saying to the world, that The New York Times looked at the field of possible candidates and thought, Hillary Clinton was the one that we should start covering two years before she announces, long before anybody else announces.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And secondly, we were inevitably setting ourselves up to write harder stories about her, even before she declared. But mainly, I think the criticism is, we were saying to the world, The New York Times thinks Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee.

michael barbaro

Right.

dean baquet

And probably the president.

michael barbaro

It created —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— perhaps an air of inevitability.

dean baquet

That’s right. You know, I’ve thought a lot about that decision. I mean, I was the managing editor at the time, but that means I helped run the newsroom. I actually don’t think assigning somebody to her that early was a mistake. The Clinton power structure, it represented a certain arm of the Democratic Party in repose. And also, it was inevitable that Hillary Clinton would be a large player on the American stage for years to come.

michael barbaro

So you don’t think it was a mistake to put a reporter on Hillary Clinton so early, essentially when she was a candidate in waiting. Yeah, on the Clintons writ large is what would be my case. Yup. But it’s —

dean baquet

But I’m also conceding, by the way, that if I sat down here with a pen and looked at stories at the time, I would edit more carefully to make sure that we did not give a sense of inevitability. But I don’t think I was a mistake.

michael barbaro

But it sounds like you do acknowledge that such a move functions psychologically as a signal of —

dean baquet

Yes.

michael barbaro

This is likely to be a front-runner, this is likely to be a nominee, this is likely to be first woman president.

dean baquet

And in fact, by the way, all that was true. She did become the front-runner. She did become the nominee. So I can make the argument, in fact, that it wasn’t a crazy choice to select her. But I don’t think —

michael barbaro

Right, we’re going to talk about cause and effect.

dean baquet

Of course, of course, of course.

michael barbaro

I mean, chicken and egg, influence and outcome.

dean baquet

Of course, of course.

michael barbaro

And you mentioned, Dean, that if you had the opportunity, you might go back and re-edit a bit.

dean baquet

Yes.

michael barbaro

And we’re going to give you a little bit of an opportunity to do that here.

dean baquet

I always love doing that.

michael barbaro

So two years later, in April of 2015, Amy Chozick writes the story, saying that Clinton is indeed running for president. And she writes in the opening line, and I’m going to read this: “Ending two years of speculation and coy denials, Hillary Clinton announced on Sunday that she would seek the presidency for a second time, immediately establishing herself as the likely 2016 Democratic nominee.” Now, we’re actually saying the thing in the story.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And it’s interesting, because I don’t remember noticing anything about this at the time, but now it really does jump out to me, that we are writing the day she enters the race —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— that she is the likely nominee. In retrospect, should we have written that a little bit differently?

dean baquet

Yes, of course. It jumped right to horse race. And by the way, I’m not blaming Amy for this.

michael barbaro

Of course not.

dean baquet

Yeah, look, if I had to edit that story all over again, I would have toned down the inevitability of it, of course. Yes, I would have. I would not make it seem like Hillary Clinton has announced and she’s going to get it. It’s got a little bit of a tone of that. I would do it differently, sure.

michael barbaro

So I want to compare the Clinton announcement to what happened when a challenger to Clinton entered the race that same month in 2015.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

I’m going to ask you to read, Dean, this story, the highlighted portion that our colleague Alan Rappeport wrote.

dean baquet

I can guess this one. Go ahead.

michael barbaro

This is the highlighted portion.

dean baquet

“Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, announced Thursday that he was running for president as a Democrat, injecting a progressive voice into the contest and providing Hillary Rodham Clinton with her first official rival for the party’s nomination.” Keep going?

michael barbaro

Yes, please.

dean baquet

“Avoiding the fanfare that several Republicans have chosen so far when announcing their candidacies, Mr. Sanders issued a statement to supporters that laid out his goals for reducing income inequality, addressing climate change and scaling back the influence of money in politics. Quote, ‘after a year of travel, discussion, and dialogue, I have decided to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president,’ Mr. Sanders said in an email early Thursday. Mr. Sanders’s bid is considered a long shot, but his unflinching commitment to stances popular with the left — such as opposing foreign military interventions and reining in big banks — could force Mrs. Clinton to address these issues more deeply.”

michael barbaro

What do you think when you read —

dean baquet

I think that’s a great lead.

michael barbaro

You do?

dean baquet

Yeah, I think that’s a great lead. I think that captures what happened. It captures the role he played. He did inject a progressive voice. He did have a dramatic impact on the election. We quoted him. We talked about the role he would play in four paragraphs. I haven’t read the whole rest of the story again.

michael barbaro

Sure.

dean baquet

We talked about the issues that he cared about most. It feels to me a little less horse race.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. And when you say “horse race,” you mean emphasis on who’s up, who’s down?

dean baquet

Yes, yes, yes. The second paragraph doesn’t say, he’s up, he’s down. And I think this is — I think this is a — you know, if I’m re-editing, I think this story I would change less.

michael barbaro

O.K., I agree with you to a point.

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

But for me, it’s that final sentence. “Mr. Sanders’s bid is considered a long shot.”

dean baquet

Oh sure. Yeah.

michael barbaro

I’m gonna linger on that word, “long shot.” “But his unflinching commitment to stances popular with the left could force Mrs. Clinton to address those issues more deeply.”

