The author has a program on Pacifica's NYC station, WBAI, which is also a
podcast. She has some terrific people on there.
Miriam
The New York Times Has It in for Bernie Sanders
Katie Halper
The New York Times Has It in for Bernie Sanders
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
New York Times reporter Sydney Ember has a problem with Bernie Sanderswhich
may be why the paper has her cover him.
Ember is supposed to write reported articles, not op-eds, but she
consistently paints a negative picture of Sanders temperament, history,
policies and/or political prospects in the over two dozen pieces shes done
on him. This makes sense, given the New York Times documented anti-Sanders
bias, which can be found among both editors and reporters alike.
The paper was caught making significant changes, without acknowledging them,
to a 2016 article on Sanders hours after it went up: It changed the
headline (from Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years via Legislative
Side Doors, to Via Legislative Side Doors, Bernie Sanders Won Modest
Victories); deleted a positive quote from a campaign advisor; and added two
negative paragraphs. Even after the papers public editor chastised the
Times for the practice known as stealth editing, the editors defended the
changes because they thought [the article] should say more about his
realistic chances. In its original form, the article didnt cast enough
doubt on Sanders viability and ability to govern, in other words.
Ember was hired by the Times in 2014 to cover advertising and marketing for
the papers business vertical Dealbook. She started covering politics in May
2018, and immediately got the enviable assignment of covering one of the
leading contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Ember came to the New
York Times with a resumé limited to the finance industry: She was an analyst
for BlackRock, the biggest global investment management corporation, and the
largest investor in coal plant developers in the world. (Her husband, Mike
Bechek, is also in the investment business; he was a senior associate
consultant at Bain Capital, where his father was CEO.)
Ember has a multi-prong approach to undermining Sanders: She went to great
lengths to avoid calling him the frontrunner until he was no longer one;
she attributes his political positions to attention-getting, self-serving
ulterior motives; frames even his victories and the popularity of his ideas
as weaknesses; cherry-picks polls; presents opinions as facts (claiming hes
outflanked on the left by rising stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
Ayanna Pressley and Beto ORourke); and creates false equivalency between
Sanders and Donald Trump.
But for the sake of time and length, this piece focuses on her selection and
misrepresentation of sources, which have already drawn scrutiny. Brad
Johnson, a political analyst with a background in climate science pointed
out that Ember quoted a source without mentioning that shes a corporate
lobbyist; journalist Zaid Jilani noted that Ember failed to disclose that
another source was a senior advisor for a Hillary Clinton Super PAC.
Education scholar Diane Ravitch devoted a blog post to the reporters
shameful reporting on Sanders education policy, questioning the authority
of her sources.
Embers articles on Sanders (sometimes co-written with other Times
reporters) often quote as neutral authorities individuals who are on the
other side of a wide ideological divide, with longstanding antipathies to
Sanders left socioeconomic perspective. Moreover, many of these experts
are corporate lobbyists, whose work in a particular area is not guided by
academic, journalistic or other professional standards, but by the economic
and political interests of their clients. Ember spins the identity of her
authorities, who are themselves professional spinners.
Sefl is hardly a disinterested authority; shes a paid political consultant
and media specialist who worked as a surrogate and senior advisor for
Hillary Clinton. Other outlets mention Sefls experience working for Clinton
when they cite her, including the New York Times, which has identified her
as someone supporting Mrs. Clinton, someone who worked for Mrs. Clinton,
and a Democratic consultant and Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter. Consider
Embers March 1 article, which opened with the kind of unflattering headline
her stories often bear: Bernie Sanders Is Making Changes for 2020, but His
Desire for Control Remains. (Headlines, of course, are chosen by editors,
not reporters, but in these stories they reflect the slant of the text.) The
piece ended on a typically ominous note: Even if Mr. Sanders does talk more
about himself, his competition presents a new set of challenges that his own
biography may only compound, Ember wrote. She brings in an expert to prove
her point: At the end of the day, he is still an old white man, said
Tracy Sefl, a veteran Democratic strategist.
A New York Times story (10/22/07) on the 2008 Clinton campaigns
relationship with the right-wing Drudge Report identified Sefl as someone
who has established a friendly working relationship with Mr. Drudgeand
through whom Mrs. Clintons campaign often worked quietly to open a line of
communication. The paper also noted that her fingerprints are usually
impossible to spot. Sefl admitted in an interview (Chicago, 7/13/15):
My solo consultancy doesnt have a name, quite purposely so. I do often
collaborate with other consultants, including Republicanswithin reasonwhen
the work warrants it.
