Jeffrey Goldberg: Claim Media Covered for Biden Is Misunderstanding of How Reporting Works, Need Sources to Say He’s Diminished
During a discussion with “Original Sin” authors CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios National Political Correspondent and CNN Contributor Alex Thompson on Friday’s broadcast of PBS’s “Washington Week,” host and The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said that he doesn’t “understand how this narrative has developed…that the media was covering for Biden. I think what might be going on here is a lack of understanding about how reporting works. In order to prove that he’s diminished, you have to have people, sources inside telling you this.”
Goldberg stated, “One of the interesting subjects here that’s come out in the past week, as you guys are talking about the book, is the role of the media. I don’t want to do like an extended media criticism here, especially because I’m not sure it’s actually correct. You were doing reporting in 2023. You were bringing this up. There’s a quote that I want to show you. It’s actually — it’s not just you guys. Ezra Klein was asking questions, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal. I want to show you a quote from Mark Leibovich writing in The Atlantic in June of 2022. And the article is called, ‘Why Biden Shouldn’t Run in 2024‘, ‘Biden is by no means the more eloquent character he was in his younger days. It can be painful to watch him give prepared speeches. His tone can be tentative, and certain sentences can become hopscotching journeys. His aides in the room look visibly nervous at times’ and so on. I don’t understand how this narrative has developed that no one in the — that the media was covering for Biden. I think what might be going on here is a lack of understanding about how reporting works. In order to prove that he’s diminished, you have to have people, sources inside telling you this. Give me your thoughts on this question.”
Tapper responded that “there were a lot of folks in the conservative media, in the pro-Trump media at Fox and elsewhere, who were running clips of Biden and saying, I think it was one Fox anchor called him Sippy — Joe Sippy Cup Biden or whatever. They were saying things along those lines and they were making a bigger deal about doubts about his acuity than it could be said the legacy media was. And I think that’s fair for them to say, we were making a bigger deal. But as you point out, there is a difference — and I’m not belittling the importance of airing those clips, I aired some of them too — there is a difference between airing a clip and saying, that’s odd, that’s unusual, he seems — it seems like something’s going on and what Alex and I have been able to do, which is after the election, all those Democrats, we talked to more than 200 sources for this book, almost all of them Democrats, almost all of them after the election, who were telling us what was really going on behind the scenes. And the anecdotes and the concerns that we bring forward in this book [are] investigative journalism, and that is different from observational punditry.” And Goldberg agreed.
Thompson then said, “I would also just add that — and I understand the pushback that Biden’s age was constantly a topic, right? And the Mark Leibovich story is a perfect example. But that was about sort of, in a political lens, a horse race lens, I do not feel there was a ton of investigative reporting about his ability to do the job and how his age was really affecting it.” Goldberg also agreed with this.
Thompson continued, “And I think also, look at the reaction to The Wall Street Journal story in June of 2024, just weeks before the debate. There were a lot of reporters that sort of threw shade at that story. There was not as much solidarity.”
Tapper added that journalists attacked the WSJ reporters who wrote about Biden’s decline, which Goldberg agreed with.
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