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

So that framing, looking back now —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— it feels a little preemptive to call someone a long shot the day they entered the race. But I’m especially noticing that we characterize his candidacy as kind of, and I don’t want to oversimplify —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— but as existing in a way that would shape Hillary Clinton.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

So there’s a criticism, I think, could naturally arise from that, and a frustration in the Sanders world that the media is characterizing him as this thing that’s going to needle her.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

This distant possibility that, let’s be honest, doesn’t really stand that much of a chance.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And that does feel a little embedded in there.

dean baquet

Yeah, well, let me say two things. First, he was a long shot. And here, I can pull back for a second and just talk about journalism.

michael barbaro

Please.

dean baquet

I mean, journalism is, by its very nature, flawed.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

dean baquet

And when I say flawed, it’s also great. It’s also, for my money, the most beautifully designed way of communication imaginable, and there’s nothing like it in the world. But there are built-in flaws. The flaws are, you do have to tell people what to think. Most Americans had not heard of Bernie Sanders. Most Americans had heard of Hillary Clinton.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And while I acknowledge that we went too far in making her seem inevitable, Bernie Sanders was a guy from a small state, who was a democratic socialist, which is not a perspective that Americans have been known to embrace. I actually think it would have been sort of weird to not pull up and say —

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

— this guy’s a long shot. I do think we have an obligation.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And I think we met it with this story, because we also told you what he stood for, right? That’s the main thing. And then you can decide whether you want him to be a long shot. I do think we have an obligation to pull back in the moment and say, here’s our best sussing out of where we think this person stands.

michael barbaro

Right.

dean baquet

And I think that was accurate for Bernie Sanders.

michael barbaro

You’re saying understanding — contemporaneous understandings — are by definition ephemeral.

dean baquet

Yes, that’s right.

michael barbaro

But word choice and language are enduring, right?

dean baquet

Sure, they are.

michael barbaro

And so couldn’t we have used language, like “Clinton has significant financial and political advantages. They might be hard to overcome” rather than “a long shot“?

dean baquet

Yeah. See, I think — I mean, I guess I think the exercise of — I’ll go back to what I said about journalism is imperfect. You know, political reporting, probably more than any other kind of reporting, to be honest —

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

— because of the nature of the ups and downs, the horse race, is, I suspect I would go back at every campaign and re-edit a bunch of stories. But I think we got to tell the readers, in the moment, how should we think about this.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

I think the reader picks up The New York Times and says, Bernie Sanders, I’ve never heard of him. How should I think about him? And I think this captured that.

michael barbaro

But if we can agree that the media’s 2016 coverage reflected something of an assumption that Clinton was more or less —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— inevitable.

dean baquet

Oh, I agree with that.

michael barbaro

I wonder what you think the impact of that was? This is kind of a chicken and egg situation, because I think part of what the Sanders campaign was so frustrated by and angry about is that they thought this coverage and the assumptions they reflected were not just annoying, they weren’t just frustrating.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

They thought that it had real world consequences.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

That in presenting his candidacy — intentionally or not — as less valid, the media perpetuated those assumptions and helped to make them a reality.

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

And if The New York Times thought that Sanders was a long shot, a voter might think that, too. If they thought Clinton was the likely nominee, a voter might think that, too.

dean baquet

Yeah, well part of my response to that would be, we thought Jeb Bush was inevitable too. And he lasted about 15 minutes.

michael barbaro

You’re right about Jeb. I was assigned to cover him very early.

dean baquet

Yeah, and we thought — we just figured, O.K., this is going to be Bush versus Clinton. This is going to be the old establishment.

michael barbaro

The power of a narrative.

dean baquet

Yes. You know, here I can pull back a second. We probably should be very wary of language that seems to make somebody’s run inevitable. Because I think what we learned in 2016 is that none of the inevitable candidates —

michael barbaro

Were inevitable.

dean baquet

— were inevitable.

michael barbaro

Right.

dean baquet

And some of the seemingly inevitable candidates — I can go way back. I mean, I can remember when the governor of Texas seemed like such a powerful candidate. I can’t even remember his name. I can remember the year Rudy Giuliani seemed like a front-runner and was on the cover of Time Magazine. So we did learn something about inevitability, which is maybe that it’s not so inevitable.

michael barbaro

It finally occurred to me, you’re talking about Rick Perry.

dean baquet

Yes, yes.

michael barbaro

O.K., so let’s turn to the other side, and the assumption the media is accused of having made on the Republican —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— ledger. Could you, Dean, read this, from our friend and colleague Alex Burns in June of 2015. Just the highlighted portion.

