Since its formation in the 1850s, the New York Times has been the city’s main newspaper but in modern times has perceived itself as America’s newspaper. Problem is most Americans don’t feel the same way especially nowadays. The New York Times, along with CNN, is constantly chided by our current president as fake news. Truth is the New York Times is about as good journalism as we have in this country. I check it every day along with The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other news sources across the country. There have been rare moments when the New York Times and even the Washington Post did indeed publish fake news stories. But at each paper, the culprits were individual reporters: the infamous Jason Blair formerly of the New York Times who wrote pure fiction and got it published in the paper on more than one occasion, and then back in the late ’70s that gal formerly of the Washington Post who inadvertently won the Pulitzer Prize for what turned out to be a fictitious feature series on a child heroin addict. But other than those two black eyes, these newspapers have kept their nose clean with ensuring real and viable journalism.
So when the esteemed New York Times Editorial Board published its endorsement for the next U.S. President and Vice President, I was pleasantly surprised. The board of course was not going to endorse a second term for Donald Trump but wrote pleasantries on Democrat presidential aspirants Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg along with a couple of atta-boys for Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang. Then the paper went on to recommend Americans vote Elizabeth Warren as the next U.S. President … and Amy Klobuchar for Vice President! A capital idea! Very novel. Very much with the times. Not one but two female firsts as President and VP. I never in my life envisioned such a goal. Wonder why? Maybe younger adults have foreseen the possibility.
Front page news
During the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times featured a daily meter on the front page indicating chances of a win by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Hillary was usually 80% and higher, Trump often with as little as 11 points to 20 or so. And look who won. And both candidates essentially from New York City. Boy, were the citizens of New York (City) surprised that their own local-boy-makes-good, the story Trump naturally thought the Times would print but never did … and never will. The paper does not want to be burned again for printing a story they know their readers would consider fiction.
Shortly after the election, the New York Times editor acknowledged his national media institution was smarting from its dead-wrong prediction. All smugness gone, the editor decided on a few changes to ensure this sort of thing would not happen again to the New York Times. The paper had to concede its reporters know nothing of middle Americans, those who live in the vast territory between the two coasts—how they think, how they feel, what they believe collectively. So the Times would hire scads more reporters who would be stationed throughout the U.S., similar to how the equally longstanding Associated Press reports on the country. An AP reporter resides in a major city or region for a couple of years, reporting on the important local events before being assigned elsewhere. The New York Times also was going to expand the religion staff. Most big city papers have just one person who covers religion and writes about the subject of faith. The Times’ plan was to hire a few more reporters for a religion staff, each reporter capable of covering specific realms of the world’s major religions.
The 21st century New York Times had to acknowledge in 2016 it did not have its finger on the pulse of the nation, in contrast to its understanding of the coastal elites who ironically included Hillary and Trump. Maybe this year a presidential election meter will not be featured on the front page of the New York Times or anywhere in the paper.
Not who but when
Getting back to the novelty of two women leading the Free World as U.S. president and vice president, endorsed by the New York Times, both women make the paper’s grade when seeking to build bridges across the nation’s vast mid section: Klobuchar from Minnesota and Warren from Oklahoma. Klobuchar was the candidate who stood outdoors in falling snow to announce her bid for the White House. She’s got grit. Perhaps that should be her motto. Warren is similar, highly educated and a hero of economic affairs. She is practical about family budgets and carries that pragmatism into ideals to restructure the national budget, which still is heavily pro-military spending. She is no-nonsense, thinks like the common man instead of the wealthy, and has real-life experience with family hardship and lost economic dignity. As for her claim of a smidgeon of Native American ancestry, not only is it true, she looks very much like any white American who claims a tiny bit of Native American heritage. Both candidates will knock the socks off their Republican contenders (Trump/Pence) in debate. Smart money is on the women.
Sen. Warren, D-Massachusetts, is 70. She is married with children from a previous marriage and by now a grandmother. She had been an esteemed law professor at several universities including the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard. As the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, she served on committees on aging; banking, housing and urban affairs; and health, education, labor and pensions. Her bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston is in speech pathology and audiology, and she once taught in a public school working with these special-needs students. But Sen. Warren’s blue-collar childhood in Oklahoma City and Norman, Okla., sets her apart from most who seek the highest office in the land. Her father worked in sales before a debilitating heart attack. The family never recovered financially. Her mother, a housewife, had to pick up work as a sales clerk while barely a teen-ager Elizabeth started working as a waitress. In high school she was an outstanding debater for which she won a college scholarship. She married, had kids, and the family moved to New Jersey. After divorcing in the late 1970s, she kept the last name and a few years later married a law professor who is her husband today.
Sen. Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, is 59. She is the daughter of a sports reporter and a teacher. She became a lawyer and later was elected to the U.S. Senate where she gained notice for passing more legislation in one year than her peers. She is married with a grown child. She cites a hospital policy for motivation to seek high office. When her child was born, the hospital allowed only a 24-hour recovery for mother and newborn. She took the issue to the state which passed a law mandating at least a 48-hour hospital recovery after giving birth, which President Bill Clinton later signed into law making it standard policy across the U.S.
Warren’s platform includes policies on the issues of farmers, opioid crisis, student debt, corporate taxes and big tech regulation. She has become controversial on her stance for universal healthcare. She understands something most Americans do not: While half the country works for large industries that provide decent insurance, the other half are self-employed or work for small businesses with no insurance or outlandishly expensive and unaffordable insurance plans. Klobuchar’s reputation is much more moderate, yet she is pro-choice and supports LGBT rights.
Both ladies … excuse me, women … excuse me again, candidates think ‘Americans first’ when it comes to real family concerns: health insurance, prescriptions, living wages, fair taxes, schools. Will either Warren or Klobuchar be great presidents or a good team as Prez and VP? Should anyone care if they are the first women to hold the nation’s two highest offices? Will it be men against women in the voting booth? If nothing else, at least in the year 2020 the esteemed New York Times had the wherewithal to endorse these two presidential candidates who happen to be women. Will the Times’ presidential endorsement matter to those living in America’s heartland? When it comes to New York City and its snooty newspaper, they’ll likely pay it no mind.