Why Biden Won't Do a New York Times Interview

The President and the paper of record are feuding over something that makes no sense

Saturday night is the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — an event scientifically designed to make Americans hate the press, politics, and Washington even more than they already do. Reporters, editors, anchors, and media executives don tuxedos to hobnob with celebrities and the politicians they cover. Republicans, who harrumph on social media about the “fake news,” put on black ties and schmooze with associated parties sponsored by the “liberal media.” The whole weekend, cringingly called the “Nerd Prom,” is proof positive that everyone is full of shit. I am, of course, part of the problem. I went to the dinner for 10 straight years. Crooked Media is hosting a party (Our party is cool, with only cool people invited.) for the second straight year because — despite all of the B.S. — it is an invaluable opportunity to network.

In the lead up to this weekend of media navel-gazing, Politico dropped an incredibly juicy story about President Biden’s frosty relationship with the New York Times. In the report from Eli Stokols:

According to interviews with two dozen people on both sides who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject, the relationship between the Democratic president and the country’s newspaper of record — for years the epitome of a liberal press in the eyes of conservatives — remains remarkably tense, beset by misunderstandings, grudges and a general lack of trust. Complaints that were long kept private are even spilling into public view, with campaign aides in Wilmington going further than their colleagues in the White House and routinely blasting the paper’s coverage in emails, posts on social media and memos.

The point of writing this story and publishing it the day that kicks off the White House Correspondents’ Weekend is to generate as much conversation and engagement as possible. Mission accomplished. The story is framed through the prism of petty grievances and personality disputes between New York Times staff and White House aides. Honestly, the story reads more like a recap of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills than an account of the relationship between an influential media outlet and the most powerful person in the world. The online reaction to the story is telling — other reporters leaped to the New York Times’ defense and accused the Biden White House of thumbing his nose at the media and being too sensitive about their press coverage. Democratic partisans responded by citing a litany of examples of the Times holding Trump and Biden to two very different standards.

The whole imbroglio misses the point and is borne of a fundamental misunderstanding of our dramatically altered media ecosystem.