dean baquet

“Donald Trump, the garrulous real estate developer whose name has adorned apartment buildings, hotels, Trump brand neckties, and Trump brand steaks, announced on Tuesday his entry into the 2016 presidential race, brandishing his wealth and fame as chief qualifications in an improbable quest for the Republican nomination.” Drop down three or four paragraphs. “It seems a remote prospect that Republicans, stung in 2012 by the caricature of their nominee Mitt Romney as a pampered and politically tone-deaf financier, would rebound by nominating a real estate magnate, who has published books with titles such as, ‘Think Like a Billionaire’ and ‘Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich And Why Most Dont.’ But Mr. Trump, who has never held elective office, may not be so easily confined to the margins of the 2016 campaign. Thanks to his enormous media profile, he stands a good chance of qualifying for nationally televised debates, where his appetite for combat and skill at playing to the gallery could make him a powerfully disruptive presence.”

michael barbaro

This is where there’s an audio deficit, because Dean, you had a huge grin on your face while you were reading the first part of that story.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Why?

dean baquet

Oh, because it’s exactly what everybody thought at the time, and I’m sitting here reading it while Donald Trump has been president for three years and is in the middle of an impeachment trial.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Look, nobody took Donald Trump seriously as a presidential candidate. I’ll be the first to admit that. Of course, nobody thought — by the way, I don’t think he thought he was going to win the nomination or win the presidency. So look, I mean, that captures the moment.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

The reality was Donald Trump was a long shot. I don’t look back at that characterization from June 2015 and say it was a mistake. Alex even opens the possibility that he would at least be a disruptive force.

michael barbaro

Right. Do you think it’s fair to say that, like with Sanders, the media saw Trump’s candidacy as unlikely, but unlike with Sanders, there was a tremendous amount of attention paid to it, not out of a belief that Donald Trump could win, but more out of an interest in what I might call the kind of stunning unorthodoxy of the candidacy, the ways in which it broke all of our understandings of the rules.

dean baquet

Yeah. I mean, I can answer that from the — I mean, I don’t know if you want me to answer that about the media or about The New York Times. I think about the media writ large, of course I think he was an irresistible television candidate. He just was. He was funny, he was charming. I do think the press — and now I’m talking about The New York Times — while we didn’t think he could win, that did not keep us from, if I can be frank, putting a lot of energy into digging into him as a candidate. And to me, that’s the test, right? We examined his real estate holdings extensively. We were the first to extensively — and you were part of it, actually — to examine allegations of his mistreatment of women. We broke the story that he barely paid taxes. So this didn’t keep us from covering him aggressively.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. We just didn’t think he stood a chance.

dean baquet

We just didn’t think he could win, right. And we actually thought it was even less likely he would win because of the scrutiny he was getting. I mean, I remember sitting in the newsroom when we had just written the stories, you and Megan had just written the stories about him and his treatment of women, which I thought was an important and devastating and early story. And then in comes the “Access Hollywood” tape. And I remember thinking, this is over. In my head, I was already rearranging the political coverage. “O.K., well, he’s out, so.”

michael barbaro

That’s honest.

dean baquet

Yeah. Oh no, at the moment of “Access Hollywood” tape, I thought, how could he win? How could he possibly win?

michael barbaro

Right. So that’s about us not really understanding the voters.

dean baquet

So here is the — I almost think that the Sanders and the Trump coverage is all of a piece. I think that we — and I don’t think this is just The New York Times, but I’m going to wear the hat for The New York Times. I think that the combination of post-economic crisis, and a sense that there are parts of America that were still shaken by the economic crisis, I think a lot of Americans — more Americans than we understood at the time — were rattled and were looking for something dramatic.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And that desire for something dramatic was reflected in the rise of Bernie Sanders, and it was certainly reflected in the rise of Donald Trump. It was certainly reflected in the fact that Hillary Clinton came across, rolled onto the landscape — as did Jeb Bush, by the way — as names that had been looming on the American political scene for what seemed like forever.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Which, fairly or unfairly, made them seem like part of the elite. And I don’t think we — I don’t think anybody quite got it.

michael barbaro

I wonder how much you think all of what we’re talking about, the assumptions —

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

— not understanding the voters, how much that has to do with our sources. I know, as a political reporter, how much I used to call figures within the party establishment, operatives, party leaders.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And those become important sources in how you think about the party and the candidate. And of course, we know now that the Democratic establishment clearly favored Clinton over Sanders.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

He was an independent.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

He wasn’t really a member of the Democratic Party, and they didn’t want him to win. And we know that the Republican establishment was horrified at the idea of Donald Trump being their nominee.

dean baquet

Of Donald Trump, yeah.

michael barbaro

And looking back, I think on some level, we took the establishment as experts on their party’s candidates and a barometer of the way people in the party felt, when in fact, they had their own motivations, right?

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And they weren’t necessarily reflecting what voters wanted. And maybe the media allowed them to have outsized influence —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— on the way we understood the situation. What do you think of that?

dean baquet

I think that’s true. Coupled with, we weren’t out in the country enough.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. So there came a moment where I would say that evidence on the ground started to contradict the assumptions that we’re talking about here.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

On both sides.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And that was once the voting actually got underway in the primaries.

