Rupert Murdoch-owned US outlets turn on Trump,
urging him to act with 'grace'
Fox News, Wall Street Journal and New York Post all
show stark change of tone as their former champion faces ‘presidential endgame’
Tom
McCarthy
@TeeMcSee
Email
Sat 7 Nov
2020 07.20 GMTLast modified on Sat 7 Nov 2020 07.47 GMT
Multiple
Rupert Murdoch-owned conservative media outlets in the United States have
shifted their messaging in a seeming effort to warn readers and viewers that
Donald Trump may well have lost the presidential election.
The new
messaging appears to be closely coordinated, and it includes an appeal to Trump
to preserve his “legacy” by showing grace in defeat. The message is being
carried on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post – all
outlets avidly consumed by Trump himself, especially Fox.
One Fox
News host, Laura Ingraham, an intimate of the president ever since she spoke at
the 2016 Republican national convention, made an astounding statement that
seemed directed at Trump personally, advising him to accept defeat “if and when
that does happen” with “grace and composure” and appealing to his sense of his
own legacy.
Ingraham
said in part: “If and when it’s time to accept an unfavourable outcome in this
election, and we hope it never comes, but if and when that does happen,
president Trump needs to do it with the same grace and composure he
demonstrated at that town hall with Savannah Guthrie. So many people remarked
about his tone and presence. Exactly what he needs.
“Now
losing, especially when you believe the process wasn’t fair, it’s a gut punch.
And I’m not conceding anything tonight, by the way. But losing, if that’s what
happens – it’s awful. But president Trump’s legacy will only become more
significant if he focuses on moving the country forward.”
The Wall
Street Journal has published an opinion piece with almost the exact same
message. It is titled “The Presidential Endgame” and subtitled “Trump has the
right to fight in court, but he needs evidence to prove voter fraud”.
“Mr Trump’s
legacy will be diminished greatly if his final act is a bitter refusal to
accept a legitimate defeat,” the piece warns.
Here is how
the article opened: “Perhaps it was inevitable that Donald Trump’s re-election
campaign would end as his presidency began: with the president claiming victory
and his frenzied antagonists denouncing him as a would-be fascist. The reality
is that the US can and probably will have a normal election outcome regardless
of the shouting between now and then.
“Mr Biden
is leading in enough states to win the presidency, and if those votes survive
recounts and legal challenges, he will be the next president.”
Top editors
at the New York Post – which before the election was the launch vehicle for
wild and desperate attacks on Joe Biden’s son Hunter – have “told some staff
members this week to be tougher in their coverage” of Trump, the New York Times
reported, citing two anonymous employees of the paper.
The Times
piece said: “On Thursday, in a sudden about-face, Rupert Murdoch’s scrappy
tabloid published two articles with a wildly different tone. One accused the
president of making an ‘unfounded claim that political foes were trying to
steal the election’. The headline on the other described Donald Trump Jr as the
‘panic-stricken’ author of a ‘clueless tweet’.”
News
coverage at Fox News has similarly shown little patience with the lies about
voter fraud Trump is advancing in hopes of reversing the election.
Asked about the Trump campaign’s assertion that Republican observers had not been allowed to observe vote-counting, the Fox correspondent states flatly: “That’s not true. It’s not true. It’s just not true.”
New York Post Shifts Tone on Trump as a Top Editor Plans His Own Exit
Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid has turned critical as the
president seems headed to defeat. Col Allan, a wizard there, says he plans to
retire next year.
Katie
Robertson
By Katie
Robertson
Nov. 6,
2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/06/business/media/new-york-post-trump.html?searchResultPosition=1
Last month
The New York Post called President Trump “an invincible hero, who not only
survived every dirty trick the Democrats threw at him, but the Chinese virus as
well.” Then it published front-page articles trying to link the contents of a
laptop said to belong to Hunter Biden to his father, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
On
Thursday, in a sudden about-face, Rupert Murdoch’s scrappy tabloid published
two articles with a wildly different tone. One accused the president of making
an “unfounded claim that political foes were trying to steal the election.” The
headline on the other described Donald Trump Jr. as the “panic-stricken” author
of a “clueless tweet.”
What
happened?
In short, the president appears to be going down — and
The Post is not about to go with him.
With Mr. Trump headed toward a likely defeat, top
editors at the tabloid told some staff members this week to be tougher in their
coverage of him, said two Post employees who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to describe internal discussions.
