We’re Michael Bender and Maya King, reporters for The New York Times covering the 2024 presidential election. Ask us Anything.

23 comments

1. What can the media do to better combat AI disinformation and just disinfo in general?

2. Could you expand a bit on how the media is covering and will cover Trump in the context of Project 2025 and what is essentially an intent to dismantle democracy in America? I am concerned about the various media sources getting Americans to internalize that fact.

3. I see a lot of media dancing around Project 2025? Why is this not being discussed? A playbook to end democracy surely should be reported on?

4. Have you seen any in-roads with MAGA people that have consistently worked to shift their perspective on an issue? Not necessarily becoming a leftist overnight, just begin questioning the sources where they get their news.

5. [removed]

6. Hi Michael and Maya, thanks for the AMA.

   It’s been a year since the [New York Times Contributors’ Letter](https://nytletter.com/) from February 2023, which shed light on the history of institutional queerphobia within the Times newsroom and emphasized how the paper has supported rhetoric that actively endangers trans children. Notably, the letter highlighted instances where Times articles were cited in court cases aimed at stripping trans individuals of their rights.

   The issue is pertinent this month in light of the [horrific murder of non-binary teenager Nex Benedict](https://www.hrc.org/news/honoring-nex-benedict-16-year-old-non-binary-high-school-student-who-tragically-died-after-school-beating), whose school-based killing has been linked to ongoing anti-trans rhetoric in the media. Despite the criticisms outlined in the Contributors’ Letter, several authors who were called out for their transphobia have continued to be employed by the Times between that letter and today.

   I understand that Carolyn Ryan, Marc Lacey, Joe Kahn, Katie Kingsbury – Times leadership you almost certainly know – all made very pointed threats, [implying staffers may be fired for so much as speaking in support of the letter](https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/1626324277422133253). I understand that this was probably terrifying from your positions, and the prospect of losing a job is the prospect of losing a roof over your head. Still – I’d like to understand where you’re each coming from a year later, as folks who didn’t sign that initial letter.

   Are you actively staying with the New York Times, thinking that ultimately the good you do there will outweigh the harm your leadership does? Or are you afraid of leaving the Times since it’s so difficult to find new journalism work? I’d be sympathetic to either of those answers, if they’re the case.

   I understand these are difficult questions, and I can’t pretend to be morally thrilled with my own employer. However, if [GLAAD had written a piece condemning my workplace as somewhere actively harming my transgender loved ones](https://glaad.org/new-york-times-inaccurate-coverage-transgender-people-being-weaponized-against-transgender/), I would’ve spent the last year looking for a new job.

7. Who, in your professional opinion is going to win the 2024 presidential election and why?

8. 1 Why do you guys consistently frame things as bad for Biden but never bad for Trump?

   2 Why do you guys talk about Biden’s age as a liability but never Trump’s?

   3 Why do you never write anything that celebrates the strong economy?

   4 Why don’t journalists ever take photos before and during Trump rallies to prove the crowd is never as big as he says it is?

   5 Why do you never push back when you know Trump’s answer is a lie/misinformed?

   6 Why do journalists continue to fail to ask well-thought out, undodgeable questions? When an answer is insufficient, why don’t other journalists ask the same question?

9. Why is Project 2025 and it’s clear plans for the dissolution of democracy in America and the establishment of a de facto theocracy not being shouted from the rooftops by ANYONE with a large audience like your newspaper?

10. why is no one in the media reporting on Jared Kushner’s $2 billion from the Saudi Government, or Ivanka Trump’s swathe of Chinese patents? Why is nothing being said of these being produced off the back of their appointments to White House portfolio’s that they were egregiously under-qualified for?

11. Why is 81 desperately old but 77 is so young it shouldn’t even be mentioned?

12. Why have you completely abandoned the notion that Trump’s failure to act properly on COVID is a large contributing factor into the inflation/greedflation that you lay at Biden’s feet?

    Also, why do you keep handling a 77-year-old man with kid gloves and a “he’s new to this” standard when he has an abysmal record?

    Finally, ever going to ask any true policy questions to Trump?

13. For the last 8 years we’ve constantly heard story after story in the media about how Trump is going down. That this thing of that thing was the final nail in the coffin for Trump, the walls were closing in on Trump, and that there was no way he could possibly recover from this scandal or that scandal, but here we are in 2024 with him coasting to victory as the Republican Presidential candidate in total control of the GOP and seemingly just as popular as he’s ever been. How is this possible? How could the media keep getting this story wrong over and over and over again?

14. What are the odds of violence in November? What is being done to protect polling stations in swing states?

15. What do you think that has changed between the 2016 election and this upcoming election in 2024 regarding the attutides and concerns of common voter?, especially those in areas like Appalachia, the Rust Belt and the industrial cities of the Midwest

16. Why is there no coverage of the fact that the 2017 Tax Act laid a massive unemployment bomb by converting R&D personnel costs from straight expenses to capital expenditures? This should be part of any layoff coverage and I’ve never heard the media bring it up in that conversation.

17. Given that he was found liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll and there is [plenty of legal cover](https://newrepublic.com/post/174448/judge-e-jean-carroll-case-yes-donald-trump-rapist) to refer to Donald Trump as a “rapist”, do you plan to refer to him as such in your coverage of the campaign? If not, why?

18. hey maya and michael, thanks for doing this: what was your earliest memory that made you want to cover politics?

19. Why is the eroding of democracy not your main story everyday? Why is it that the country is spiralling into fascism at the speed of sound and all news outlets are either ignoring it, tepidly criticizing it, or supporting it? You do know what authoritarian right wing extremists do with journalists, right?

20. Do you think the media is complicit in normalizing an ethno fascist who’s promising public executions, mass deportations, military parades and concentration camps?

21. What is the media’s endless fixation with trying to “both-sides” every single issue, even in cases where one of those “sides” either doesn’t exist or is ludicrously extreme and fact-free?

    Why is the reality of Republican extremism so soft-pedaled? Their presumptive nominee openly states that he wants to be a dictator, and the Republican party’s Project 2025 will literally dismantle our government and replace it with a permanent Republican autocracy.

22. How come journalists never hold trump for his consistent and frequent flip flopping on his abortion stance?

23. Why does the NYT continue to normalize the dehumanizing language and false assertions coming from the GOP front runner and his representatives?