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

Sanders overwhelmingly won New Hampshire by a margin that really surprised us. Trump again sweeping the primaries.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Won New Hampshire, then South Carolina then Nevada. Do you think that the newsroom adequately responded to what was happening at that point on the ground?

dean baquet

Yes and no. Yes, the newsroom. if we didn’t take Donald Trump seriously as a candidate beforehand and dig into him, as I recall, I had more people digging into him at that point. Suddenly, he was a serious person, and my recollection is we turned up the volume on him considerably and digging into his business dealings, his casinos, his losses, his finances. So I do think we adjusted on him. Do I think we adjusted on Bernie Sanders? I mean, it certainly felt at that moment — I don’t remember specifics. It certainly felt at that moment that both these guys were being taken more seriously.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Yes, I’m not pulling back from my idea that we didn’t quite have a finger on the country, but I do think we started treating them more seriously, yes.

michael barbaro

And you’re leaving open the possibility that perhaps, when it came to Bernie Sanders, we weren’t as nimble as we were with Trump?

dean baquet

Yeah, I think that’s probably true. I have to stew in it a little bit, but I think that’s probably true. I mean, I think we didn’t — we were writing about the chinks in Hillary Clinton’s armor. Which —

michael barbaro

Again, the framing of her.

dean baquet

— yeah, well, the framing of — by the way, for the record, that framing was right. She was the front-runner. She had all the money. She had the machine. She ultimately won the nomination. She also won the popular vote. So when Sanders rose, it was because of two things, obviously, right? The country was a little more radically inclined than we thought, but it also meant that Hillary Clinton wasn’t quite the perfect candidate that we thought. So I do think we started looking harder at that moment at the chinks in her armor, sure.

michael barbaro

Right. Is it fair to say we turned up the volume, to use your word, on covering the candidates at this phase —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— but not the country, the people voting for them.

dean baquet

Yes.

michael barbaro

We hadn’t learned that lesson yet.

dean baquet

Yes, I think that’s right. I think that’s the biggest — my biggest self-criticism, which is that of course we covered the country, you’ll see voters’ stories. But I don’t think we quite — we did we did not dig in and say, why is this country pushing ahead with these two very unusual candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders? I don’t think we quite understood that.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. Well, so I’ve been speaking with some of our colleagues ahead of this conversation, anticipating it, surreptitiously reaching out.

dean baquet

I’d like the names and salaries. [LAUGHTER]

[michael barbaro]

I know you are kidding.

dean baquet

I am kidding, of course.

michael barbaro

And one of the observations that some of them had is that stories about the voters and the country were being written, as you suggested.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

But they were not elevated —

dean baquet

Yes, that’s right.

michael barbaro

— in the same way that the candidate stories were.

dean baquet

That’s absolutely correct. That’s absolutely correct. That’s the tangible evidence of what I’m conceding, what I’m saying. There were reporters — this is not an — I mean, from where I sit, all roads lead to the executive editor, right? No, there were reporters out in the country who were writing stories about what was going on in the country. But we didn’t elevate them and say, wait a minute, there’s something powerful going on here. We didn’t see that.

michael barbaro

So let’s talk about the final assumption.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

What happens once Clinton secures the nomination — Democratic nomination — and Trump gets the Republican nomination? Which is the assumption that Clinton will win, and she will likely win big. And here, Dean, is where I want to reference not our writing but our podcasting. This also marks the moment where The Times created an audio department, thank you.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And I came on three months before the election to host a little podcast called The Run-Up. And our first-ever episode in August 2016 was called quote, “Landslide.” And let’s just say that it was not about the potential prospect of a Donald Trump landslide.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

So mea culpa from this side of the table. What do you think was going on here, once we reached this moment, Clinton nominee, Trump nominee? Why had we not learned from the primary that Trump was not to be underestimated?

dean baquet

Yeah. You know, it sure looked like he was going to lose. He was a deeply flawed candidate. I had reporters during the build up to the election with Mitch McConnell and others, and I was calling them up all the time.

michael barbaro

The establishment.

dean baquet

And McConnell, all of them were saying, it sure looks like he’s going to lose. The question is by how much. We bought into that. Some of that was calling — it’s everything we’re talking about. It’s calling the experts. It was not having a handle on the country. All that stuff came together in those last days.

michael barbaro

So I want to talk for just a quick second about the Clinton emails in this context.

dean baquet

Yeah, yeah.

michael barbaro

The emails that were stolen —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— by Russia and disseminated on WikiLeaks.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Do you think that the assumption that you have very clearly laid out here — that she was going to be the next president — influenced the coverage of her when we got those emails? Because we made the decision —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— to get those emails. We didn’t have to publish them.

dean baquet

Yeah. People forget they were news — they were big stories in those emails.

michael barbaro

There were big stories.

dean baquet

Important stories in those emails.

michael barbaro

There were important stories. They were less important stories. I remember I looked up a couple days ago, one story that was just basically a highlights to the sexiest tidbits.

dean baquet

Yeah, no. But there were stories about the turmoil in her campaign, her speeches. There were real stories in there.

michael barbaro

Yes, there was. But were we applying perhaps more scrutiny to her campaign because we were covering her, in a sense, as if she were the president-in-waiting, and we wanted to apply the kind of scrutiny that you would to such a person?