In addition
to the shift in tone, there will be a change in personnel: Col Allan, the
Australian tabloid wizard who was once seen in the Post newsroom wearing a Make
America Great Again cap, will call an end to his career of more than 40 years
at Murdoch papers in New York and Sydney.
Mr. Allan,
who was The Post’s editor in chief from 2001-16, rejoined the paper as an
adviser in January 2019, just as the presidential campaign was underway. Since
his return, he has had a strong hand in shaping coverage, several staff members
said. He confirmed his planned retirement in an email interview.
“The Post
is not perfect,” Mr. Allan said. “But it articulates a view that is not
obedient to liberal orthodoxy. Therefore it is dangerous. I know where I would
rather be.”
On
Thursday, The Post published two articles in quick succession on its website.
One was a skeptical dispatch from Washington on the president’s Thursday
evening White House briefing: “Downcast Trump makes baseless election fraud
claims in White House address,” went the headline.
The article
did not shy away from critical reporting: “President Trump repeated his
unfounded claim that political foes were trying to steal the election from him
during a briefing on Thursday evening as he trailed his opponent and remaining
swing states were leaning toward a Joe Biden presidency.” The full article was
not included in The Post’s print edition on Friday, but the parts that called
the president’s claims unsubstantiated were intact.
It went
online shortly after The Post published an article on its website that took aim
at Mr. Trump’s eldest son, who had called on the president “to go to total war
over this election” in a tweet. “Panic-stricken Donald Trump Jr. calls for
‘total war’ in clueless tweet,” read the original headline. The story noted
that the younger Mr. Trump “has a long history of using Twitter to fuel
conspiracy theories.” (A later version of the headline removed
“panic-stricken,” and the article did not make the Friday print edition.)
A
spokeswoman for The Post declined to comment for this article.
The tenor
of The Post’s recent Trump coverage matched the irreverent voice the paper
typically applies to Hollywood celebrities and Democratic politicians. The two
employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity described instances in the
last two days when top editors encouraged staff members to use a
rough-and-ready tabloid voice when writing about the president.
Before
Election Day — as Mr. Allan worked closely with the editor in chief, Stephen Lynch,
and the top digital editor, Michelle Gotthelf — The Post used its pun-crazed
front page to promote the president and knock his rivals. The headlines
included “HIDIN’ BIDEN” (for an article on Mr. Biden’s campaign strategy) and
“SHE’S COUP-COUP” (on Speaker Nancy Pelosi).
Several
staff members said Mr. Allan had more or less run the newsroom since his
return. “I have contributed little other than some minor advice,” Mr. Allan
said of his work on the paper’s election coverage.
Over the
last year, Mr. Allan has also worked closely with the columnist Miranda Devine,
a fellow Australian who joined The Post in time for the 2020 campaign. She has
been an ardent supporter of President Trump and one of Mr. Biden’s fiercest
detractors. She is the one who likened Mr. Trump to “an invincible hero” as he
battled Covid-19 last month. And Ms. Devine described Mr. Biden’s candidacy as
“an indictment of the entire Democratic establishment that has conspired to
trick America into voting for someone incapable of being president.”
Mr. Allan
said he would split his time between Sydney and New York. Asked if he had
mounted his last stand, he replied, “Like Custer!”
In the
campaign’s final stretch, he was a driving force behind The Post’s reporting on
digital data that The Post said it had obtained from a laptop belonging to
Hunter Biden. The paper’s first major article on the find was published on Oct.
14 amid the doubts of Post staff members. Its lead writer refused to accept a
byline for his work on it.
Two main
sources were President Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his former
adviser Stephen K. Bannon. The article suggested that Joseph Biden had directed
American policy in Ukraine while he was vice president to enrich his son, a
former board member of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company. Other news
organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The
New York Times, examined the laptop material and determined that Joseph Biden
had not manipulated American foreign policy to benefit his son.
“The Post
has largely supported Trump because the paper shares his vision for free
markets and the opportunity they provide to raise up all people,” Mr. Allan
said. “We have also been critical of the president, particularly his tweeting.
My personal view is that history will be very kind to Donald Trump.”
Katie
Robertson is a media reporter. She previously worked as an editor and reporter
at Bloomberg and News Corporation Australia. Email:
katie.robertson@nytimes.com @katie_robertson
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