Slight Detour
Mutterings of a country hick.
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Juneteenth; TBT
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Wednesday-Morning Mutterings
Thankfully, topnotch journalists are trying their best to do their job to sort out facts from fiction for their readers.
I purposely enlarged, italicized and bold-faced two paragraphs in this interview which I thought were most important important for readers to know.
I wonder if all the stuff we read on Facebook and what gets spewed among the masses goes to these lengths to get the information as accurate as possible. Probably not.
from New York Times "The Morning"
Trumpās posture toward Iran keeps changing. I spoke with David Sanger, a White House correspondent who covers national security and has written extensively on Iran, about how he reports on this story. ā Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor
We hear from readers regularly about how Trump veers around erratically with his positions. But heās the president ā his language canāt be dismissed. How do you deal with that as a reporter?
Itās always a challenge. Just two weeks ago, the president was saying he was confident in a diplomatic deal with Iran. That didnāt match our reporting. Of course, Trump thinks he is the master deal maker. So you report what he is saying and doing ā he is the president, as you point out ā but remind yourself that his views could change overnight. He ran for president as the man who avoided wars; now he seems on the cusp of a bombing campaign.
When Trumpās intentions and tactics are opaque, how do you sift through them? Youāre a journalist who doesnāt jump to conclusions. So where you do start?
Iāve spent nearly half my reporting career at The Times ā and Iāve been here more than 40 years ā examining Iranās capabilities. So you test the presidentās comments against what we know. Trump doubted the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies and issued his own proclamations about how close Iran is to being able to produce a bomb. So we reminded readers of what intelligence reports say and what outside experts have concluded. (Inspectors were inside Iranās nuclear facilities until last week, so we have a lot of data.)
Your colleagues help, too.
Yes, fortunately The Times has reporters who are expert on nuclear technology, on Iranian politics, on intelligence. Itās my job not only to sift what the president says, but to make sure we bring readers the totality of that expertise.
People can lose faith in journalism when we make assumptions and get ahead of the story, especially a fast-moving conflict. What goes into producing work that people can trust?
The first rule of journalism is āwrite what you know.ā Not what you suspect. Not what partisans need for their own political narratives. Not what intelligence officials may tell you to fit the White Houseās desire.
We use satellite photographs. We talk to nuclear inspectors. We talk to foreign intelligence agencies. And yes, when we can, we talk to the Iranians.
Of course, the hardest thing to assess is whatās going on inside a presidentās head. Whatever one thinks of his rhetoric, Trump is in command of the worldās biggest and most powerful military. And the path he takes in the next few days may reshape the Middle East and our world.