dean baquet

No, I think if we had gotten — I mean, I think if we had gotten — look, I ran our coverage of WikiLeaks when I was the Washington bureau chief. I ran our coverage of the Snowden tapes. We go into that stuff really carefully. But you have to report the newsworthy stuff. To find —

michael barbaro

Why? There are going to be people listening to this who ask the question —

dean baquet

I get it. I get it.

michael barbaro

— Russia — because now we know.

dean baquet

Yeah, well we didn’t. First off, let’s remember we didn’t know Russia.

michael barbaro

We knew, we knew they were ill-gotten.

dean baquet

Yeah, well of course we knew they were ill-gotten. By the way, the original WikiLeaks documents years before, which led to the Arab Spring, were also ill-gotten. The Snowden tapes were also ill-gotten, the Snowden documents.

michael barbaro

Two of those relate to questions of national security and national interest.

dean baquet

Yeah. No, that’s right.

michael barbaro

And one to a candidate’s inner workings and seem much more designed to inflict political damage.

dean baquet

That’s right. So here’s my view, and I understand it may not be popular. When journalists learn things that we think are important — and I think some of the stuff about the Hillary Clinton campaign were important — when we learn important things, to not publish is a political act.

michael barbaro

Hm.

dean baquet

It’s not a journalistic act.

michael barbaro

Abstention becomes —

dean baquet

Yes.

michael barbaro

— a form of politics.

dean baquet

When you learn something, there should not be a whole lot that we learn about important stories that we don’t publish. My view is that publishing is journalism. Not publishing is political balancing.

michael barbaro

Hm.

dean baquet

I think — and I hear the next question because I’ve gotten it. The next big document dump comes in about something, anything. I’ve even seen other journalists say, I hope we understand that we can’t publish that stuff. No, I will read it. We will evaluate it. We will look at it in the new context that we understand, which is Russia is actively trying to influence American elections. That will be part of the calculation. But the calculation cannot be, we’re just not going to publish because that would screw up American politics. You know, at that point, I will go into business as like a campaign adviser to people and not as a journalist.

michael barbaro

If such a leak as happened in 2016 happens this time around, and if we believe that it is an act of a foreign government attempting to influence our election — as it turned out to be in 2016 — will we apply a different standard to reporting on stolen materials?

dean baquet

Sure, sure. We will have — we will take all of these things into account and debate. So if I walk back to my office today and there’s a batch of documents that show all kinds of stuff about Donald Trump, or all kinds of stuff about Joe Biden, etc., etc., we will know in the back of our minds that we’re being manipulated.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Which is going to raise the bar a little bit, right? If it’s just a little bit of stuff about Candidate X and how he doesn’t like his campaign manager, that doesn’t raise the bar past we’re being manipulated. If it’s the tax returns of a candidate, and it’s really important and compelling, and we’re being manipulated, my view is we have to publish it and say we’re being manipulated. So we would use news judgment. If it’s goofy, silly stuff, where we’re clearly being manipulated to hurt Hunter Biden in a baseless investigation — less interesting. Taxes of a presidential candidate —

michael barbaro

More interesting.

dean baquet

— more interesting. And I’m sure the debate will be more fierce than it was in 2016. But in the end, if there is information in there the American public should know, we’ll publish it. And that’s what we do.

michael barbaro

So Dean, at long last, let’s go to election night 2016.

dean baquet

Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

What do you remember about that night?

dean baquet

I remember shock. I remember presiding over the — I don’t know if you remember this, if you were there — presiding over the meeting two days before the election, and they were showing us the “Hillary Clinton Wins” front page.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And I said — not because I foresaw the future, but because executive editors think about all possibilities of screw-ups — I said, do we have a “Trump Wins” one? It was as if I had gotten up and started telling knock-knock jokes in the middle of the meeting. Everybody just chuckled. And I ordered one up. I’m not even sure it was ever done.

michael barbaro

We’ll get to that. It was done. It was done by Matt Flegenheimer, and it was —

dean baquet

But nobody — but the room was like, oh my god? It was like, do we have to humor this guy?

michael barbaro

So I can confirm your memory that we did not have a full package of Trump winning stories ready. We had a relatively short story. And beyond that, I think, 500 or so words, there was virtually nothing else. And the reason I know this intimately is because when Trump started to pull ahead and it became clear he might win, I was drawn into turning that 500-word story, along with Matt Flegenheimer, into what would become the next day’s almost 2,000-word story.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Which was kind of a brand new front page story. And the online headline was, quote, “Donald Trump is elected president in a stunning repudiation of the establishment.” And in the confusion of that moment, and I’m not upset about it at all, Matt and my byline did not show up on the story.

dean baquet

Really?

michael barbaro

The Clinton victory authors got the byline.

dean baquet

Oh wow.

michael barbaro

Even though we wrote the story.

dean baquet

Wow. I didn’t know that.

michael barbaro

It’s O.K.

dean baquet

I said newspapers were flawed.

michael barbaro

But it felt in that moment like our assumptions had truly guided us all the way to the final moments of election night.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And then they had been burst.

dean baquet

Yeah of course, that’s true. I think, if I can say one thing about journalism, though. We do have a tendency to beat ourselves up a little bit too much.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Yes, I don’t think we had a handle on the turmoil in the country. Something surprising and shocking happened with the election of Donald Trump. And it would be a little bit too narcissistic to — I’m not talking about your question.