Reporter Zaid Jilani caught Embers omission, tweeting that she didnt note
[Sefl] was senior adviser to Ready for Hillary Super PAC or that she was a
hired gun at a Republican-led firm Navigators Global. The piece has since
been updatedwithout noticeto describe Sefl as a veteran Democratic
strategist and formerly a senior adviser to the Super PAC Ready for
Hillary.
Sefls choice of phrase, an old white man, is surely a crude description
for someone who, as he has explained, has a strong Jewish identity, shaped
in part by his fathers side of the family having been wiped out in the
Holocaust, and growing up a working-class Jew in Brooklyn. If successful,
Sanders would be the first Jewish president of the United States. But Sefls
dismissive description is consistent with the way Clinton campaign loyalists
and much of corporate media continue to weaponize identity politics against
Sanders, erasing not only his Jewish identitty, but also his anti-racist
record and his supporters of color.
Embers February 17 article, Bernie Sanders Stumbled With Black Voters in
2016. Can He Do Better in 2020?, published two days before Sanders
announced his candidacy, predicted that his weak track record with black
voters a vital base in the Democratic Party could be a potential threat
to his candidacy. Echoing the conventional wisdom of the 2016 campaign, the
piece made no mention of the CNN poll issued two months earlier that found
Sanders had a higher approval rating with nonwhite voters than any other
major candidate.
Embers March 29 article, Bernie Sanders Says No to Incrementalism,
Highlighting Divide Among Democrats, started with a neutral enough
headline, but ended with a harsh critique by a fierce Sanders opponent,
whose politics the reporter misrepresents:
The path to the White House and to majorities has to be in a pragmatic,
progressive area, said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for Policy at
Third Way, a center-left think tank. If you go too far left, Donald Trump
gets re-elected and Republicans control both houses of Congress.
Our heads are in the clouds, but our feet are also on the ground at the
same time, he added. He cited his groups universal healthcare plan, which
he said was just as ambitious as Mr. Sanders proposed Medicare for all.
There was, however, a key difference.
It just doesnt blow up the system, Mr. Kessler said. It builds on the
existing system.
But Third Way is a fiscally conservative, not a center left, think tank.
Given the state of public opinion, a group that pushes to cut Social
Security and Medicare, and calls raising taxes on billionaires soaking the
rich, is to the right of centrist. In 2013, of 29 trustees on Third Ways
board, 20 were investment bankers, three were CEOs and two were corporate
lawyers.
Third Ways about section reads, Our work is grounded in the mainstream
American values of opportunity, freedom and security. They continue, But
we identify as center-left, because we see that space in US politics as
offering the only real path for advancing those ideals in the century
ahead. For Third Way, identifying as center-left is lip service, a
strategic necessity in a nation that has moved to the left and whose
demographics promise a more diverse and left electorate to come.
Ember chooses the label that Third Way uses for itself, because if she
accurately identified its corporatist mission and positions, she could not
use one of its leaders as an objective authority on the efficacy of Bernie
Sanders proposal of free healthcare for all. It would be obvious that Third
Ways healthcare plan was in no way as ambitious as Sanders, and that it
was using the term universal to undermine single payer.
Reflecting its function as a corporate advocate for moving the Democratic
Party to the right, Third Way has consistently disparaged Sanders and
progressive politics in general. In a 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed
(12/2/13), Kessler (and Third Way co-founder and president Jon Cowan)
declared that economic populism is dead, urging Democrats not to follow
Elizabeth Warren and Bill deBlasio over the populist cliff. Kessler
singled out Sanders in a USA Today op-ed (12/15/17), declaring, Take It
From Voters, Democrats Dont Want a Bernie Sanders.
In October 2018, Third Ways executive vice president Matt Bennet (who can
be seen in this video refusing to disclose how much money his think tank
gets from Wall Street) disqualified Sanders as a presidential candidate:
The exception is Sen. Sanders. Were open to everybody except for him.
That would seem to make the organization an odd source to go to to evaluate
Sanders policy proposals.
But Ember turned to Kessler again in her April 27 article, Bernie Sanders
Opens Space for Debate on Voting Rights for Incarcerated People, to comment
on Sanders call to enfranchise the incarcerated:
Theres a difference between felons who are in prison for nonviolent
offenses and those who are in for capital offenses, said Jim Kessler,
executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a center-left think tank.
