Ted Cruz says the media don’t really want to bring down Donald Trump – not yet, at least. The Texas senator suggested in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the press is part of an elaborate conspiracy to hand the Republican presidential nomination to Trump as a kind of alley-oop assist to Hillary Clinton – whose election would be a slam dunk against the polarizing billionaire.
And Cruz didn’t stop there. He specifically alleged that news outlets are holding off on publishing or airing explosive Trump stories that they have already completed, in a plot to shield Trump during the primary stage, and then torpedo his campaign in the general election. Here’s how he described the effort to John Dickerson:
CRUZ: I can’t tell you how many media outlets I hear, you know, have this great exposé on Donald, on different aspects of his business dealings or his past, but they said, “You know what? We’re going to hold it to June or July.” We’re not going to run it now.
JOHN DICKERSON: You’re saying reporters have – told you that? They’ve told . . . .
TED CRUZ: Absolutely. We’ve got multiple . . .
JOHN DICKERSON: And from which organizations have they told you?
TED CRUZ: You know, look, I’m not going to out media outlets. But I can tell you there is so much there.
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This is a pretty serious charge, with basically no evidence. With Cruz refusing to name names, it’s impossible to know whom he’s talking about. I asked Washington Post managing editor Cameron Barr if The Post would ever hold a story in the manner suggested by Cruz and got an unequivocal no.
“We’re not holding anything,” Barr said. “We publish stories as soon as they’re ready.”
Deputy managing editor Tracy Grant added: “This is a fascinating theory, because the current criticism of journalism is that we publish too soon. But given competitive pressure, we publish when it’s ready.”
New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said pretty much the same thing: “We don’t time stories to influence elections.”
There are plenty of reasons to doubt Cruz’s claim, according to experts on journalism ethics. John Watson, a professor at American University, said voters should be skeptical of what he described as a “clearly self-serving and adamantly unsourced assertion.” He added that it is “hard to imagine that any news reporter would share that type of information with Cruz or any other politician.”
“But I assume it is possible,” Watson conceded. “I also know from a couple of decades of newsroom experience that news reports – particularly investigative news reports – often are not published as soon as they are complete. There are a variety of reasons to set a schedule for publication – some of them ethical, others not.”
Jane Kirtley, who teaches media ethics at the University of Minnesota Law School, agreed that “it is possible that some media outlets have material on Trump that they have not yet published. However, I also think that given the competitive nature of the news media, an outlet that did hold such a story would be taking a big chance. It might be scooped by another outlet.”
Under certain circumstances, a decision to hold a story in the midst of an election can be justified, Kirtley said. She cited the Times’ long delay in publishing a report about NSA surveillance practices that was originally prepared during the 2004 campaign but did not run until December 2005. Editors became convinced by George W. Bush administration officials that the story could present a national security risk. It also could have unduly hurt Bush’s reelection bid, of course, without a thorough public airing.
“Their arguments were compelling enough that we felt the responsible course was to hold the story and do further reporting,” Bill Keller, the Times’ executive editor at the time, explained in April 2006.
“To me, there would be a difference between news organizations being persuaded to hold or spike a story based on national security concerns at a time when no election is looming, and holding one to have a greater or lesser impact on the outcome of an election,” Kirtley said. “The first may be justified as responsible journalism. The second, in my opinion, is not.”
Aly Colon, a professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, suggested that Cruz might have been referring to conversations with reporters working for media outlets that don’t follow traditional standards of news-gathering and reporting. Today’s media industry is highly fragmented, he noted, and there are some ideologically driven news organizations that might try to time a major Trump story to inflict maximum damage.
It is also possible, Colon added, that reporters are simply anticipating a Trump-Clinton contest, given the state of the race, and are launching reporting projects that won’t be ready for a while.
“News organizations do plan some long-term investigations that take time to verify and put in context,” he said. “And that timeline could be June or July.”
But that’s different from holding a story that is already complete, he emphasized, and it would also be unusual for journalists to share their plans with a candidate.
If Cruz has knowledge of the kind of major malfeasance he claimed Sunday, he ought to provide specifics, said Robert Drechsel, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Absent details, Drechsel considers Cruz’s charge “nothing more than campaign rhetoric.”
“Is there a media conspiracy to hold back major exposes on Donald Trump in order to facilitate his getting the GOP nomination because ‘the media’ know he can’t beat Hillary Clinton? And are reputable journalists telling the Cruz campaign this?” Drechsel asked. “I haven’t see a shred of evidence that this is so. And any such media conspiracy would be so important to all of us that Cruz should feel morally obligated to provide the air-tight evidence. If he has such evidence, I’m all ears.”