michael barbaro

That’s fine.

dean baquet

I’m talking about the exercise of — it’s a little narcissistic for my taste to spend forever beating ourselves up over it. It was a very unlikely, unlike any other presidential candidate in my lifetime, and probably forever, who walked in and captured the country at a particular moment. And some things you can anticipate, but there are 300 million Americans. Some things you can’t anticipate.

michael barbaro

Right. You used the word “narcissistic,” and I’m not judging that.

dean baquet

Yeah, yeah.

michael barbaro

But I think what we’re up to here is an exercise in explaining —

dean baquet

Of course.

michael barbaro

— to the country what we learned.

dean baquet

Oh, of course.

michael barbaro

Because of course, and I know you believe this, but I’m just going to articulate it. It’s no small thing.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And the implications are still playing out.

dean baquet

Oh, of course. And it changed journalism. I mean, that election changed journalism. It was historic in a lot of ways.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

I also think when I say “narcissistic,” I’m just saying there’s a fine line between understanding it and also understanding that something giant happened. And while we should change our rules to understand it, to keep from missing a story like that in the future, I don’t think we should go into it with the assumption that all of our rules are wrong.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

That’s all I mean.

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. Dean, from our conversation —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— it feels clear that the source of these assumptions was, in very large part, a kind of institutional decision to cover the candidates so heavily and to not cover, as much or as prominently, the country. So with that in mind — Mm-hm. — what do you think the biggest changes have been to the coverage this time around, 2020?

dean baquet

Yeah. So we’ve done a whole series of stories from out in the country. We’ve brought in people from the business staff to go out to the country to talk about the effects of the economy. We are about to announce a plan to put writers in seven or eight states that we’re usually not in. We have added to our regular political staff a religion writer.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Because I think that religion, and to be frank, abortion are currents that I don’t think we quite had a handle on. And we give huge play now to stories about anxiety in the country. I think if you read The New York Times right now, you read a New York Times that reflects a country that’s in some turmoil, a country that’s divided much more than we understood in 2016. We have doubled the number of people who cover the internet. We used to cover the internet as a series of companies vying for control.

michael barbaro

Right. Rather than a force that is affecting the country’s mood —

dean baquet

That’s right.

michael barbaro

— and its political beliefs as profoundly as anything.

dean baquet

That’s right. It’s a dramatically different setup.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And I don’t think we’ve labeled any — the campaigns would disagree — but I don’t think we’ve made anybody feel like the inevitable candidate.

michael barbaro

Or the long shot.

dean baquet

Or the long shot. I am extremely proud of where our coverage is right now, and nobody’s even voted yet.

michael barbaro

I’m also mindful that, like politics, journalism can feel a little bit like a pendulum swinging side to side.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And I wonder if there’s a danger of overcorrection here, by which I mean over-coverage of basically what’s known as the Trump base in the United States. After 2016, there was an understandable emphasis on understanding Trump voters.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Do you see any risk in giving those voters and those Trump allies, and even the president himself, too much of a platform in pursuit of that understanding, and over-representing their perspective? And maybe as a result, missing the many other perspectives that are out there in the process?

dean baquet

I don’t. Not as long as you write about the other perspective, not as long as you write about black people who are anxious about Trump and love Joe Biden. I don’t. Look, one of the greatest puzzles of 2016 remains a great puzzle. Why did millions and millions of Americans vote for a guy who’s such an unusual candidate? Why did people who are very religious vote for a guy who’s been married three times, I think? Those puzzles are reporting targets. And I know that every time we go out and we ask people questions about that, they’re trying to understand it. People roll their eyes and say, why are you going to talk to those people? Because understanding how those people voted and how they will vote in the future is a big and important thing. And to dismiss them as a group of 35, 40 percent of Americans — that’s a hell of a thing to dismiss — who should not be in our pages, that’s not journalistic to me.

michael barbaro

You know, Dean, you’re bringing me to one of the biggest questions I have about overcorrecting or oversimplifying —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— what we learned in 2016. Which is, there’s justifiably a very significant focus on the economic grievances, the white, working class, for example, Midwestern voter.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

We tell that story a lot.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

But moderate voters may be driven as much by these questions of culture and morality and identity —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— as much as anything in the economy.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Right? There may be Democrats who support universal health care and taxing the rich, but they oppose open borders.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

They oppose abortion.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

They oppose the culture of political correctness.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And it’s very challenging to capture that.

dean baquet

Yeah, it is.

michael barbaro

Do you think that we’re capturing that?

dean baquet

I do. I think we are capturing it. We have done much more. I want to keep doing more. I think that there are — so it’s always funny for me to be called — I always feel weird being called a member of the political elite. You know, I’m a black guy who grew up in a poor neighborhood in New Orleans in a religious Catholic family.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

Two weekends ago, I went to a fundraiser for my high school back in New Orleans, St. Augustine’s. And I sat next to a woman, a black woman. Everybody was black there. And she said to me, “You know, I don’t like Donald Trump. I think he’s a racist. But I will tell you, I’m finding it really hard to vote for the Democrats, but I’m going to vote for one.” And she said, “I grew up believing abortion was a sin.”

