http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/280114-nyt-story-on-trumps-history-with-women-creates-backlashBy Jonathan Easley - 05/16/16 08:28 PM EDT
The Times is vigorously defending its work.The Times described the story about Brewer Lane being asked to get into a bikini as “a debasing face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew.”
But
Brewer Lane denies that she felt debased and claims that she went out of her way to communicate that to the reporters. Brewer Lane said she was mortified when she learned how the Times had framed the story and said she immediately felt compelled to correct the record.
But many conservatives are furious, arguing it’s not the first time the newspaper has mistreated one of their own.
“They’ve demonstrated in story after story that
they hate Republicans and will do anything to destroy them,” said Richard Grenell, a media critic and former communications director under George W. Bush’s administration. “They’re not journalists, they’re advocates.”
Grenell noted that one of the reporters, Barbaro, also had a byline on another controversial story in the 2016 cycle.
Last June, the Times reported that Sen.
Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who was at the time running for president, had “splurged” on a “luxury speedboat.” It was one of a “series of decisions over the past 15 years that experts called imprudent,” the Times reported.
The Rubio campaign was furious, saying that
the Florida senator hadn’t purchased a “luxury speedboat” at all but rather had bought his family a run-of-the-mill fishing boat with a nearly $1 million advance he received on a book.
Republicans also still remember a Times report from 2008 that strongly implied Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was at the time running for the GOP presidential nomination, had an extramarital affair with a lobbyist.
The Times later added a note to the online story saying “the article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude” that was the case.
