Why the journalistic 'center' cannot hold

Plus: The New York Times responds to criticism of its business story on Lauren Sánchez Bezos

Margaret Sullivan

Apr 21, 2026

In my last post, I asked you, readers, to tell me what you thought about this concept that seems to intrigue media owners — that their news organization should set out to appeal to an audience that craves some sort of middle ground and identifies politically as centrist.

Most recently, this has come up at CBS News under its new, right-leaning management, and previously at CNN. Other media executives seem to agree, though it’s not always as clearly articulated.

The New York Times business section’s profile of Lauren Sánchez Bezos, here with her husband Jeff Bezos, drew plenty of criticism. A Times editor responded to my questions./ Getty Images

Aiming to attract the political middle has always seemed like a weird concept to me, and so far, it hasn’t seemed to benefit those news organizations at all. Quite the contrary.

I asked you to tell me if you see yourself as one of these center-searchers. Your answers were fascinating; most of you said that you’re looking for something different in your news choices — factuality, fairness, authenticity, a sense of mission and yes, truth.

On the same subject, I’ll share a recent speech by the renowned former editor of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, Marty Baron. Speaking at a journalism-ethics awards gathering a few days ago, he covered a lot of ground; the whole speech is worth your time.

But here’s why this “aim for the center” notion runs counter to his idea of ethical journalism.

Finally, I’ll mention a mindset in vogue among a certain crop of media executives. Although they claim to want politics out of the newsroom — and I do, too —they simultaneously propose a political calculus for their journalists. The new owner of CBS and the current editor-in-chief of the news division, for instance, set an explicit objective of appealing to the center right and the center left. That is a political goal. It is not a journalistic one. And it is a far cry from how Jack Knight instructed his newsroom: “Get the truth and publish it.” That is a journalistic goal.

Media owners who substitute political goal posts for news values find refuge in sophistry. They lay claim to ethics; instead, they subvert them. Their path may be one of commercial convenience. Or of timidity. Or of appeasement to regulators, legislators and the president himself. Or the instinctual path of those who see the press only through the lens of politics. But a news outlet of that formulation is fated to compromise ethics when a rock-solid story moving toward publication is deemed to fall outside the designated political comfort zone.

Accurate, independent, ethical coverage may be well received by the center right, or it may not. It may be well received by the center left, or it may not. No one should set out to alienate anyone. But at times, as Jack Knight said, the best journalism may end up facing “public wrath and displeasure.” That is the price, at times, of honest work. So be it.

Personal note: Marty (who was played by Liev Schreiber in the Oscar-winning movie, “Spotlight”) hired me as media columnist at the Washington Post, where I began in 2016, and encouraged me to track the overarching story of Donald Trump’s disparagement of, and attacks on, the independent press. Baron left in 2021; I departed the following year, far less certain that his successors would have my back as he always did.

On another subject, I want to praise and question two recent stories in the New York Times.

First, praise to Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak for their stunning scoop revealing the “shadow docket” in John Roberts’s Supreme Court. Here’s a gift link to the main story, which describes the politicized fast track that many consequential court decisions have been on over the past decade. The story is based on confidential memos the justices wrote to each other, obtained by the Times.

Kantor’s name may be familiar as one of the two bylines (with Megan Twohey) on so many of the investigative stories that held powerful men — including Harvey Weinstein — accountable for sexual misconduct; to a large extent, this coverage launched the #metoo movement. When I read some months ago that Kantor would be focusing her reporting now on the Supreme Court, I thought something remarkable might follow. Her reporting partner, Adam Liptak, has been covering the court for many years as his beat, and is an expert on its workings and its people.

In contrast, I’m baffled by the Times’s decision to devote its entire Sunday business cover to a fluffy feature story on Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who professes how much fun it is to be rich. Headline: “Someone Has to Be Happy. Why Not Lauren Sánchez Bezos?” Longtime journalist Katie Couric was among the most prominent critics, and you can read all about the reaction here. To get the flavor of the story, written by Hillary Clinton chronicler Amy Chozick, here’s a sample: “Unabashed rich-person exuberance is back with a Blue Origin bang, a Mar-a-Lago makeover of the White House, and a Zuckerberg rap cover. The Bezos marriage seems, at times, as much a cultural inflection point as a love story — the moment American money stopped apologizing and decided it might as well enjoy itself.”

I asked Assistant Managing Editor Patrick Healy why this deserved to be a business story at all, and one that on a recent Sunday dominated the business section front as if it were a matter of great import. Here’s his response

I would argue that writing about powerful and wealthy people in America IS a business story. Many magazines and trade newspapers do such pieces regularly as a window into how society, industry and culture intersect, and Sunday Business often does deep profiles of these people as well to take readers inside how they operate and think. In recent weeks, the business department of The New York Times has also written dozens of stories on the crisis in oil markets, the economic fallout from the war with Iran, inflation, the administration's feud with the Fed chairman, the impact of the war on Asia, Europe and global industry, the financial markets in the U.S., Asia and Europe, the price of gasoline in the U.S., the shortage of jet fuel, the impact of the war on retail, disinformation, AI, Anthropic's new Mythos model, crypto, private credit, earnings, EVs, shipping and the list goes on. We are providing a wide range of stories to our audience. Many readers found this piece compelling; other readers didn’t like some of the details and framing. The Times provided new reporting, information and insight about a part of our society, and let readers make up their own minds about it. That's what journalism does.

