Eric Boehlert: Maggie Haberman, and when Trump access no longer matters [View all]

[babylonsister]

https://pressrun.media/p/maggie-haberman-and-what-happens


Maggie Haberman, and when Trump access no longer matters
No more scoops
Eric Boehlert
2 hr ago

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I have no doubt Trump himself served as a source/leaker for Haberman during his four years in office. Yes, he often publicly railed against her and the "liberal" New York Times, but that was likely part of the kabuki dance that went on as Trump and the Times often used each other to their benefit. Trump certainly provided the paper with crucial access. “He wouldn’t talk to me as much as he does if I wasn’t at the Times,” Haberman once said on a podcast. “That’s just the reality. He craves the paper’s approval." According to Haberman, as president he would at times call her and thank her for her coverage, at one point giving one of her Trump stories an "8."

In return, Haberman and Times often normalized him in ways large and small. The daily spent years painting a false portrait of adult decision making at the White House, suggesting Trump was surrounded by a beehive of aides who plotted policy, instead of a madman setting the agenda.

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Normalizing seemed to be the goal. When Haberman sat down with Trump in early 2019 for an extended Q&A, he lied nonstop and came across as utterly incoherent, yet the Times politely typed it all up as a normal White House interview.

In 2019, Haberman famously reported that Trump's former communications director (and likely longtime Times source) Hope Hicks faced an "existential choice " about whether or not to cooperate with a congressional subpoena, as if that's somehow the norm. "When a respected paper such as @nytimes calls this an ‘existential’ question, rather than a question about complying with the law, we have a very serious problem with our democracy," Princeton University historian, Julian Zelizer stressed at the time. "This is what it looks like to become dysfunctional."

One year ago, Haberman's byline appeared on a deeply misguided front-page Times piece as America suffered from the government's futile pandemic response: "Despite Pushback, Trump Suggests Testing Is No Longer an Issue." As if his blatant lies ever should have ever been taken at face value, let alone during a deadly public health crisis.

Nonetheless, Haberman won industry accolades for her Trump reporting. Now with him off the stage the future seems uncertain. That’s what happens with access journalism.