The New York Times has a real crisis on its hand over its labeling of Miles Taylor as a “senior administration official” while granting him anonymity to trash President Trump in that now-infamous 2019 op-ed:
Their Miles Taylor gambit should call into question all NYT reporting based on anonymous sources in the last several years. This was clearly a high level editorial decision to characterize him so wrongly. https://t.co/mWd29Pymx4
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) October 28, 2020
It’s like the long-running bit from “The Office” where Dwight Schrute keeps inflating his title:
Miles Taylor is living Dwight Schrute's personal dream: he got the NY Times to describe him as a "senior administration official" rather than "assistant to the regional manager," which is more or less what he was as a mid-level functionary with zero policymaking power.
— Jeff B., who on earth is this guy?? (@EsotericCD) October 28, 2020
To put this in perspective, Ari Fleischer tweeted that he would not even recognize someone at Taylor’s level while he was at the White House:
When I was WH spokesman, I do not believe I knew or would even recognize the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, or most any agency for that matter. They weren’t in meetings with POTUS. They were not high ranking WH officials. The media got played by anonymous.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) October 29, 2020
Now, it’s not just our side calling out the NYT. Here’s ABC News’ Jonathan Karl:
Is an advisor to a cabinet secretary really a "senior administration official"? The widespread impression at the time of the NYT op-ed was that "Anonymous" was someone who actually advised the president. https://t.co/OphOMsudK5
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) October 28, 2020
And he was only a deputy chief of staff at the time of the op-ed:
At the time of the NYT op-ed, he was the deputy chief of staff for the secretary of homeland security — deputy chief of staff. He didn't become chief of staff at DHS until months after the op-ed was published. https://t.co/yrwbXrfDW3
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) October 28, 2020
Axios’ Jonathan Swan questioned it, too:
I also didn’t realize the definition of “senior administration official” could be *this* expansive. Wasn’t even an agency chief of staff at the time the op-ed ran.
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) October 28, 2020
Even #Resistance blue-checks don’t think the NYT acted in good faith:
This just proves that the term "senior administration official" desperately needs to be reformed. It's completely ridiculous to lump Cabinet secretaries and their chiefs of staff in the same category. https://t.co/VCZMNo5Dcf
— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) October 28, 2020
When you’ve lost CNN’s Susan Hennessey, you have a problem:
Leaving aside how one feels about Taylor's actions, I'm not sure that the NY Times decision to grant a DHS chief of staff anonymity for that op-ed and to describe him as a "senior administration official" holds up especially well.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) October 28, 2020
The mere fact that the majority of people clearly came away with the perception that the author was dramatically more senior that he was in reality means that the Times failed to provide its readership sufficient context.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) October 28, 2020
Benjamin Wittes, too:
Memo to the @nytimes: Chief of staff at DHS is objectively not a “senior administration official.”
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) October 28, 2020
And the Times’ explanation for why they did what they did just doesn’t cut it:
Another point on "Anonymous": He was chief of staff to the secretary of DHS. As such, he was ID'd as a "senior official" in @nytimes. We've asked the paper where is the cutoff for that designation. Here's NYT's James Dao addressing that matter: https://t.co/OXY0LMxE6L pic.twitter.com/vCQgRuuaNy
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) October 28, 2020
Of note, the day after the op-ed ran, they warned us this could be coming:
Sept. 5, 2018: @NYtimes prints op-ed by an Anonymous "Senior Administration Official" that turns out to be someone few would have classified in those terms.
Sept. 6, 2018: @NYtimes run a piece called "Who Is a Senior Administration Official? It Depends"https://t.co/BCkVhIfLha pic.twitter.com/pQLGoo6jNC
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) October 28, 2020
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