NY Times editor says it's not paper's job to be Biden campaign arm amid White House tensions

New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn said in a new interview that he won't allow his paper to become an "instrument of the Biden campaign" simply because his agenda aligns with traditional establishment parties. 

Kahn told Semafor’s Ben Smith the Times’ job is to "cover the full range of issues" that Americans have, not serve one side.

"At the moment, democracy is [a top issue]. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them? I don’t even know how it’s supposed to work in the view of Dan Pfeiffer or the White House," he said. 

"We become an instrument of the Biden campaign? We turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency or Pravda and put out a stream of stuff that’s very, very favorable to them and only write negative stories about the other side? And that would accomplish — what?"

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Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment but has yet to receive a response.

Former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer recently put a spotlight on an ongoing tiff between President Biden’s White House and the Times, which has repeatedly criticized Biden for his unprecedented lack of media access. Pfeiffer wrote that the Times doesn’t "see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power," so Smith asked Kahn why he doesn’t believe it’s his job to "stop Trump." 

"Good media is the Fourth Estate, it’s another pillar of democracy. One of the absolute necessities of democracy is having a free and fair and open election where people can compete for votes, and the role of the news media in that environment is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or the other, but just to provide very good, hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates, and informing voters," Kahn told Smith, a former Times media columnist. 

"If you believe in democracy, I don’t see how we get past the essential role of quality media in informing people about their choice in a presidential election," Kahn continued. "To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda."

Kahn was promoted from managing editor to the top job in 2022, succeeding Dean Baquet. The paper had long been considered a paper that caters to the left, but Kahn implied that he wants a more balanced approach than some of his predecessors. 

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"It is true that Biden’s agenda is more in sync with traditional establishment parties and candidates. And we’re reporting on that and making it very clear," Kahn said. 

"It’s also true that Trump could win this election in a popular vote. Given that Trump’s not in office, it will probably be fair. And there’s a very good chance, based on our polling and other independent polling, that he will win that election in a popular vote," he added. "So there are people out there in the world who may decide, based on their democratic rights, to elect Donald Trump as president. It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening. It’s the job of Biden and the people around Biden to prevent that from happening."

Kahn was then asked if the Times "let the inmates run the asylum for too long" and suggested the paper went too far in 2020 when the infamous Tom Cotton op-ed fiasco sparked a newsroom uproar. 

"I do think that there was a period of peak cultural angst at this organization, with the combination of the intensity of the Trump era, COVID, and then George Floyd. The summer of 2020 was a crazy period where the world felt threatened, people’s individual safety was threatened, we had a murder of an innocent Black man by police suffocation. And we have the tail end of the most divisive presidency that anyone alive today has experienced. And those things just frayed nerves everywhere," Kahn said. 

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The New York Times recently called Biden out for avoiding serious one-on-one media interviews.

"For anyone who understands the role of the free press in a democracy, it should be troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term," a recent Times statement said. "The president occupies the most important office in our nation, and the press plays a vital role in providing insights into his thinking and worldview, allowing the public to assess his record and hold him to account."

"Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors. It is true that The Times has sought an on-the-record interview with Mr. Biden, as it has done with all presidents going back more than a century. If the president chooses not to sit down with The Times because he dislikes our independent coverage, that is his right, and we will continue to cover him fully and fairly either way," it added.

The White House vehemently disagreed that the president is not accessible. "Joe Biden speaks with the White House press corps more frequently than almost every other modern president, and has given a wide range of interviews," a spokesperson recently told Fox News Digital. 

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Biden made light of the Times' criticism in his White House Correspondents' Dinner routine, joking his recent interviewer Howard Stern had the larger audience.