Mr. Sanders remarks, he added, seemed like a bit of a stumble.
The comment seemed like a bit of a stumble for Kessler, into an area where
he has no evident expertise, and, interestingly, where Third Way hardly
wades.
Embers May 17 article, Mayor and Foreign Minister: How Bernie Sanders
Brought the Cold War to Burlington, presented as problematic and
incriminating the senators support of Nicaraguan Sandinistas and his
opposition to the CIA-backed Contra rebels trying to overthrow themwhose
systematic pattern of gross human rights violations in the 1980s included
death squad assassination, kidnapping, rape, mutilation and torture. In a
subsequent interview, Embers first and apparently most pressing question to
Sanders was whether he had heard an anti-American chant at a rally he and
approximately 499,999 other people attended. Her second question was whether
he would have stayed at the event if he had heard it.
While NBCs Meet the Press (5/19/19) and New Yorks Jonathan Chait (5/27/19)
accepted and amplified Embers framing, other journalists and historians
familiar with Latin American history condemned the piece as context-lacking
neo-McCarthyite, anti-American baiting, only slightly more subtle
than Fox News. Calling the piece fundamentally ahistorical
bothsidesism, the Long Versions Jonathan Katz (5/20/19) wrote that Ember
doesnt have much experience covering foreign affairs in general or Latin
America in particular. It shows. Journalist Ryan Cooper (The Week, 5/29/19)
quipped, Americans should be very concerned about Bernie Sanders record of
opposing mass murder.
For this article on Sanders foreign policy past, Ember thought it would be
appropriate to get a quote from a significant player in the Iran/Contra
scandal:
Otto J. Reich, a former special envoy for Latin America who helped oversee
Nicaragua policy for the Reagan administration, said that by the middle of
the 1980s a politician like Mr. Sanders should have known better than to
fawn over Mr. Ortega.
Reagans Nicaragua policy involved illegally funding the terrorist Contras
in an effort to overthrow the elected Sandinista government. And he oversaw
it as director of the now defunct State Departments Office of Public
Diplomacy, working with CIA propaganda experts and Army psy-ops specialists,
leaking hoaxes, spreading rumors, smearing, and pressuring and threatening
reporters, in order to whitewash the Contras and demonize the Sandinistas.
Reichs office was condemned by the U.S. Comptroller General, the General
Accounting Office, the Congressional Iran/Contra Committee and a House
Foreign Affairs committee for conducting prohibited, covert propaganda
activities, including psychological operations (psy-ops) beyond the range
of acceptable agency public information activities.
Ember, though, offers Reich as an expert witness on Sanders Cold War
activities:
He has, by virtue of these travels and associations, joined up with some of
the most repressive regimes in the world, Mr. Reich said of Mr. Sanders,
alluding to his visit to Nicaragua and subsequent trips to the Soviet Union
and Cuba.
Speaking of travels and associations, as well as Cuba, Ember fails to
mention that Reich has worked as a lobbyist for Bacardi-Martini and Lockheed
Martin, and tried to get an anti-Castro terrorist a US visa.
As historian Greg Grandin told me in an interview (Katie Halper Show,
6/4/19):
The Office of Public Diplomacy was one of the most corrupting and degrading
instruments of democracy you can imagine
. It was a destabilization and
disinformation campaign.
People like Sydney Ember, he noted, are the product of that reeducation.
Back to domestic issues, Ember ended her May 23 article, Sanders Education
Plan Renews Debate Over Charter Schools and Segregation, on a predictably
down note:
But while the charter-school issue might be relevant in cities, Mr. Loadholt
said, it was hardly top-of-mind for voters in the states expansive rural
areas, where charter schools are rare. To a hammer, everything is a nail,
he said. And to Sanders, everything is an issue created by millionaires and
billionaires.
Ember describes Jarrod Loadholt as a Democratic strategist who has worked
on education policy in South Carolina. This obfuscating description was one
of the many things that led Diane Ravitch to write her blog post, The New
York Times vs. Senator Bernie Sanders. Ill let Ravitch explain:
The real stinker in the Times article comes at the end, where the writers
quote someone unfamiliar to me. I know many education activists in South
Carolina, but I have never run across Jarrod Loadholt
. I googled. He is a
lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, DC, who was born in South Carolina. I can
find no evidence of any involvement by him in any education issues. His
specialty seems to be consumer finance. Why was he called upon to put down
Senator Sanders factual statement that the Waltons, the DeVos family and
hedge fund managers are behind the push for charter schools? Senator Sanders
made his statement in South Carolina, and Loadholt was born there. South
Carolina has dreadful education policy. When did Loadholt work on it and
with what results? To the naked eye, he was called upon as a Beltway insider
to cut Bernie Sanders down with a false statement. Shameful.
