Why won't the NYT tell readers Elise Stefanik supports antisemites and spreads antisemitic lies?

The Times ignores Stefanik's support for antisemites in order to hype her as a foe of antisemitism

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican who famously spread the virulently antisemitic and racist “Great Replacement” lie, probably isn’t the first person you'd expect the New York Times to present as a dogged and principled foe of antisemites. And yet:

New York Times headline, December 7, 2023

Before I get any further into this month’s events, I want to make sure there is no ambiguity about some important context:

1. Elise Stefanik has spread a vile antisemitic and racist lie that goes back to the Nazis; she has endorsed candidates, from Donald Trump to Lauren Boebert to Carl Paladino, who regularly traffic in antisemitism; and she has done so as part of her campaign to curry favor with and empower a virulently bigoted strain of right-wing white nationalists who deeply hate, among others, Jews.

2. This is not some specialized knowledge that I possess, nor it is a conclusion I have come to with which the New York Times might reasonably disagree. The New York Times knows this.

3. When I say the New York Times knows this I do not mean that the New York Times probably knows this or should know this. I mean the New York Times knows this. See for yourself, via these two New York Times headlines from 2022:

   

   New York Times headline from May 16, 2022

New York Times headline from June 9, 2022

Ok, now that we have established that the New York Times knows that Elise Stefanik has spread vile antisemitic lies and endorsed a candidate who praised Adolf Hitler, let’s have a think about how the New York Times has covered Stefanik in the wake of a December 5 congressional hearing in which she questioned three university presidents about campus antisemitism.¹

From December 5 through December 13, the Times published to its website no fewer than 27 articles, columns, and newsletters mentioning Stefanik's performance in the hearing.² Those 27 items mention Stefanik by name a total of 141 times and directly quote her 50 times. Want to guess how many times those 27 entries directly note that Stefanik has spread the “replacement” lie?

One.³

More than a week of fawning portrayal of Stefanik as America’s most principled and effective opponent of antisemitism, and the Times only once told readers that Stefanik herself spreads antisemitic lies.⁴ Weird! By comparison, three separate pieces noted that Laurence Tribe praised Stefanik in a tweet.⁵ I guess that’s three times as important?

Most egregious was the December 7 article “Questioning University Presidents on Antisemitism, Stefanik Goes Viral,” with the subhed insisting that Stefanik’s performance “resonated across the political spectrum.” That article contains 39 paragraphs, mentions Stefanik 35 times, quotes her directly eight times, and gushes “Ms. Stefanik achieved the unthinkable, prompting many Democrats and detractors of Mr. Trump to concede that an ideological culture warrior with whom they agree on nothing else was, in this case, right” and “Ms. Stefanik emerged as the voice of reason.” (Just so we’re clear: This is a news report by a New York Times reporter, not an opinion piece.) The article does not contain a single direct statement about Stefanik spreading antisemitic lies,⁶ even though the author of the article is the same journalist who wrote the 2022 New York Times piece about Stefanik and the Great Replacement lie!

These two New York Times articles about Elise Stefanik are by the same journalist, a year and a half apart. The second article does not contain so much as a hint about the facts previously reported in the first article.

While the Times has portrayed Stefanik as having won praise from across the political spectrum, it has done so by ignoring devastating critiques from Stefanik’s colleagues of her history of support for antisemites and of her behavior during and after the congressional hearing. The Times has ignored, for example, Rep. Jamie Raskin’s extensive questions for Stefanik about her support for antisemites like Donald Trump.

And the Times has ignored Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC)’s demonstration that Stefanik plagiarized the opening paragraphs of a letter she sent Harvard, Penn, and MIT. Manning posted to Twitter a screenshot of a letter she drafted to the universities and shared with Stefanik, and a screenshot of a letter Stefanik later sent that copies three paragraphs from Manning. According to Manning:

When I shared my letter with Rep Stefanik to try to make this a bipartisan effort, she made it clear with her ‘edits’ that she didn’t care about protecting Jewish students. All she cared about was calling for the resignation of university presidents to score political points.

The biggest difference between these two letters:

I am working to make real changes to university codes of conduct so Jewish students and faculty are protected from hate.

Rep. Stefanik is trying to get a soundbite & media hits.

The New York Times, which found time to report three separate times that a liberal tweeted praise for Stefanik, hasn’t bothered to tell readers that a fellow member of Congress has blasted Stefanik for plagiarism and for cynically using Jewish students to score political points.

Nor has the New York Times reported New York Representative Jerold Nadler’s scathing denunciation of a resolution Stefanik introduced in the House this week. Nadler:

We need action, not words. Today’s resolution fails to implement the White House’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. It fails to fund the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the office that protects Jewish students from discrimination on campus. It fails to renew the high-risk nonprofit security grant program run through the Department of Homeland Security, which protects thousands of synagogues and Hebrew schools across the nation. The Stefanik Resolution exploits Jewish lives to score political points, but it does nothing whatsoever to combat antisemitism.

Today, I will vote against this resolution, in part, because it represents a gross overreach. Congress should not meddle in the hiring and firing of college presidents. But mostly, I'm voting against this resolution because the cynicism of it makes me sick. MAGA Republicans have spent years undermining American’s colleges and universities—attacking these schools for their efforts at diversity and inclusion, for their support of the LGBTQ+ community, and for teaching the history of the United States in a way that does not fit their preferred narrative. Today’s resolution exploits real fear about antisemitism in America to advance that extreme agenda. And it is not lost on me that the chief Republican sponsor of this resolution remains a stalwart supporter of Donald Trump, who continues to associate himself with white nationalists, and has herself trafficked in the so-called “great replacement” theory, which is racist and antisemitic to its core. If these Republicans really cared about antisemitism, they would help us do something about it. Instead, they hide behind the cheapest of words."

Conflict sells, or so we’re told, and yet the New York Times ignores a New York member of Congress (correctly) blasting another New York member of congress for trafficking in “racist and antisemitic” lies. And meanwhile it hypes a few examples of tepid praise for Stefanik into a broad-based flood of support for her.

If Elise Stefanik questioning university presidents about hypothetical instances of antisemitism is one of the most important events in the world this month — and 27 articles and columns in nine days indicates the New York Times considers it such — why isn’t Stefanik’s own antisemitic rhetoric and support for antisemitic candidates a relevant and newsworthy part of the story? Why is the Times trying so hard to portray a politician with a history of support for antisemites as a principled foe of antisemitism?

1. This is not a post about that hearing, or about those three universities. For more on that those topics, here’s a post by Ken White and another by Jonathan Katz.

2. That’s three per day, for those of you who prefer rate stats over raw numbers.

3. Kudos to Times reporter Nick Confessore, whose December 10 article noted: “The most intensive questioning was led by Representative Elise Stefanik, the moderate-turned-MAGA New York Republican, who in 2021 drew criticism for campaign ads that played with ‘great replacement’-style themes.”

4. And never mentioned Stefanik’s endorsement of a candidate who praised Hitler.

5. “Even the liberal academic Laurence Tribe found himself agreeing with Representative Elise Stefanik,” for example.

6. The article includes a statement that “Ms. Stefanik’s aggressive appeals to the far right typically delight Republican hard-liners,” with the phrase “aggressive appeals to the far right” linking to the 2022 article about Stefanik and the Great Replacement lie. But that’s it — you’d have to click the link for any clue that Stefanik’s appeals involve racism and antisemitism. (Which, of course, those who read the article in print cannot do.)