The New York Times' election coverage: They prefer a weiner to a bribery scandal

By Barbara Morrill
Sunday Sep 11, 2016 · 11:09 PM EDT

Liz Spayd, the public editor at The New York Times, wants you to know that claims that The Times is a hacktackular embarrassment are simply not true. And she’s particularly annoyed at The Times being:

… accused of unfairly equating a minor failing of Hillary Clinton’s to a major failing of Donald Trump’s.

… so she talked to Amy Chozick, The Times’  lead Clinton reporter, who assured her:

 … both candidates’ records, positions and backgrounds should be equally scrutinized and, when appropriate, compared and contrasted.

Great idea. So just for fun—and not even touching emails or the Clinton Foundation—let’s compare and contrast The New York Times’  coverage over the past two weeks of just two MAJOR political scandals.

First, Donald Trump funneled an illegal $25,000 campaign contribution through the Trump Foundation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who then declined to investigate Trump University for fraud. In addition to the illegal contribution (which prompted a fine by the IRS), Trump not only threw a $3,000-a-person fundraiser for Bondi at his Mar-a-Lago resort, he charged her campaign $135,000 LESS than he charges his own campaign for events there.

The second “scandal”? Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton, separated from her husband, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, after some new sexts he exchanged with another woman became public.

Now, let’s pause for a moment and let the gravity of these two scandals sink in: An aide to Clinton is married to a jackass who can’t keep his dick in his pants versus Donald Trump apparently bribing an attorney general of the third-largest state in the nation to prevent legal action being brought against him. And adding to that, when the payoff came to light, Trump lied, saying he had never spoken to the attorney general before the illegal contribution was made, when in fact, he had.

With all that in mind, what level of importance do you think The New York Times gave to these two stories?

Based on a Nexis search of the past two weeks, The Times carried five news stories that featured Anthony Weiner’s connection to Hillary Clinton. This included a page one article headlined “Weiner's Texts Cast Shadow on Campaign” (with Amy Chozick’s byline), where we learned that “Mr. Weinter’s extramarital behavior also threatens to remind voters about the troubles in the Clintons’ own marriage over the decades.” Another told us “Mr. Weiner’s ties to the Clinton campaign make his explicit messages a useful weapon by the Trump camp ...” Because something.

On Donald Trump’s potential bribery scandal? The Times had two whole articles. And in both of those articles, The Times uncritically included comments from Trump calling Bondi ''beyond reproach'' and claiming that he ''never spoke to her about that at all.'' In fact, said Trump, ''I never spoke to her, first of all, she's a fine person beyond reproach,'' he said when asked about the controversy. ''I never even spoke to her about it at all. She's a fine person. Never spoken to her about it. Never.'

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/11/1569106/-The-New-York-Times-election-coverage-They-prefer-a-weiner-to-a-bribery-scandal