They need to be stripped of their press credentials. They have clearly moved from being a news outlet to trying to sway public opinion and affect legislation.



NY Times tweets GOP phone numbers, irking party leadership

How badly does the New York Times editorial board want the GOP tax-reform bill to fail? Apparently enough to tweet the phone numbers of seven GOP senators who might be inclined to vote against it.

But Wednesday's move, which journalism's Old Gray Lady dubbed an "experiment" to get its viewpoint across, didn't sit well with the Grand Old Party leadership.

In fact, GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel slammed the Times' maneuver.


“NYT published Republican senators’ phone numbers in order to push their liberal agenda," McDaniel tweeted. "Can we now stop pretending that the NYT isn't a political organization?”

In response, the GOP also tweeted the Times’ switchboard number and urged the public to “let them know how you feel about their liberal bias.”

And numerous social media users called out the Times, calling it “a Super PAC” and questioning whether it was ethical for the publication to issue a direct call to action to its readers.

Passage of the tax-reform bill, of course, would be a major legislative victory for President Donald Trump.

But in a series of tweets, the Times criticized the plan and asked readers to contact moderate Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Corker of Tennessee, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

“Contact @SenJohnMcCain and @JeffFlake, particularly if you live in Arizona, and tell them to oppose the tax bill: It would add more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years without helping the middle class,” read one of the tweets.

The Times explained its move.

“This morning, the Times editorial board is tweeting here to urge the Senate to reject a tax bill that hurts the middle class & the nation's fiscal health,” the Times’ Opinion Twitter account said.

The Times also took a swipe at Trump, accusing him of tweeting questionable videos about Muslims on Wednesday morning, as a distraction to discourage questions about the tax bill.

“Don't let Trump's tweets of Islamophobic conspiracy theories distract you," the newspaper tweeted. "Call your senator and tell him or her that #thetaxbillhurts.”

It remained unclear if this was the first time the paper’s editorial board undertook such an effort. A Times spokesperson told Politico on Wednesday only that the approach was an “experiment” to get the anti-GOP message out.

"The Editorial Board has been writing for weeks about concerns over the tax legislation pending in Congress," Times senior vice president of communications Eileen Murphy said. "This was an experiment in using a different platform to get that message out. We emphasized to our audience that this was the position of the Editorial Board in particular, not of Times Opinion generally."

Who pays the salaries of the editorial board? Were they all fired for this? If they weren’t then I guess there can be some presumption that they supported the opinion?

I assume they are asking people to call Mccain to congratulate him for opposing the legislation rather than to change his vote.

Trying to sway public opinion and affect legislation is one of the main reasons to have editorials, entirely proper.

They can publish whatever goofy opinions they want, but are properly criticised, enthusiastically, for slanting or faking news.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Trying to sway public opinion and affect legislation is one of the main reasons to have editorials, entirely proper.

They can publish whatever goofy opinions they want, but are properly criticised, enthusiastically, for slanting or faking news.

Yes, but they also called for Citizens United to be overturned. They are a corporation actively campaigning, not stating an opinion. It's a great illustration of irony and hypocrisy.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Trying to sway public opinion and affect legislation is one of the main reasons to have editorials, entirely proper.

They can publish whatever goofy opinions they want, but are properly criticised, enthusiastically, for slanting or faking news.

Yes, but they also called for Citizens United to be overturned. They are a corporation actively campaigning, not stating an opinion. It's a great illustration of irony and hypocrisy.

That was one of the conundrums of Citizens United, wasn’t it. Freedom of the press and speech required NYT be allowed to do as it pleased, but other, non media, corporations could not.

Nobody can be prevented from spending their resources to publish whatever opinions they wish. What’s more American than that?

The downside is we have to endure them.

They should have their White House Press credentials revoked as they clearly are a PAC now instead of a neutral news organization...