Readers, what say you? Is this a good use of resources? Is it worthy of the Times business section front on its best-read day? I would have found it far less objectionable in Styles as a celebrity profile; it’s an entertaining-enough read, but frothy enough to float away on the next spring breeze, and its celebratory tone seems more than a little tone-deaf at a time of extreme turmoil and income inequality in America. I’m also appalled by Jeff Bezos’s blatant cozying up to Donald Trump in order to become ever richer, and by his diminishment of the Washington Post, which he owns. That makes me a lot less likely to admire his lavish lifestyle. Gift link here.

Separately, I had a good chat with Parker Molloy for Long Lead’s Depth Perception newsletter, where we talked about billionaire press barons, about my former gig as Times public editor, and other media topics. Parker also writes an incisive newsletter, the Present Age, where she’s offering new subscribers 40 percent off to recognize her own 40th birthday. Here’s a link to our conversation.

DRUNK AS A SKUNK

 

 

The toast that will define a generation of journalists

Steve Schmidt Apr 24

There is a moment in every profession when the abstractions fall away.

The credentials, the access, the invitations, the flattery, the proximity to power — all of it dissolves into a single, defining question: Who are you when it matters?

For American journalists, that moment arrives under the chandeliers of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, to be held tomorrow night in Washington, DC.

It will be dressed up as tradition. It will be rationalized as access. It will be defended as necessary — “this is how the system works.” There will be laughter. There will be tuxedos. There will be the quiet hum of ambition, and the louder buzz of self-deception.

But let’s be honest about what it is.

It is a test.

And for some, it will be a failure that defines them forever.

Because the man at the center of this spectacle — Donald Trump — has done more to degrade, intimidate, and threaten the free press than any figure in modern American history. That is not hyperbole. It is a matter of record.

He has called journalists “enemies of the people,” borrowing the language of tyrants. He has smeared reporters as dishonest, corrupt, and dangerous. He has attempted to delegitimize any institution that dares to hold him accountable.

And yet, there will be journalists — credentialed, celebrated, and well-compensated — who will walk into that room, clink glasses, and laugh.

They will call it professionalism.

History will call it something else.

Let’s talk about what is being normalized.

When Donald Trump attacked Megyn Kelly during the 2016 campaign, he didn’t merely criticize her reporting. He smeared her with a grotesque insinuation about her body, suggesting she had “blood coming out of her wherever.” It was crude. It was misogynistic. It was deliberate.

When Kaitlin Collins was barred from a White House event early in his first term for asking questions he didn’t like it was a direct act of retaliation against a reporter doing her job. Later, in a nationally televised town hall, he called her a “nasty person” to her face. Not wrong. Not mistaken. Not even biased.

When he went after Katy Tur, he singled her out at rallies, calling her “disgraceful,” and encouraging a crowd dynamic that made a working reporter a target in real time — a spectacle of intimidation broadcast to millions.

When Yamiche Alcindor asked questions grounded in fact, she was accused of posing “racist” inquiries — not as a good-faith critique, but as a tactic to discredit and silence.

When April Ryan pressed for answers, she was told to “sit down” and stop speaking — a moment that revealed not just hostility to the press, but a reflexive disdain when challenged by a black woman doing her job.

And it didn’t stop there.

He mocked Mika Brzezinski as “low IQ” and derided her appearance. He attacked Greta Van Susteren and Savannah Guthrie when they asked questions he didn’t like. He turned the act of journalism — particularly by women — into something to be punished, ridiculed, and degraded.

This is not politics.

This is not normal.

This is the corrosion of a democratic norm so fundamental that without it, the system cannot function: a free press that is not afraid.

Now imagine walking into a ballroom, and raising a glass to that.

Because that is what this is.

Every laugh, every handshake, every photograph taken in that room sends a message — not just to the man being normalized, but to the reporters who have been targeted, harassed, and threatened.

It says: This is acceptable.

It says: We will endure anything for access.

It says: Our careers matter more than the principle we claim to defend.

This is the great lie of Washington — that proximity to power is the same as accountability.

It is not.

Accountability is uncomfortable. It is adversarial. It is often lonely. It does not come with invitations to banquets or selfies with the powerful.

What comes easily is access.

Access is seductive. It flatters the ego. It whispers to the ambitious that they are important, that they are insiders, that they are part of something exclusive.

But access without independence is not journalism.

It is complicity.

And complicity, in this moment, is not neutral.

There will be those who say: “It’s just a dinner.”

That is the language of minimization, the refuge of people who understand the truth, but lack the courage to confront it.

Because it is never “just” anything when the stakes are this high.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a symbol — of the relationship between power and the press. Symbols matter. They tell us what is tolerated, what is celebrated, and what is ignored.

What is being ignored here is the cumulative effect of years of attacks — not just rhetorical, but physical and psychological. Reporters have faced threats. News organizations have had to increase security. The cost of doing the job has risen because one man decided to turn journalism into a target.

And still, the invitations go out.

Still, the RSVPs come back “yes.”

So here is the question — the only one that matters: what will you trade for your seat at the table?

Your credibility?

Your integrity?

Your solidarity with colleagues who have been singled out and demeaned?

Because that is the transaction.

No one is forcing anyone to attend.

This is a choice.

A career-defining choice.

Years from now, when the moment has passed and the consequences are clearer, there will be no ambiguity about who stood where.

There will be those who chose to maintain their independence — who understood that journalism is not about being liked by the powerful, but about holding them accountable.

And there will be those who chose comfort.

Who chose access.

Who chose to laugh in the same room as a man who has spent years trying to undermine the very profession that gave them their platform.

History is unforgiving about these things.

It remembers who spoke up.

It remembers who stayed silent.

And it remembers who laughed.