During a discussion that took place in January that was aired on Friday’s broadcast of PBS’s “Firing Line,” New York Times national political reporter Adam Nagourney stated that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s nomination likely should have been brought down and there is an “attempt to sort of delegitimize The New York Times and other press.” And people assume he and the Times have “a liberal bias.”
Nagourney said, “The New Yorker magazine wrote a devastating story, in my opinion, about the now-Defense Secretary, with some of the original allegations about — as I recall…sexual assault, drinking. I read that story, I remember thinking…when I read it, if this was ten years ago — or let’s just mention John Tower, right? He would have been dead…but I thought, you know what? I bet this isn’t going to bring him down. It probably should have brought him down. Ten years ago, it would’ve, but not anymore. And it just shows how — because people don’t care, people don’t believe what they’re reading in organizations like that.”
Later, he added, “The New York Times, I think, is very dominant, but it’s nothing like it was 20 years ago. And we’re very aware of that, for a whole lot of reasons, whether it’s all these different voices, whether it’s the attempt to sort of delegitimize The New York Times and other press.”
In another part of the discussion, [relevant remarks begin around 37:00] Nagourney said that people “assume the Times has a liberal bias, and therefore, I have a liberal bias.”
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