NY Times: Democrats Don't Matter
by tristero
The lede to a New York Times story on tariffs. There's something missing here:
President Trump’s threat to punish Mexico with tariffs until it restrains the flow of migrants rattled financial markets on Friday, and the Mexican government, American businesses and Republican lawmakers pressed Mr. Trump to back down.
Where are the Democrats? In case you're interested, they're first mentioned in paragraph 17.
To some extent, this is as much on Democrats as it is on Swanson and the Times's editors (which is not to let them off the hook). It's a matter of pushing reporters to cover Democrats and crafting statements that compel attention and therefore, prominent inclusion.
Republicans know better than to waste any opportunity to trash Democrats and get mentioned. When he was president, not an article was written about an Obama policy that didn't include a prominent Republican scare quote. And I'm certain it never took the Times seventeen paragraphs before getting around to mentioning them.
PS: This article was in the most important spot in the print version, more prominent than the horrific Virginia Beach shooting.