Mark Halperin, managing editor for the Bloomberg Politics media outlet, said during Thursday's edition of the Morning Joe program on the MSNBC cable television channel that the New York Times is continuing its campaign of obvious bias against Donald Trump even after the Republican candidate won the presidential election on Tuesday.
As proof of his assertion, Halperin held up the day's edition of the newspaper with the front-page headline of “Democrats, Students and Foreign Allies Face the Reality of a Trump Presidency.” “If Donald Trump had lost,” he asked, “do you think the press would have been so concerned about his supporters in their disappointment?”
The discussion began when Halperin noted: “You hear those voices, as we heard all year when we traveled and actually talked to people supporting Trump.”
“He said a lot of things I don't want to respond to,” the panelist continued, then began a “love-fest” by declaring: “I just want to say one thing. I love the New York Times, I think it's a great institution.”
At that point, co-host Joe Scarborough jumped in:
I need to say this as a point of personal privilege. I love the New York Times, and I read it every day and have said this time and time again.
I have the greatest respect for the reporters over there. I don't know what I'd do without the New York Times.
“But look at the headline on the front-page story,” Halperin stated: “Democrats, Students and Foreign Allies Face the Reality of a Trump Presidency.” “This is the day after a surprising underdog sweeping victory.”
“Their headline is not ‘Disaffected Americans Have a Champion Going to the White House’ or ‘The Country Votes for Fundamental Change,'” the newsman asserted. “The headline is about how disappointed the friends of the people who run the New York Times are about what happened.” "This is staggering,” Scarborough agreed.
However, “I'm glad your brought this up. This shows that the editors of the New York Times -- who I have the greatest respect for -- don't get it.”
“When I thought Trump had a chance to lose -- which I did -- and I thought he had a chance to win it, I said to liberals: 'He's going to get 42 million cotes. What are they voting for?' And this is their headline?”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski managed to make a comment then that the headlines actually come from “their newsroom.”
Halperin rejoined the fray by stating:
If the Democratic candidate who was thought to have a 10 percent chance of winning by the New York Times and ended up winning and winning “Red” states as Trump won “Blue” states, I don't think that would have been the headline.
And I'll just say again that the responsibility of journalists is to not report on their biases. It's to go out into the country through the prism of the election and say: 'Why are people feeling the way they're feeling, and I'm just stunned at how people are reacting?
Scarborough then held up copies of other newspapers' front pages and discussed how each one dealt with Donald Trump becoming the new president-elect.
The New York Post had this headline: “Everyone Was Wrong,” while the Boston Globe used large capital letters to declare their viewpoint of a “Seismic Shift” in American politics.
“They had it right,” Scarborough noted. “It was a seismic shift.”
Turning to the program's own coverage of the campaign, the co-host asserted: “Now listen. We're just as shocked as you that he won the way he did, … but the thing is to understand that Washington Post headline: 'Across Divide, All Eyes on Trump.'”
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal “probably” had the best headline: “A New Political Order” that "we all have to grapple with,” Scarborough stated, “and I'm going to be depending on the New York Times and their great journalists to help us through this time.”
The conversation then focused on people who voted tor Clinton, who “thought at 9 p.m.” on Tuesday “that she was going to be the president,” Halperin indicated. “I have tons of friends who supported Hillary Clinton.”
“By the way,” Scarborough responded, “I've got to say I've got friends who were hurt, who were crying all day yesterday, and I ache for them. I understand what it means when people that you believe in lose.”
“The country's divided,” Halperin concluded. “Hillary Clinton won the popular vote; there were a lot of people who are really upset about this, but the coverage could not just be ,... how upset those people are.”
Whenever GOP candidates lose elections, Republicans are expected to hide under a rock and be silent, but Democrats respond to defeats by expecting the winners to “get along” by giving in to the policies espoused by the left.
