Objectivity out for New York Times

Never let the facts get in the way of a good vendetta. Words to live by for politicians and apparently for some news organizations.

A New York Times story has reminded Democrats that they still hate Brett Kavanaugh and haven’t come to terms with the fact that he now sits on the Supreme Court.

Last Sunday, The Times ran a story describing an incident of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh when he was in college. The alleged victim never spoke to reporters and told friends she didn’t recall the incident. This rather important tidbit of information never made its way into the original Times story.

Times editors issued a correction, which several Democratic presidential candidates and other progressives willfully ignored.

Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are all still calling for impeachment. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Ayanna Pressley, among others, have joined the chorus.

“I believe Christine Blasey Ford. I believe Deborah Ramirez,” Pressley said. “It is our responsibility to collectively affirm the dignity and humanity of survivors.”

In other words, we’re going to use this most recent, uncorroborated allegation as an opportunity to relitigate Kavanaugh’s past, which has already been investigated by the FBI and aired publicly during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

Not all Democrats agree this a battle worth fighting, and those who insist on fighting it are well aware that it will lead nowhere.

In this history of the United States, only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached — Samuel Chase, 200 years ago, and he was never removed from office.

If they know pursing the impeachment of Kavanaugh is mostly a waste of time, why do the Democrats persist? Perhaps they’re trying to weaken Kavanaugh, undermine him and impact his decisions on the court.

I wrote in October that the Democrats’ visceral loathing of Kavanaugh is rooted in his anti-abortion position. Perhaps this is a warning to future conservative nominees — “You might get confirmed but we’ll keep coming after you.”

But let’s not forget something — Democrats are merely reacting to a story that should never have seen daylight.

We have to ask ourselves, as consumers of media, how a story with such a glaring omission gets published in the first place? It’s hard to believe this was an accident or oversight. The piece went through multiple editors.

“The long-standing tradition of neutral news coverage is gone,” Fox News political analyst Britt Hume said, when asked about The Times story.

It’s difficult to come to any other conclusion.

I’m inclined to call The Times story journalistic malpractice. But malpractice suggests carelessness, laziness or negligence. And the reporters who wrote the story claim there was nothing deliberate about the omission, even though the Times’ editors didn’t issue their correction until they were called out.

That leaves only one other possibility — the “paper of record” in the U.S. has determined that if it dislikes someone enough, objectivity no longer matters or worse, isn’t even considered.

Rich Manieri is a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. Contact him at:

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