It’s fairly obvious that putting pretty pictures of attractive people on their covers help newspapers and magazines sell more copies.
When those pictures illustrate a New York Times story about a former Trump administration staffer deciding whether or not to comply with a congressional subpoena — making it look more like a pictorial in the fashion section of the paper than serious political news content — one can expect that there will be some considerable blowback towards the publisher.
That’s exactly what happened today after The Times published White House reporter Maggie Haberman’s article about former Trump administration communications director Hope Hicks’ legal dilemma, accompanied by a photo that would not be out of place in a Vogue magazine feature.
Hope Hicks, one of the best-known but least visible former members of President Trump’s White House staff, is facing an existential question: whether to comply with a congressional subpoena https://t.co/8NXpfQvxQL pic.twitter.com/L7aWVMsIdq
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) May 24, 2019
The article garnered a torrent of criticism from media critics on Twitter, much of it focused on the factual errors in an overly sympathetic portrayal of Hicks as exemplified in this lengthy analysis from the account of “emptywheel.”
And by "cooperated with the congressional investigations," you mean, "refused to talk about what she did at the White House.https://t.co/2zhCkkitj7
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 26, 2019
Others, including former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, pointed out the incongruity and inherent bias of The New York Times in using a glamour shot to portray the suspected perjurer in their coverage of the story.
This is a good example of bias in the @nytimes: a picture of a person who is considering not complying with a subpoena is basically a glam shot, and it’s framed as a thoughtful, perfectly equal choice. https://t.co/qRHT31AsMg
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) May 26, 2019
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) saw O’Brien’s tweet and weighed in by pointing out the disparity in the media coverage of the privileged subjects of investigation versus how those same outlets portray less patrician everyday suspects accused of wrongdoing.
If you’re curious about how this behavior (& its defensiveness) should change, check @RachelCargle’s piece:
“It is the type of behavior that rests under the guise of feminism, only as long as it is comfortable, only as long it is personally rewarding…"https://t.co/KTSRmdv65l
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 26, 2019
Representative Ocasio-Cortez explained what true feminist equality looks like with her next tweet about The Times‘s Hicks coverage.
What gets me is news breaks that this woman is weighing committing a crime before Congress &it’s getting framed by the NYT as some Lifetime drama called “Hope’s Choice.”
This is a fmr admin official considering participating in a coverup led by the President.
Treat her equally. https://t.co/XcNbSuU4QB
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 26, 2019
We can expect the “Hope’s Choice” saga to continue in the pages of newspapers and on cable news channels until the congressional investigations and the legal maneuvering around the demands for her testimony are completed, if not on the female-oriented cable channel that Ocasio-Cortez accuses The New York Times of positioning the story as belonging on.
Hopefully, the justified criticism of its featherweight coverage of the former communications director will inspire the newspaper to look at its inherent biases in its reporting and do a better job of avoiding a sympathetic slant towards a suspected co-conspirator just because she happens to be an attractive woman. No one else would get such fluffy reportorial coverage, so neither should Hope Hicks.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.