Reporters Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman made Sunday's New York Times front page with a deep and deeply fear-mongering analysis of “demagogue” Donald Trump’s stump speeches: "95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Trump’s Tongue." But things that two Times reporters find “ominous” may not scare a more moderate reader, such as pointing out that ISIS chops off the heads of their victims.
Patrick Healy
By Clay Waters | December 4, 2015 | 7:28 PM EST
Patrick Healy reported in Thursday's New York Times that "Skittish Over Terrorism, Some Voters Seek a Gutsy Style of Leader." "Skittish" [excitable, easily scared] is a pretty condescending way to characterize the American public's legitimate fears of terrorism. But far worse is Healy's inference that Republican rhetoric on Syrian refugees had stoked threats against mosques. He also linked the rough treatment of a Black Lives Matter activist who disrupted a Trump rally to a shooting at a BLM protest in Minneapolis
Spinning for Dems, NY Times' Healy Accuses GOP of Sounding 'Dark Notes' in Focus on Substantive Issues
By Clay Waters | October 17, 2015 | 5:34 PM EDT Reporter Patrick Healy made the front of Friday's New York Times marveling at how differently Republicans and Democrats see America, in "One Nation, Under Debate. Or Are There 2?" Healy, who is hypersensitive to the political strengths of Hillary Clinton, portrayed the Republican presidential field as dour and negative, while his strange choice of cultural commentators for a political story -- playwrights Christopher Durang and Tony Kushner -- betrayed a left-wing cultural perspective.
NYT's Patrick Healy Spins Frantically for Hillary: GOP Overreach (Including Ken Starr) Is Helping Her
By Clay Waters | September 4, 2015 | 10:05 AM EDT New York Times reporter Patrick Healy portrayed the Republican candidates for president as bumblers blowing their chances against Hillary Clinton with their harsh attacks and right-wing obsessions, in Thursday's "Clinton Uses G.O.P.’s Words to Aid Her Arguments." (No factual backup was provided.) Even former independent prosecutor Ken Starr made an appearance, under spin straight from Bill Clinton's White House: "When White House controversies dogged Mrs. Clinton as first lady, the independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr made her sympathetic with his Javert-like investigations...."
By Clay Waters | August 8, 2015 | 7:23 PM EDT
The New York Times is cranking up the old reliable "War on Women" weapon to target the crop of Republicans running for the presidency. Saturday's lead story by Patrick Healy and Jeremy Peters portrayed the aftermath of the GOP debate not as a tough, substantive debate but as yet another source for Democratic attack ads portraying the party as anti-woman: "Fear That Debate Could Hurt G.O.P.In Women's Eyes – Remarks Under Attack – Concern Grows That the Candidates Were Not Inclusive Enough."
By Tom Blumer | July 13, 2015 | 5:02 PM EDT
Here is an object lesson in how the perceptions of low-information voters are shaped to the disadvantage of Republican and conservative candidates.
In the daily email I receive from Eonline.com (subscribing to the web site’s missives is a necessary evil), the fifth item listed read: “Scott Walker Announces 2016 Presidential Run.” (Curiously, the web version of that email no longer links to the Walker item, perhaps indicating that someone at the web site is unhappy that it gave him any notice at all.) Two paragraphs near the end of the Eonline.com writeup tie back to the New York Times hit piece Tim Graham at NewsBusters critiqued earlier this afternoon. Rebecca Macatee's writeup makes it appear as if the Walker campaign itself is seriously concerned about how the nation perceives him (link is in original; bolds are mine):
By Tim Graham | July 13, 2015 | 1:51 PM EDT
On the morning Gov. Scott Walker announced on social media he would run for president, The New York Times was comparing him to Sarah Palin as not the deepest, most intelligent contender.
Somehow, “admiring voters” are deployed against Walker as not thinking of the word “smart” or "sophisticated" first in describing him. Those words are apparently adjectives for "liberal."
By Clay Waters | June 15, 2015 | 9:25 AM EDT
Patrick Healy penned a theatrical tribute to hard-left Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders thatappeared in the New York Times Sunday Review: "Can America Back an Underdog? Broadway Did." Healy, a former political reporter, eagerly sold socialist Sanders as a scrappy underdog, just like the musical Fun Home. Healy even contradicted his own previous Obama reporting to make his odd comparison work, while celebrating both Obama and Sanders as purveyors of "authenticity" seen by voters as "the real deal."
By Clay Waters | June 1, 2015 | 10:14 PM EDT
Two U.S. Senators -- one Republican, the other a socialist who votes with the Democrats -- are outside candidates for president. Both were profiled in Monday's New York Times, but with quite different results. While Rand Paul's anti-surveillance crusade was caricatured as cynical "sloganeering," socialist Bernie Sanders' modest Iowa crowds (100 people instead of 50?) were hailed as a liberal insurrection.
By Matthew Balan | April 23, 2015 | 4:01 PM EDT
CNN's Chris Cuomo did his best to downplay the emerging scandals about the Clinton Foundation on Thursday's New Day. Cuomo asserted that "the Clinton book was widely dismissed – about the money that goes into the CGI [Clinton Global Initiative]. And then...the left is pushing back hard on this book – saying, there's nothing there." He later underlined that the "examples that have come out so far" in the New York Times' coverage of the story were "not that impressive."
By Clay Waters | March 12, 2015 | 10:37 PM EDT
New York Times reporter Patrick Healy's news analysis" surveyed the splintered GOP presidential field, the barren Democratic one, and claimed that "Early In 2016 Race, Clinton's Toughest Foe Appears to Be the News Media." Healy really seems to think the press, and presumably the Times, has given Hillary Clinton a rough ride over her career. NewsBusters begs to differ.
By Clay Waters | October 28, 2008 | 1:49 PM EDT
New York Times reporter Patrick Healy profiled Michelle Obama in Akron, Ohio, speaking and making calls to undecided voters, in Tuesday's "New to Campaigning, but No Longer a Novice." The sycophantic Healy is quick to put Michelle Obama's "proud of America" gaffe in context and suggest it's a discredited charge.
And the photo caption over a picture of three adoring fans in Akron listening to her speak reads like a "dinner theatre" review from a local free paper:
In a raucous rally at a school gym in Akron, the would-be first lady had the audience laughing and cheering throughout.
Healy, whose reporting seems to be getting more slanted as the campaign wears on, showed Michelle Obama far more respect than his colleague Jodi Kantor showed John McCain's wife Cindy.