Post by Admin on Jun 27, 2018 14:14:31 GMT -4
The New York Times interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for articles on female and insurgent candidates, but did not publish a stand-alone piece on the 28-year-old democratic socialist.
Times takes heat for missing Crowley’s defeat
Failing to closely cover the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is ‘like not seeing Trump’s win coming,’ tweets former editor Jill Abramson.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off Tuesday night what CNN host Don Lemon called “the most shocking upset” of the political season, the network had no camera there to capture it.
But the progressive digital network TYT was inside her victory party in a Bronx bar, with Ryan Grim, a contributor to the channel and the Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, calling the race amid cheering supporters. Local media, like Spectrum News New York 1, was on hand, too, but journalists from major media outlets were scarce. Grim spoke on the broadcast with members of “Chapo Trap House,” a popular left-wing podcast.
“She has rare talent as a candidate,” Grim, whose site extensively covered Ocasio-Cortez’s candidate in articles, on video, and a podcast, told POLITICO. “She just has a natural ability and way to connect to people that very few politicians have.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s talent, however, got little national airplay before she defeated 10-term incumbent (and potential future House Speaker) Rep. Joe Crowley. The 28-year-old democratic socialist was interviewed on CBSN, the CBS digital channel, but otherwise was ignored by the major networks. “Pretty much all of political journalism are doing an Ocasio-Cortez crash course tonight, myself included,” liberal MSNBC host Joy Reid tweeted Tuesday night. The AP’s breaking news tweet identified Ocasio-Cortez only a “young challenger” of Crowley.
The stunning results Tuesday night quickly invited comparisons to Rep. David Brat’s 2014 primary triumph over then-House majority leader Eric Cantor, a race that the late New York Times media columnist David Carr wrote had “exposed a Beltway journalism blind spot.” While some conservative outlets, like Breitbart, focused on the Virginia race, there seemed to be less interest from the political press in nearby Washington D.C..
Similarly, Ocasio-Cortez’s race was fought just a subway ride away for the Manhattan-based media giants. The New York Times interviewed Ocasio-Cortez for articles focused on female and insurgent candidates and the paper’s editorial board ripped Crowley for sending a surrogate to a debate. But the Times -- unlike Splinter, Elite Daily, Refinery29, Ozy, and Vogue -- did not publish a stand-alone piece on the candidate.
“Kind of pisses me off that @nytimes is still asking Who Is Ocasio-Cortez? when it should have covered her campaign,” former Times executive editor Jill Abramson tweeted Wednesday. “Missing her rise akin to not seeing Trump's win coming in 2016.”
The Times, in particular, came under fire Wednesday for its Ocasio-Cortez primer, which noted the candidate "seemed to find readier audience with outlets such as Elite Daily, Mic, or Refinery29 -- websites most often associated with millennial and female audience -- than with national publications.” The Times later corrected the piece, swapping out “national” for “traditional,” after receiving a round of criticism on social media.
“Imagine being this disconnected,” tweeted Andrea González-Ramírez, who had profiled Ocasio-Cortez for Refinery29. “R29, Elite Daily and Mic ARE national publications. Maybe the Times should learn something from us. They didn’t bother to profile @ocasio2018’s campaign once because they wrote her off as nosy Brown girl with impossible dreams. We knew better.”
González-Ramírez urged the Times to “start paying attention about what’s happening outside” and not discard women, particulary working class [women of color], just because they don’t fit the narrative you’re familiar with.”
A Times spokesperson said no one was available to discuss the paper’s coverage.
POLITICO interviewed Ocasio-Cortez in February when looking at progressive insurgent candidates in the Democratic primary and again for a Monday piece. "The Queens of today is not the Queens of 20 years ago and Joe Crowley has lived in Virginia that entire time, he raises his children out there, his home is out there, he’s not a member of this community,” she said, charging that Crowley employs an “old school boss model.”
As the Intercept focused on the race, Grim recalled New York political experts telling him “the Queens machine has it locked down” and “there is no way” Crowley could lose.
But Grim said he still believed there was a possibility Ocasio-Cortez could win, and even if she didn’t, it was important to expose the Intercept’s audience to Crowley, a powerful figure in the Democratic party whom he also considers to be representing an older model of politics, complete with his donations from Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry.
“She represented the perfect contrast to Crowley’s model of politics,” Grim said. “Our theory is that big money corrupts politics. The corollary to that is there is another way to do politics. Otherwise you’re just nihilists. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are doing that kind of politics, are important to highlight, to show there is an alternative.”
