The New York Times has launched a new feature this week in which its opinion columnists make the case for each of the top 2020 Democratic candidates.
The New York Times’s Frank Bruni argued on behalf of former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The New York Times’s David Brooks argued on behalf of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Naturally, the New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg argued for Sen. Elizabeth Warren. I say “naturally” because Goldberg spent much of 2019 promoting the senator’s candidacy without disclosing the fact that her husband’s firm consults for the Warren campaign.
Goldberg has written extensively in the last year on the 2020 Democratic primary, including six articles that include explicit praise for Warren and eight articles that attack the senator’s 2020 opponents. The most interesting thing about these 14 articles is that the author never mentions the fact that her husband, Matthew Ipcar, is the executive creative director at a digital strategy firm that received its first check from Warren for President on Jan. 8, 2019, a month before the campaign formally launched.
To Goldberg’s credit, she discloses in her new article, “The Case for Elizabeth Warren,” that her husband is tied to the senator’s presidential bid. But she has not always been so transparent.
In April 2019, for example, more than two months after the Warren campaign launched, Goldberg praised the 2020 candidate for taking “the lead among Democratic presidential candidates in calling for impeachment proceedings to begin [against President Trump],” adding that the senator’s opponents “should follow her.”
The article has no note alerting readers to the relationship between the senator’s White House run and Ipcar’s firm.
In June of the same year, she declared Warren “one of the … clear winners” of the first Democratic debate.
Again, no disclosure.
She wrote in August that the senator was “widely viewed as shining in both the June and July Democratic debates”; she praised the 2020 candidate for criticizing members of her own party for their supposed hesitance to impeach Trump; she even wrote an article defending a Warren campaign aide.
On the trail in Iowa, in August 2019, Goldberg wrote Warren is “sincere and unscripted” and has “the comforting aspect” of a “benevolent” parent.
At the same time that she has built up Warren as a model legislator and exceptional presidential candidate, the New York Times columnist has been attacking the senator’s 2020 Democratic primary opponents.
Goldberg referred unflatteringly to Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as a “chameleonlike” onetime “darling” of the crowd that supports Sen. Bernie Sanders. She has written entire articles calling on 2020 hopefuls to drop out, including one titled “Howard Schultz, Please Don’t Run for President” and one titled “The Wrong Time for Joe Biden.”
Goldberg claimed it would be “a bad idea” for Democrats to nominate Biden, adding in yet another article, “I don’t want Biden to be the nominee for ideological reasons.” She wrote an article quoting a potential Democratic primary voter who said she was “livid” about Biden’s “repeated gaffes.”
She even wrote in June 2019 that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “shouldn’t run for president.”
On Jan. 27, Goldberg cautioned readers about Sanders and his “legions of trolls” who antagonize Democrats who “stand in their way.” The article itself is just one giant shrug over the question of whether Sanders can defeat Trump. She concludes ultimately that she has no idea, but not before telling readers the “Sanders juggernaut still scares me” and that she is “terrified” his polling will not hold up against Republican attack ads.
None of these articles mention the apparently relevant fact that her husband’s firm consults for the Warren campaign. They do not mention that the firm was founded by the Massachusetts senator’s chief strategist, Joe Rospars. They certainly do not mention that the firm has already collected more than $1 million from Warren for President, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Warren announced her candidacy in February 2019. Between then and Feb. 26, Goldberg noted in only two 2020- and Warren-related articles that her husband is tied to the campaign, stating directly that he “is consulting for” the senator. Those two lonely mentions of consulting came on Jan. 13 and Feb. 7 of this year after nearly an entire year of Goldberg’s very active, disclosure-free advocacy for her husband’s client. On Feb. 27, she disclosed once again.
The New York Times has yet to provide a reasonable explanation for why one of its employees was able to write so many articles in favor of Warren without disclosing the fact that her husband is connected to the senator’s campaign. The New York Times has offered no explanation for this, even after the matter was raised by the Washington Examiner as well as other news publications.
Goldberg is entitled to her opinion. That is what the most powerful and influential news organization in America pays her for. But her husband works for Warren. He even did some consulting work for the Massachusetts lawmaker prior to her launching her candidacy, as the New York Times columnist herself mentioned twice in January 2019. Any sentence Goldberg writes that can be seen as promoting Warren or attacking the senator’s 2020 competitors should be followed by a note disclosing her husband’s financial stake in the Massachusetts lawmaker’s candidacy. This is standard news media ethics.
On Thursday, Goldberg and the New York Times got it right. But why did it take so long?
