The New York Times plans to shift its coverage of President Trump from whether he colluded with Russia to race, the paper’s executive editor Dean Baquet said during a recent staff meeting, according to a transcript of the meeting posted by Slate.com.
“And I mean race in terms of not only African Americans and their relationship with Donald Trump, but Latinos and immigration,” he said, according to the transcript of the meeting, which reportedly took place on Monday.
Baquet said the paper now has to “regroup” and shift its resources and emphasis from the Russia story to the race story.
“We built our newsroom to cover one story, and we did it truly well. Now we have to regroup, and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story. I’d love your help with that,” he said.
“In the coming weeks, we’ll be assigning some new people to politics who can offer different ways of looking at the world. We’ll also ask reporters to write more deeply about the country, race, and other divisions. I really want your help in navigating this story,” he said.
Baquet described in the decision to shift from the Russia story — which he called “Chapter 1 of the story of Donald Trump” — to race and how the paper was caught a “a little tiny bit flat-footed” after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony. – READ MORE