In fact, there are no traces of Loadholt having worked on any education
policy. When I tweeted out Ravitchs piece, he responded, Lol. I guess if
youre a lawyer or a lobbyist, you could at no point in your life worked on
ed policy in SC. When I asked him if he had worked on education policy, he
replied, My quote speaks for itself. And its like a month old. Loadholt
has also tweeted that Sanders is like a rash.
Loadholt does have experience as a lobbyist and currently works at Pine
Street Strategies, a lobbying firm whose clients include Anheuser-Busch and
the National Bankers Association (NBA). It was in his capacity as an NBA
lobbyist that Loadholt defended a sweeping rollback of Dodd/Frank banking
regulations. Dubbed the Bank Lobbyist Act by critics, which included the
NAACP, the bill made it easier for banks to discriminate against communities
of color. Loadholt, however, dismissed the concerns: [Black] banks dont
have the luxury of waiting on a perfect bill
. If we thought the [bill] did
substantial damage to African-Americans, we would not support it.
Then theres the June 12 article, originally headlined Sanders Delivers
Defense of His Democratic Socialist Philosophy and later renamed Bernie
Sanders Calls His Brand of Socialism a Pathway to Beating Trump, where
Ember quoted as an authority Mary Anne Marsh, whom she described as a
Democratic strategist in Boston who worked for Senators Senators John Kerry
and Edward M. Kennedy. Marsh did not mince words in her assessment of
Sanders politics, policies and electability:
Most Democrats running dont subscribe to Bernie Sanderss democratic
socialism and his economic policies. Ultimately, Bernie Sanders giving this
speech will appeal to his base and no one else, and it gives fodder to Trump
and the Republicans.
But the woman linking Sanders socialist rhetoric to a Trump victory is not
just a Democratic strategist. When reporters at places like the Financial
Times, CNBC, NPR, Yahoo! Business and Jewish News Services quote her, they
cite her as a principal at the Dewey Square Group, a lobbying and public
relations firm. Dewey Squares corporate clients have included Allegiance
Healthcare Corporation, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Coca-Cola, Collegiate
Funding Services, Countrywide Mortgage, DuPont, General Motors Corporation,
Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), Mortgage Insurance Companies of
America, Purdue Pharma, Starbucks, United Health Group. The US Chamber of
Commerce hired the firm to fight for caps on damages that can be paid in
lawsuits; the National Restaurant Association paid them to fight against a
law that made it easier for unions to organize workers and Fix the Debt, to
push its austerity astroturf campaign which to cut Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid.
When Dewey Square was caught (CJR, 2/24/09) tricking senior citizens into
signing letters to the editor on behalf of its client Medicare Advantage,
Marsh tried to blame the hapless victims who had been lured to events with
door prizes and free food and were unaware of what they were signing,
positing, The time that elapsed between the meetings when the seniors saw
the letters and the letters arrival at the newspaper may have clouded some
memories.
Her career as a lobbyist for many of the industries that would be most
impacted by Sanders proposals might explain Marshs obvious animus against
the candidate, as displayed in the May 20 edition of her weekly Fox News
column, Bernie Sanders Incredible Shrinking CandidacyWhy He Wont Be Dem
Nominee. One of Sanders apparent insurmountable weaknesses, she wrote, is
that people remember Sanders didnt support Clinton in the general election
against Trump. People with better memories recall that Sanders was one of
the most energetic surrogates for Clinton on the campaign trail, campaigning
constantly for her in battleground states (New Yorker, 11/4/16).
Marsh is right when she says that most Democrats running dont subscribe to
Bernie Sanderss democratic socialism, which is why hes seen as a unique
threat to those who promote rapacious profiteering in the areas of finance,
health care, education and the military. Third Way made that clear, once
again, at a conference they held last week, where its co-founder Matt
Bennett singled out Sanders vision from his opponents: One is a
Democratic capitalist narrative
. The other is a socialist narrative,
notably omitting the Democratic descriptor for the latter.
By presenting her sources as objective authorities, instead of paid
lobbyists and austerity ideologues, Ember both conceals and advances their
agenda, undermining the integrity of the
