Thursday, April 20, 2017

Patriots' visit tacks another W in Trump's column

A little over two months since their thrilling win over the Atlanta Falcons, the New England Patriots finally took their Super Bowl victory visit to the White House this week.

Of all the professional sports franchises in the United States, no team has had a more public relationship with President Trump than the Pats. In September, reporters spotted a red Make America Great Again cap sitting in Tom Brady's locker. At a November campaign stop in Manchester, NH, Trump read a letter penned by head coach Bill Belichick aloud to the crowd.
You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media and have come out beautifully. You’ve proved to be the ultimate competitor and fighter. Your leadership is amazing. I have always had tremendous respect for you, but the toughness and perseverance you have displayed over the past year is remarkable. Hopefully tomorrow’s election results will give the opportunity to Make America Great Again. Best wishes for great results tomorrow, Bill Belichick.  
Trump's close ties to the faces of the franchise aside, the visit was destined for intrigue if only because the Patriots are the first championship team to visit the White House since Trump took office.  But long before the visit -- in some cases just a day or so after the conclusion of the game -- running back LeGarrette Blount, defensive end Chris Long, defensive tackle Alan Branch, linebacker Dont’a Hightower, tight end Martellus Bennett and safety Devin McCourty all announced that they would not be participating in the White House visit, many pretty blatantly citing politics as the reason why.

And so sports nuts and political persons alike all sat patiently waiting to see who else would abandon tradition. The press was no exception.

In the same spirit of the aerial photos of inauguration crowds, the New York Times quickly tweeted out a side-by-side image comparing this week's Patriots visit to the White House to their visit after winning the Super Bowl in 2015.


The difference in the crowd size between the two photos was abundantly clear, bound to rack up thousands of retweets and favorites. The difference was so clear, in fact, that the Patriots organization itself addressed the tweet head-on, in an incredibly unprecedented move:

The above tweet received many thousands of more retweets and double the number of likes as the NYTSports tweet. They followed it up with their own side-by-side image, which more accurately presented this year's attendance in comparison to the previous visit.

When Trump and his cronies call the New York Times biased and untruthful, it's easy enough to brush their words aside as merely politically motivated criticism. But when rightfully called out by a legitimate apolitical entity, a professional sports organization as powerful as the New England Patriots, there is little to be brushed aside.

At best, the incident reveals that the Times will carelessly abandon accuracy in pursuit of clicks much like the fake news outlets it's tried so hard to distance itself from. At worst, it reveals the Times' true bias against the president, a scenario he gleefully played up on Twitter:
The Times is lucky that this incident was basically contained to the Twitter sports fan universe. Even with a relatively limited audience, it's a pretty devastating blow to their credibility and a pretty big victory for the Trump administration.
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3 comments:

  1. Nihilist NormanApril 21, 2017 at 2:57 PM

    Its instances like this that gives Trump’s claims of fake news some substance. The public’s trust in news media is already at an all-time low and this tweet only damages that fragile trust even more. In addition, the next time the media calls out Trump for an outrageous claim, you’ll have to question whether Trump actually is lying or if it’s just more “fake news” out to get Trump. It’s sad to think how a single tweet that was probably meant to be a joke relating to the inauguration crowd and a mild dig at the President can do so much to hurt a news organization’s credibility.

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  2. UnknownApril 23, 2017 at 4:01 PM

    I agree with you in that this did turn out to be a “W” for the Trump administration and their fight against fake news. I think that it is obviously alarming when you first see the photos side by side but with further explanation it was only a 2 player difference in attendance. I completely support those on the team who did not want to go to the White House and I support those who did. Everyone is allowed to have their own personal opinions and if these players felt that going to visit President Trump did not align with their views then I agree that it is not something they should be doing. Obviously there has been so much controversy surrounding Trump and his relationship with the media and I think that the Times is definitely lucky that this did not blow up into more. Well written and well articulated argument.

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  3. Grace DeWittApril 26, 2017 at 10:52 AM

    I distinctly recall cringing when I read about this gaffe online. I’ve been following Trump’s administration with incredible concentration ever since his election, and it is astounding just how many blunders left-wing media points out within the course of just a week.



    However, their roles as watchdogs must be executed with the utmost care when it comes to Trump. There is zero room for hypocrisy when our executive branch is in such dire straights. Unlike ever before, the President of the United States uses (and abuses) a personal Twitter account with nearly 30 million followers (and millions more who do not partake in the social network, but hear through other means). Any mistake that, for instance, the New York Times makes, will be picked up almost instantly and will spread like wildfire through Trump’s base. If we are to begin uniting the country, it’s important for reputable news sources to tread carefully and keep up painfully high journalistic standards.

    -Maika Koehl

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