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

“And it is really hard for me to vote for somebody who’s going to support abortion.” And I was sitting there and I was thinking, “My god, this is the way my mother felt. Abortion is a sin. I can’t vote for somebody who feels otherwise.” So I think that there is a big chunk of America for whom that’s a big deal.

michael barbaro

Cultural issues.

dean baquet

Cultural issues are a big deal.

michael barbaro

So continuing a bit more on the subject of the potential for overcorrection, when efforts are made to fairly cover this president, his voters, his allies, The Times has sometimes been accused of engaging in what’s called “bothsideism.”

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

I’m sure you’re familiar with this phrase.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

This tendency to represent both sides of a debate as equal or both sides as having contributed equally to something.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

And there was a story a couple weeks ago about the impeachment inquiry that was criticized for this. And I read it very carefully. And among the lines people zeroed in on was this: “Throughout the committee’s debate, the lawmakers from the two parties could not even agree on the basic set of facts in front of them.” The criticism was, there can only be one set of facts, so lay them out.

dean baquet

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

michael barbaro

Another point the article, it read, quote, “They called each other liars and demagogues, and accused each other of being desperate and unfair.” The criticism of that is that we can tell who is lying or who is not lying based on the testimony and the evidence that we have. But the story didn’t do that. It suggested both sides had legitimate, equal cases. Are stories like that are kind of bothsideism abdication?

dean baquet

So I’m going to stick my neck out here, and I’m going to first offer what I think of as a spirited defense —

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

— for sophisticated objectivity. I think that we’re at a moment where people very much want us to take sides. And I don’t think that’s the right stance for The New York Times. I do think about the person who picks up his paper in the morning and just wants to know what happened. I do think that we have an obligation to that person, and I do fear that we’re pretending that we don’t have that obligation I do think that American journalism has a tendency to go for the easy version of what I call “sophisticated true objectivity.” And the easy version is, “I’m writing my Syrian deadline. O.K., this guy said this. This guy said that. I’ll put them together. You decide.” That’s not what I mean when I say “sophisticated true objectivity” as a goal. True objectivity is you listen, you’re empathetic. If you hear stuff you disagree with, but it’s factual and it’s worth people hearing, you write about it. Does The New York Times and every news organization, in producing tons of stories on deadline, fall into “on the one hand, on the other hand?” Absolutely. Because when you cover a trial and when you cover some kinds of stories, that’s an O.K. formula. It’s not the best formula for covering Donald Trump and the impeachment trial.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And I do think that bothsiderism and too easily saying “on the one hand, on the other hand” is not healthy for the discussion that we’re having.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. When you talk about people wanting us to pick a side —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— who are you talking about? Can you explain that a little more?

dean baquet

Look, I mean, there are different gradations, but many of our readers hate Donald Trump and want us to join the opposition to Donald Trump, right? Well, I’m not going to do that. And then there are people who disagree, understandably, with what I described as a sophisticated objectivity. There are people on our staff who disagree with that as a goal. I get that. I really do. That premise of sophisticated objectivity and independence, we should always debate it and question it.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

But I think that that view — that in my mind, I think of the reader who just wants to pick up his paper in the morning and know what the hell happened. I’m beholden to that reader, and I feel obligated to tell that reader what happened.

michael barbaro

But where do you draw the line between picking a side and holding truth to power? Because at this point — I think this is important — there’s a well-documented pattern of President Trump, some of his allies, and supporters denying established facts.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Spreading misinformation.

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Embracing conspiracy theories. And frankly — and this is uncomfortable to say it, it was not easy to embrace this reality over time as a reporter, it’s against our nature — many of them have a different relationship to the truth —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— than the Democrats and the Democratic Party. And do you think our journalism has sufficiently adjusted to that reality? And how central should that understanding and that reality be to our 2020 coverage.

dean baquet

Yeah I do, actually. I mean, I just —

michael barbaro

Do you agree with that?

dean baquet

Oh, do I agree with that tortured —

michael barbaro

Characterization of the pattern —

dean baquet

Yes, yes.

michael barbaro

— of the way the truth is being handled by the two parties.

dean baquet

Yes, of course. Yes, yes. I think it’s less the parties. It’s more Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump has attacked —

michael barbaro

But —

dean baquet

All of, well, he’s supported by the parties. But if you polled, but —

michael barbaro

I think of Republican senators out there saying what they’re saying.

dean baquet

O.K. Yes, on climate change and other — but I think Donald Trump is the extreme version of that. Donald Trump has made it his business to attack all of the independent arbiters of fact. And I think that you will find in the pages of The New York Times very powerful reporting that illustrates that. What we haven’t done, which some people want us to do, is to say repeatedly he’s a liar. That’s the language, the word. But the reporting, there’s no question we have done that.

michael barbaro

Or a racist.

dean baquet

Yeah. Yes.

michael barbaro

That’s another thing that —

dean baquet

Yes.

michael barbaro

— people have quite literally —

dean baquet

But my view —

michael barbaro

— asked you to do.

