Comments
Peter Hasson
Editor
April 15, 2020 3:20 PM ET
The New York Times showed far more skepticism of an unproven sexual assault allegation against former Vice President Joe Biden than it did of an outlandish gang rape accusation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Julie Swetnick, who was represented by since-disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti at the time, accused Kavanaugh during his September 2018 confirmation hearings of participating in gang rapes at high school parties.
The Times covered Swetnick’s accusation the same day that she made it, even though the paper acknowledged having zero corroboration of her story. Swetnick lacked any evidence that she had ever even met Kavanaugh.
In contrast to its handling of Swetnick’s accusation, the Times waited 19 days to report on Tara Reade’s sexual assault accusation against Biden, for whom she worked as a Senate staffer.
Times executive editor Dean Baquet defended the paper’s different treatment of the two accusations in an interview with Times columnist Ben Smith.
“Kavanaugh was already in a public forum in a large way. Kavanaugh’s status as a Supreme Court justice was in question because of a very serious allegation. And when I say in a public way, I don’t mean in the public way of Tara Reade’s. If you ask the average person in America, they didn’t know about the Tara Reade case,†Baquet said.
more
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/15/new-york-times-tara-reade-joe-biden-julie-swetnick-brett-kavanaugh-michael-avenatti/
