Millions of Americans gathered in thousands of cities and towns this past weekend to call for the restoration of democracy in the United States, and if you weren’t there, you still probably heard about it, since it was the lead story on news sites across the country.
Except at the New York Times, which ran two photos below the fold in its Sunday print edition, as if they were reporting on a traffic jam in Times Square that day.
The Times’s inexplicable coverage decision — if I had a nickel for every time I’ve said that — raised many eyebrows.
Margaret Sullivan wrote:
The Times’s print front page on Sunday morning featured two small photographs, below the fold, and the story appeared on page 23. It was part of their wrap-up titled “The 47th President.” Not exactly a depiction of people power, although Times journalists had reported from Kentucky to Utah, and from Chicago to Washington, D.C. Commenting on the Times’s yawn, Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin told me, “It’s hard to understand why the Times would relegate its coverage to a couple of unreadable standalone photos below the fold of its Page One linked to a story stuck back on Page 23. And it’s not like they had such compelling live news to compete with the protests. Their top headlines on the upper-right corner of Page One — traditionally, where readers’ eyes go first — start with ‘Little Urgency from Trump’ and ‘Democrats’ Ads Make Old Pitch.’ A more soporific set of headlines would be hard to write.”
Environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben posted on Bluesky:
Yesterday’s No Kings protests were apparently the largest since the first Earth Day in 1970
The NYT covered that story with a six column headline across the top of the paper and two full pages inside
Today, two small pics below the fold and a story on page A23
They constantly let America down
The largest demonstrations appeared to take place in New York, Washington, and Chicago; but Portland, Ore., was, unsurprisingly, a spiritual leader. As Sarah Jeong wrote for The Verge: “Unable to get a precise crowd estimate, I tried instead to count inflatable frog costumes. I gave up on this about twenty minutes later: there were simply too many frogs.”
Too many frogs. Never stop being you, Portland.
The White House reaction was … something.
Spokeswoman Abigail Johnson said, “Who cares?”
Trump’s Truth Social account posted an AI-generated video of Trump, crown atop his head, flying a fighter jet named King Trump and dumping … well, what appeared to be, ahem, fecal matter on crowds of demonstrators.
That response might have been considered ill-advised at one time. This is not that time.
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