Thursday, April 16, 2020

The New York Times Is Extremely Skeptical of Tara Reade's Sexual Assault Accusation Against Joe Biden. Imagine That.

Reason
"We found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Biden, beyond hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."

. . . "It's an excruciatingly matter-of-fact article, bereft of the emotion and rhetorical flourishes that have often characterized the Times' past reporting on #MeToo stories. The Times' investigative piece on Deborah Ramirez, Brett Kavanaugh's Yale accuser, was headlined, "Brett Kavanaugh Fit in With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not." The paper also ran ostensibly objective pieces with headlines like "For Christine Blasey Ford, a Drastic Turn From a Quiet Life in Academia" and "With Caffeine and Determination, Christine Blasey Ford Relives Her Trauma." These were news articles, but it was not hard to detect an agenda: portray the accuser as so likable and sympathetic that readers would want to believe her."
   . . . 
"While the Times' dismissal of the existence of a pattern has attracted most of the derision, an earlier point is more obviously flawed. As Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson points out, it is false to say that none of Biden's staff corroborated any part of her allegation. Reade has alleged that after she complained about sexual harassment, Biden's people punished her by taking away most of her duties, which included supervising the interns. The New York Times' story confirmed with two former interns that Reade "abruptly stopped supervising them in April, before the end of their internships." . . .

No comments: