Eric Boehlert: Maggie Haberman, and when Trump access no longer matters

[babylonsister]

https://pressrun.media/p/maggie-haberman-and-what-happens


Maggie Haberman, and when Trump access no longer matters
No more scoops
Eric Boehlert
2 hr ago

snip//

I have no doubt Trump himself served as a source/leaker for Haberman during his four years in office. Yes, he often publicly railed against her and the "liberal" New York Times, but that was likely part of the kabuki dance that went on as Trump and the Times often used each other to their benefit. Trump certainly provided the paper with crucial access. “He wouldn’t talk to me as much as he does if I wasn’t at the Times,” Haberman once said on a podcast. “That’s just the reality. He craves the paper’s approval." According to Haberman, as president he would at times call her and thank her for her coverage, at one point giving one of her Trump stories an "8."

In return, Haberman and Times often normalized him in ways large and small. The daily spent years painting a false portrait of adult decision making at the White House, suggesting Trump was surrounded by a beehive of aides who plotted policy, instead of a madman setting the agenda.

snip//

Normalizing seemed to be the goal. When Haberman sat down with Trump in early 2019 for an extended Q&A, he lied nonstop and came across as utterly incoherent, yet the Times politely typed it all up as a normal White House interview.

In 2019, Haberman famously reported that Trump's former communications director (and likely longtime Times source) Hope Hicks faced an "existential choice " about whether or not to cooperate with a congressional subpoena, as if that's somehow the norm. "When a respected paper such as @nytimes calls this an ‘existential’ question, rather than a question about complying with the law, we have a very serious problem with our democracy," Princeton University historian, Julian Zelizer stressed at the time. "This is what it looks like to become dysfunctional."

One year ago, Haberman's byline appeared on a deeply misguided front-page Times piece as America suffered from the government's futile pandemic response: "Despite Pushback, Trump Suggests Testing Is No Longer an Issue." As if his blatant lies ever should have ever been taken at face value, let alone during a deadly public health crisis.

Nonetheless, Haberman won industry accolades for her Trump reporting. Now with him off the stage the future seems uncertain. That’s what happens with access journalism.

[gratuitous]

1. The soft-focus Hope Hicks feature has been memory-holed

NOBODY in the media seems to remember that nauseating profile that painted Hicks as some special human being who was buffeted by the unreasonable demands of an out-of-control Congress in subpoenaing her to testify as if she was an ordinary citizen, subject to the laws everyone else was expected to comply with.

[blm]

5. It was horrifying for a constitutional democracy

[lagomorph777]

2. MAGA Haberman is suddenly irrelevant.

Good.

[onetexan]

8. Thank goodness

[gab13by13]

3. There are a lot more than just Maggie,

who continually normalize "It."

[True Blue American]

4. I read that th his morning

Maggie sold her soul to the Company Store and now the store is out of business.

So sad! Not reallly!

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. We must never forget how Haberman the hack and NYT carried water for the Trump admin. Nt

[Lokee11]

7. +1

✊!

[mezame]

9. Who was her boss?

NYT gave her green lights up the food chain, so which heads actually rolled? Corruption everywhere, even in 'respected' corporations. I hope Joe includes media conglomerates in his tax-the-rich bill (including the slime factory that is fux nuz). If they're not going to cut heads off snakes, hitting their wallets a bit harder might pay for things short-term, but they'll get used to it. Their hives and nests will continue to thrive.

[Mickju]

10. Yes, I totally agree.

[ZonkerHarris]

11. Haberman is a hack. The worst.

[NoMoreRepugs]

12. Maggie HACKerman will not be remembered as a fine journalist but rather a willing participant in

the debacle that was tRUMPism.

[Midnight Writer]

13. NYT also pushed for Clinton impeachment, with day after day of front page Whitewater headlines.

I'll never forget how they went overboard with that "scandal" that fizzled out, but had a profound effect on the future of our country.

[tblue37]

17. They also hyped the Hillary emails nonsense.

[dalton99a]

21. The NYT practically manufactured her email 'scandal' and pushed it throughout the 2016 campaign

the way they manufactured Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction for Bush's Iraq war

[Cha]

26. NYT also Beat the Drums for the

War on Iraq.. via Judy Miller & whatever else.

Damn them for "normalizing trump".. they're on the fucking Wrong side of history Again.

[Lonestarblue]

14. The Times normalized Trump even before he became president.

They rarely reported on his bankruptcies, corrupt business practices, refusal to pay small contractors for work completed, or his many examples of sexual predation. But they gave enormous attention to Clinton’s emails and their giddy analysis of the potential corruption in the Clinton Foundation while ignoring the known corruption in the Trump Foundation.

I think the Times is struggling to find itself these days. It seems more and more irrelevant in its coverage.

[Martin68]

15. Good analysis.Thanks.

[bucolic_frolic]

16. Tyrants, madmen, abusers, sadists have sometimes held power in history

Civilization has yet to figure out how to prevent their ascendancy let alone remove them from office other than to wait out their lifespan - natural or political.

[NewHendoLib]

18. can't stand her, never could. self serving normalizer

[dalton99a]

19. Haberman should be known as Trump's normalizer.

[maliaSmith]

20. Haberman

You forgot to mention that Haberman's mother does all the PR for both the Trump family and the Kushners. I have never respected Haberman as she layers BS about Trump all over her published crap. She is biased toward Trump.

[dalton99a]

23. +1. There was a symbiotic relationship - Trump was her ticket to fame, and she was his PR agent

on the front page of the New York Times

[BobTheSubgenius]

22. That damned Liberal Media.

(I find myself unable to continue.)

[peggysue2]

24. The Wall Street Journal had the same habit of 'cleaning up' Trump's rants

Early on, I remember reading an interview conducted by the WSJ, the edited version and the original transcript. Even in the edited version Trump came off as uninformed and ignorant. However, in the original transcript? His underlying madness and/or dementia, his inability to form a single complete thought was stunning, shocking.

A major element of the press never put their arms around the fact that Trump was dangerous, incompetent, a babbling madman at the helm of the United States of America. They refused to adequately warn the public about those dangers and did, indeed, attempt to normalize the behavior or pretend that it was entertainment.

We're lucky we still have a country to repair. Trump was a nuclear bomb waiting to go off. His enablers? Even worse.

As with the Iraq war, a good swath of the press dropped the damn ball turning Trump's reactions and inability to do the work into a bothsiderism event, all in the name of objective reporting.

That sort of journalism needs to be swept away. Otherwise, we're likely to see a repeat of the political disaster that resulted in 500,000+ American lives and brought the country to its knees.

[moondust]

25. I suspected something fishy at NYT.

That was Dumpy's "hometown paper." As such they probably knew a lot about his sordid past long before 2015 and had the resources to dig even deeper. Did some big monied interests in NY (NYSE?) bribe or pressure NYT management to keep it all under wraps and give him a positive spin, perhaps expecting some big payoff in case he should somehow win the election?

[Cha]

27. Damn Haberman's greed & lust for power..

via normalizing a Psychotic Treasonous Homicidal Maniac.

Look at her now.. in the Dumpster Fire with former pos.