Since this Thursday night President Joe Biden offered a disastrous performance in the debate that pitted him against Donald Trump in Atlanta, the barrage of liberal-leaning media (that is, close to the Democratic Party) that has asked the candidate to withdraw has been incessant. Some of the most renowned columnists ―from Atlantic until The New Yorker– have been joining this Friday to the chorus of voices demanding a replacement. And then, at around 6:00 p.m., The New York Times has further increased the pressure on his re-election campaign with an editorial titled If he wants to serve his country, President Biden should drop out of the race.
“He has been an admirable president. Under his leadership, the nation has prospered and has begun to address a number of long-term challenges, as well as the wounds opened by Trump, which thanks to him have begun to heal. But the greatest public service that Biden can do right now is to announce that he will not continue running for reelection,” argues the article, signed by the editorial board, a group of journalists from the Times who works independently of the New York newspaper’s editorial staff.
The text is harsh, but it also warns that if Biden decided not to withdraw, and the signals he sent this Friday, day one after one of the most disastrous nights of his long political career, is that he does not intend to do so, “the president in exercise would be the unequivocal choice of this council.” That is one of the functions of this class of bodies, which represent something like the gray matter in the American media: to ask for votes for one candidate or another. It is much less common in the history of journalism in this country for a newspaper to step forward to beg a candidate for the White House, much less if he is president, to think better of it.
A “bad night”
The editorial rejects the argument by Biden’s supporters since Thursday that it was just a “bad night” or that it could be attributed to “a so-called cold.” The Times is more in line with the idea that what the 50 million viewers of the debate saw was a reaffirmation of “concerns that have been mounting for months or even years” about his health and the abilities that aid him as an 81-year-old man.
The editorial board also recalls that Biden, who “failed his own test” (the debate was requested by him and the rules were set by his own campaign) “has carefully limited and controlled his public appearances.” Among other things, by repeatedly denying an interview with the New York newspaper. At the last White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington, the president even made a joke during the traditional humorous monologue about the alleged animosity of The New York Times to him.
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The publication of the editorial fell like a blow in Washington, and renewed the arguments for the debate, which has not stopped on cable television news channels in the last 24 hours.
It also sparked some criticism, including from media theorist Jeff Jarvis, professor emeritus at the City University of New York (CUNY), who regretted the publication of an X post. In an email to EL PAÍS he elaborated a little more on his reasons: “I am concerned that the editorial board of the New York Times is rushing to judgement based on a television performance. Times and his editor, AG Sulzberger, have been attacking Biden throughout this campaign and petulantly complaining that he wouldn’t give them an interview. Many re-election candidates, including Barack Obama, have had terrible first debates. He Times he ignored that,” Jarvis warns. “Also the irresponsible performance of CNN, which refused to carry out the most basic journalism while Trump threw [durante el debate] lie after lie after lie. The problem is that it’s not just about the Times; It is also the crisis of the Post, the anxiety of CNN and the triumph of [el editor australiano, dueño de Fox News, New York Post o The Wall Street Journal] Rupert Murdoch, who will bring Trump to power and help destroy institutions. “We are facing a terrible crisis in American journalism.”
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