President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was roughly 30 minutes long.
The White House transcript of the call, which was released Wednesday, is only five pages long.
For some in media, the difference between 30 minutes and five pages is enough to suggest — or declare outright — that a White House conspiracy is afoot, reminding us again that our press is one of the least trustworthy sources of information during complicated and fast-moving news cycles.
“The transcript text is right around 2,000 words, and the call took exactly 30 min — that’s about 66 words per minute,” said the Nieman Journalism Lab’s Joshua Benton. “That’s quite slow — roughly half normal speaking rate. (Zelensky is fluent in English.) Could suggest how much text isn’t included [emphasis added].”
First of all, Zelensky is not fluent in English, as Radio Free Europe’s Christopher Miller kept pointing out Wednesday. The Ukranian president “understands more than he’s able to speak in English — but he’s improving. His office has ‘English Fridays,’” added Miller, who actually covers Ukrainian politics.
Oh, hush. Never let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy.
PBS News’ Lisa Desjardins tweeted elsewhere, “Memorandum of Phone Conversation: call was 9:03 – 9:33 Estimated time it would take to say all of the words released in the memo: 11 minutes. Checked by the great [Mike Melia] in our broadcast software (time of spoken words matters a lot on TV) from [PBS NewsHour].”
“THE CALL WAS 30 MINUTES LONG. Does the transcript does not contain 30 minutes of content?” tweeted MSNBC’s frantic-sounding Stephanie Ruhle, who anchors a news program, not a commentary show.
Journalist Ed Greenberger, whose Twitter bio boasts that he is both an Emmy- and a Murrow Award-winner, said in a since-deleted tweet, “The call lasted 30 minutes. This transcript does not constitute a 30-minute call. So what’s missing? Perhaps Trump asking Zelensky to investigate [2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden] seven more times?”
No one warned me that this would be the week where we discover a number of journalists working in some of the most prestigious newsrooms in the United States also believe White House phone calls with foreign heads of state are all conducted in fluent, conversational English.
Hoo, boy.
I guess this is the part where we have to remind everyone that there were interpreters on the July 25 call (yes, Zelensky spoke through a translator) and that the memorandum does not include any of their remarks. The transcript also does not include any possible lead-in comments from White House or Ukrainian staff, which would necessarily add on to the call time. Lastly, and I cannot stress this enough, Zelensky does not speak fluent English, as everyone saw Wednesday during his joint press conference with Trump. There were moments when the Ukrainian president had to pause to ask his translator for the English version of specific words, including the word “election.”
Take Zelensky’s decent-but-not-perfect grasp of English, and add to the mix translators repeating every word in another language, plus Trump’s own difficult relationship with English, and yeah, it makes sense that their July 25 call would take roughly 30 minutes for only five pages of remarks.
But hey, it is a lot more exciting and sexy and in tune with Twitter’s vibe to go off half-cocked with a conspiracy suggesting the White House omitted large portions of the phone call from its transcript. It’s just like Watergate all over again, and we’re all Woodward and Bernstein.
