WHEN THE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS BIDEN IS OLD, IT DOESN'T REMIND YOU THAT HE'S STILL SHARP

I'm seeing a lot of social-media criticism of Ben Smith's Semafor interview with Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times. I don't think Kahn is entirely off base when he says this:

... 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.

The Times does report on Trump's dangerous second-term agenda fairly often, in pieces like this one:

But it does seem sometimes as if this reporting is walled off from campaign-trail reporting on Trump, and from the kind of "lifestyle" reporting on Trump that regularly appears -- here's Trump using his iPad to DJ at Mar-a-Lago! and that sort of thing. But maybe it's not the job of the Times to connect these dots. Maybe it's up to readers to do that, and up to the Biden camapign and the Democratic Party.

I'd say that the coverage of President Biden in the Times is more dangerous than the coverage of Donald Trump. What do you know about the paper's perspective on Biden? That he's portrayed as really old. Here's a Times story: "Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024." Here's another: "Why the Age Issue Is Hurting Biden So Much More Than Trump." This one includes the following paragraph:

Mr. Biden’s voice has grown softer and raspier, his hair thinner and whiter. He is tall and trim but moves more tentatively than he did as a candidate in 2019 and 2020, often holding his upper body stiff, adding to an impression of frailty. And he has had spills in the public eye: falling off a bicycle, tripping over a sandbag.

Here's another story: "Polling Has Indicated a Majority of Voters Are Concerned About Biden’s Age — Including Democrats."

Now, here's part of an exchange from the Semafor interview:

Ben: Do you think that an alien reading The New York Times would come away thinking Joe Biden is a good president?

Joe: I think you would see a much more favorable view of Biden’s conduct over foreign policy at a difficult time than the polling shows the general public believes. The reporting in detail on his real commitment to national security; his deep involvement on the Ukraine war with Russia; the building or rebuilding of NATO; and then the very, very difficult task of managing Israel and the regional stability connected with the Gaza war … shows a degree of engagement and mastery over some of the details of foreign policy. I believe even an alien would see Biden as much more hands-on in this area....

I also think we’ve done much more — whether it’s the Inflation Reduction Act, whether it’s the infrastructure bill — on the details of the legislation that passed, and the efforts of this administration to actually implement that and get the money out there. So if you were reading The New York Times you would know about that legislation. In the general public, he actually doesn’t get enough credit for the legislation. So I think you’d get a pretty well-rounded, fair portrait of Biden. Of course, you’d also see some coverage about his frailty and his age. But it depends.

So here's a problem with the coverage of Biden in the Times: Yes, the paper depicts his "deep involvement" in issues, his "engagement and mastery," his efforts to get domestic legislation passed and make programs work -- but we're never told about any of this in stories about his age. To hear Kahn tell it, Biden has unquestionably demonstrated ability to do the work he's expected to do as president. So if this is a plain fact, why isn't it presented that way in the many news stories about Biden's age? Why aren't we told in those stories that Biden might walk slowly or stumble over a word or a name, but he's on top of this very difficult job and doing it effectively?

Maybe the Biden campaign can't wait around for good media coverage -- I've argued that Biden's team should shoot documentary footage of Biden engaging with his staff energetically and intelligently in the White House, and release it to demonstrate that Biden's still sharp. But if Biden still has mental clarity, a command of the facts, and an ability to make judgments, the Times needs to report this when it reports on his age. It's not editorializing to do that. It's reporting plain facts in order to give the public the context it needs to make a judgment on whether Biden should continue to govern.