Eric Boehlert: Washington Post editor finally admits Trump should've been called a "liar"

[babylonsister]

Washington Post editor finally admits Trump should've been called a "liar"
Defining press failure
Eric Boehlert
2 hr ago


Better late than never? At this point it's hard to tell.

For four years news outlets helped normalize Trump's mendacious behavior by refusing to hold the commander-in-chief accountable with clear language that called his lies for what they were. Afraid that calling Trump a "liar" in straight news coverage would anger him and spark cries of "liberal media bias," the press capitulated. In the process, they helped turn lying into an unequivocal hallmark of the Republican Party — as witnessed during the recent impeachment trial, where Trump's lawyers lied repeatedly and without concern to Senate jurors.

Now that Trump is out of office, some news executives are having second thoughts.

From a lengthy interview retiring Washington Post editor Marty Baron recently gave to the Germany's Der Spiegel:

We had to be much more forthright about Trump’s mendacity, his lies over the course of the administration. We needed to call them that from the very beginning. We were very much operating on good principle; and let’s be fair, he was president, he was duly elected. But he was exploiting that. He was exploiting our principles. That said, I don’t think it would have made any great difference.

There's a lot there, and unfortunately much of it cannot be defended. What's most exasperating is that Baron, who's one of the best in the business, waits until Trump is out of office to make this sweeping concession about the central error that the media made covering the congenital liar. "We had to be much more forthright about Trump's mendacity, his lies," stressed Baron, which raises the obvious question: What was stopping him and the Post from doing that?

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/washington-post-editor-finally-admits

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. For one to lie one has to say something that isn't true and be aware of it. Chump did that a lot.

[abqtommy]

2. If "better late than never" is good then "better never late" is much, much better!

[jrthin]

3. Five years too late and an insurrection later.

[SoonerPride]

4. It goes back to the birtherism bullshit

They should have said outright THIS IS A LIE

full stop

But oh no they let it drag on and on and on

And who got thousands of hours of press and notoriety over that lie?

Donny Dumbfuck.

[whathehell]

5. A day late and a dollar short, Eric.

Last edited Tue Feb 23, 2021, 05:00 PM - Edit history (1)

[FakeNoose]

6. Well sure, now that he's retiring he can't be fired for saying that

Too many other media executives haven't retired, and they're still wearing blinders 24/7. The media executives and the owners are one-per-centers (or close enough) and they've been enabling Chump all along.

[choie]

7. not really better late than never

it's chicken shit and cowardly

[Wounded Bear]

8. Gee, ya think?

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. what prevents the media from learning is greed. $$$$.

[gulliver]

10. "He was exploiting our principles."

Part of it is "never argue with a fool" syndrome. Trump was dragging everybody into the mud with him. It's difficult to express the level of contempt Trump deserves to be treated with by people who have honor. Calling him a "liar" doesn't do it. He would just cry "fake news," and our desperate, honor abandoning (or misled) neighbors who find themselves lured into the the mud with him would chuckle.

More effective might be to call Trump "dishonorable" or "deceitful." Use multiple vaccine variants beyond just "liar."

[Wellstone ruled]

11. Let's not forget

the Central Park Five. Five Lives destroyed by Diaper Don who never paid any price for that lie or the paid for ad he ran in the New York Papers.

[dlk]

12. News outlets allowed Trump to play them

And we have all paid a very high price.