dean baquet

Yes, I mean, there was a big debate in our newsroom and outside our newsroom about whether The New York Times should use the word “racist.” And I accept disagreement. My view is, the most powerful writing lets the person talk, lets the person say what he has to say. And it is usually so evident that what the person has to say is racist or anti-Semitic, that to actually get in the way and say it yourself is less powerful. The one thing I will do is, I will pull a little bit of rank. As a black guy who grew up in the South in the 1960s, who has been actually literally called some of the names, the most powerful way to show these things is to actually just show them. The best piece of writing I’ve read about a racist community was Joseph Lelyveld’s portrait of Philadelphia, Mississippi in the 1960s.

michael barbaro

This was your predecessor and your mentor.

dean baquet

Predecessor and mentor. In his story about Philadelphia, Mississippi, he begins with a guy on the front porch, essentially saying, “This is all bull. We’re not racist here in Philadelphia, Mississippi.” And an old black guy walks by, and he calls him “boy.” If that story had led with “Philadelphia, Mississippi is filled with racists,” I wouldn’t have read the second paragraph.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. You would wouldn’t be remembering it.

dean baquet

I wouldn’t be remember. It was letting people talk, showing what they had to say. And you put that paper down and said, man, that is a portrait of a racist community.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

And to me, that is just more powerful.

michael barbaro

So maybe you just answered this, but how do you cover the reality of our president, and the Republican Party who supports him, repeatedly acting deceptively. Some people might call it lying —

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

— spreading disinformation — without appearing to ignore or disparage the very voters who embraced him in 2016, continue to embrace him now, suggesting that we have picked a side?

dean baquet

Yeah. This is hard. I will acknowledge, this is hard. First off, you report the heck out of what they say. And when they say something that’s false — I mean, we’ve done two or three reconstructs of what happened with the U.S. attack on the Iranian general that shows that some of the descriptions were false.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

That’s reporting. That’s not like labeling and cheap analysis. That’s deep reporting. A lot of reporters. That’s my answer to how we cover Donald Trump.

michael barbaro

Let somebody else call it a lie.

dean baquet

Let somebody else call it a lie. The world today is filled with pundits. The world today is filled with people who can use labels. The world today has very few institutions that can go out and do the reporting independently, powerfully. And that’s what I want to do. And then in terms of his voters, I think you show up. There’s nothing more powerful to convince somebody that you want to listen than showing up. You don’t do the clichéd diner stories, but you go talk to them. You understand their world, and you listen empathetically. That does not mean giving voice to racists. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the big unanswered question of 2016 for all of our hand-wringing and all the discussion, is why did so many millions of Americans vote for this very unusual candidate? I don’t think anybody has fully answered it. And I think one of our goals should be to come as close as we can.

michael barbaro

It occurs to me that getting the coverage right on these questions we’ve been talking about — bothsideism, how much to emphasize cultural issues — feels especially critical this time because of the impact that 2016 had on voters. That in having a significant portion of the electorate share the assumptions of the media that we’ve been talking about — that Clinton would win, Sanders and Trump wouldn’t — that when that all flipped on its head —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— the electorate was left feeling like they didn’t really understand, and maybe still don’t understand —

dean baquet

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— what made for a winning candidate —

dean baquet

Yeah, and by the way, as I’ve been saying —

michael barbaro

— or their country.

dean baquet

— we don’t fully understand it, right?

michael barbaro

So do we recognize in light of what happened in 2016, about the way assumptions coursed through our veins, influenced our coverage, that we now have an electorate that is trying to sort through the results of that, trying to make sense of it? And does that create a special obligation to get it as right as possible, to show a certain amount of restraint?

dean baquet

Oh, I see.

michael barbaro

To show a tremendous amount of care and nuance?

dean baquet

Yes, I think there’s a particular obligation we have to not jump to conclusions, to not make people inevitable and to hold back and war against the assumptions of the political class, right? The political class that said Trump couldn’t win, and Hillary Clinton couldn’t be beat. Yes, I think we have an obligation to guard against drawing those conclusions too quickly.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

dean baquet

I do think we have to keep reminding ourselves that what happened in 2016 was a remarkable, a remarkable upset and moment. But yes, I think we have an obligation not to jump to conclusions, and not to declare anybody inevitable.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. I want you to know that on Monday —

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

— we here are launching a new show, The Field —

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

— that is really about all of this.

dean baquet

Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

The lessons of 2016. And each week, we’re going to be going somewhere new in the country.

dean baquet

Great.

michael barbaro

With a political reporter from The Times, and with national reporters from The Times. To talk to people, and to listen, to do it, in your words, empathetically. And to do our part to make sure that we are not guided by assumptions.

dean baquet

That’s great. That’s terrific. That feels like an important contribution to not only our coverage but coverage of American politics. That’s great.

michael barbaro

And if you haven’t figured out yet, you’re kicking off that conversation —

dean baquet

O.K. Well that’s an honor.

michael barbaro

— that we’re having with the country.

dean baquet

It’s a good conversation to have.

michael barbaro

I want to thank you very much.

dean baquet

Thank you.

michael barbaro

Not just for being here, but for being here and being very candid.

dean baquet

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

michael barbaro

We appreciate it

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michael barbaro