NY Times editor's sharp comments about Biden triggers debate over media's role in election

New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn raised some progressive eyebrows this week when he said that he won't allow his paper to become an "instrument of the Biden campaign," putting a renewed spotlight on the strained relationship between the Gray Lady and the White House.  

In an interview with Semafor, Kahn criticized what he called the suggestion the news media should be a "propaganda arm" because of former President Trump being a supposed threat to democracy. To some, that was a reasonable outlook, but liberal CNN reporter Oliver Darcy fumed in his media newsletter.

"The NYT has publicly stated over the years that it supports the bedrock principles of American democracy and is opposed to authoritarianism. And, over the last several months, its reporters have indicated that Donald Trump, if elected, would rule with a blatant disregard for democratic norms, akin to an authoritarian. Which means, if one does the math, that The NYT as an institution should by default oppose what Trump's candidacy embodies," Darcy wrote.

"It is, of course, entirely feasible to express concerns about Trump's anti-democratic rhetoric and acknowledge them in a real way without morphing into a ‘propaganda arm’ for President Joe Biden," Darcy continued. "But it is worth asking: If newsrooms are pro-democracy, and if their reporting indicates one candidate is opposed to democratic values, how can they feign ignorance on the 2024 race?"

BIDEN'S FALSE CANNIBAL STORY DESCRIBED AS A SIMPLE ‘MISSTATEMENT,’ ‘OFF ON THE DETAILS’ BY THE MEDIA

The New York Times called out President Biden for avoiding serious one-on-one interviews with it and other top outlets. (Main: Kena Betancur/VIEWpress Circle: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

He wasn't the only one to take exception to Kahn, although he was less measured than even an outright partisan like former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer, whose recent comments about Biden's dodging of the Times' interview requests promoted Kahn’s response. 

"What most people want is for the media to spend less time on the horserace and more time on the stakes of this election; and to specifically call out the threat that is a second Trump presidency," Pfeiffer wrote in the Message Box. "In general — and this is a complaint I have had about the New York Times that is two decades old — I wish they would take good faith criticism from the Left with as much seriousness as they take bad faith criticism from the Right."

"Instead of fuming at Kahn’s description of the New York Times’ role and responsibility, we should just take him at his word. They will not change their approach to covering Trump and that’s totally fine," Pfeiffer added.

Fox News contributor and Democratic strategist Leslie Marshall was sympathetic to Kahn, saying there's a line between editorializing and reporting, and Kahn simply said the Times would focus on the latter.

"That's pretty much how it should be if you are running a journalistic outlet with integrity, right? So the New York Times shouldn't be nicer to Joe Biden because he's a Democrat and they're viewed as a left-leaning newspaper," she told Fox News Digital.

The tense relationship between Biden and the Times, whose left-leaning editorial board hasn't endorsed a Republican for president since 1956, could be seen as underscoring the headwinds the president faces this re-election year. Or it could be the Times trying to make up for what Kahn admits were the "excesses" of the newspaper just four years ago, when left-wing staffers memorably revolted over the publication of Sen. Tom Cotton's "Send in the Troops" op-ed about urban rioting.

NY TIMES EDITOR SAYS IT'S NOT PAPER'S JOB TO BE BIDEN CAMPAIGN ARM AMID WHITE HOUSE TENSIONS

President Biden during the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C., on April 27, 2024. (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ben Smith, himself a former New York Times media columnist who got Kahn to open up about the paper's coverage of Biden for Semafor, told MSNBC on Tuesday that Democrats more than ever want to see the "media in their corner" as Trump makes another bid for the White House. 

"What’s happening inside the New York Times is a sense that, during particularly the summer of 2020, they aligned themselves too much with particularly the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, you know, on account of their staff, on account of cultural forces," Smith told "Morning Joe." "I think Kahn sees his job as pulling the institution back from what he called ‘excesses’ in the moment. Kind of an inconvenient time perhaps for Joe Biden for The Times to be symbolically focused on dragging itself back from that brink."

The Times recently called Biden out for his unprecedented lack of media access, noting that he has "granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors." The Times editorial board also called on Biden to "do better" when defending his memory, and New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger even confronted Vice President Kamala Harris last year over Biden's decision to avoid interviews with major newspapers.

The White House insists Biden does plenty of media, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ripped the paper in February for its coverage of concerns about Biden’s age and mental competence.

Democratic strategist Kevin Walling told Fox News Digital the traditional media environment had been upended and praised the White House for engaging local news outlets, as well as splashy national figures like Howard Stern last month. The Times still has influence, he noted, but it's been diminished by a fragmented media landscape.

BIDEN NEEDS TO ‘PRACTICE WHAT HE PREACHES’ AND RISE TO THE MOMENT AFTER LECTURING PRESS, CRITICS SAY

President Biden's aides point to his brief, more casual interactions with the media when confronted with criticism about his lack of access. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Biden even joked at the White House Correspondents' Dinner about Stern having a larger audience for him to reach with ther interview.

"The New York Times is still the paper of record for this country, and a lot of what the editorial board or individual reporters write and say is critical to the coverage," Walling told Fox News Digital. "There's no denying that. But again, you just also look at the media fragmentation that we see across the board."

It's also traditional for administrations to complain about how they're covered, Walling added.

Marshall didn't think the war with the Times would hurt Biden.

"I'm a Democrat and I'm going to vote for Joe Biden because he's the Democratic candidate," she told Fox News Digital. "And the people who read the New York Times, I would venture to say, are largely Democrats. And I don't think they're going to vote for Donald Trump because the Times wants to [report] on how old Biden is or to write some negative stories about Biden."

Fox News contributor Joe Concha doesn’t buy Kahn’s claim that the paper won’t become an "instrument of the Biden campaign" simply because his agenda aligns with traditional establishment parties. 

"I'm willing to bet my life savings and my kids' college fund that The New York Times will endorse Joe Biden for president, as they have every Democratic presidential candidate since 1956," Concha told Fox News Digital. 

FORMER NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR BLASTS NEWSPAPER OVER TOM COTTON OP-ED FIASCO: ‘THREW ME IN THE GARBAGE’

"If I could borrow $1 billion and bet on this outcome, I would," he added. "Always judge anyone or anything by actions."

Concha said the Times hasn’t done much to prove it won’t favor Biden ahead of Election Day despite whatever Kahn says during interviews. 

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"When the Times gets around to actually hiring an opinion writer or two who actually has something positive to say about former President Trump, or Republicans in general, or is willing to be critical of the current president who is polling lower than any person to hold that office in 70 years, then maybe I'll believe Mr. Kahn," Concha said. 

Managing editor of conservative media watchdog NewsBusters Curtis Houck echoed the notion that the Times will inevitably favor Biden. 

"It's hysterical to see Kahn trying to make it seem as though he's putting the genie back in the bottle after decades of open fanaticism inside the newsroom," Houck told Fox News Digital. 

New York Times Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker believes "Joe's got it just right" when it comes to how the election should be covered. 

"A free press serves democracy by being independent, not by joining a team. It's our job to follow the facts where they take us and of course that includes highlighting threats to democracy. But to the extent that people think that we're on one partisan side or the other, it undermines the authority of our reporting," Baker told Fox News Digital. 

The Times defended its coverage. 

"The New York Times is committed to covering the presidential election and the complexity of the political landscape in the country fully and fairly, giving voters a broad spectrum of deeply-reported journalism on everything from the candidates themselves to the issues at stake," a Times spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

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Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.