Elections

WSJ Reporters Complain The Paper’s Neutrality On Trump Is ‘Absurd’

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Rachel Stoltzfoos Staff Reporter
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Wall Street Journal reporters are upset the paper is treating Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump like any other candidate, with one reporter calling it “absurd” and another “galling.”

The Trump coverage is “neutral to the point of being absurd,” one inside source told Politico.

“A lot of reporters in the newsroom aren’t happy about the paper’s Trump coverage,” another said, adding: “People feel there have been too many flattering access stories on the front [page] and process stories about the race, who’s up and down — false balance in treating him just like another nominee.”

A third source told Politico the fair coverage is “galling.”

All of the sources talked on condition of not being named, for fear of jeopardizing their jobs.

Other journalists have openly criticized the idea of treating Trump and his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton equally in the press. In an amazing justification of this kind of blatant bias, New York Times columnist Jim Ruteberg described the thinking behind this new “norm” of objectivity.

“If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that,” he wrote. “You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.”

He concedes that it’s “dodgier” for news reporters to take the tack of opinion writers, but goes on to justify this new normal. “In a sense, that’s just what reporters are doing And it’s unavoidable. Because Mr. Trump is conducting his campaign in ways we’ve not normally seen.”

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