Christopher Rufo & Elise Stefanik understand the New York Times

When will the rest of us catch on?

Now that the New York Times has handed the noxious Elise Stefanik and avowed propagandist Christopher Rufo a victory in their disingenuous war on academia by helping them force Harvard’s president to resign over pretextual plagiarism allegations, a lot of people will again be wondering why the Times keeps falling for obvious bullshit from people who announce their intentions to manipulate the news media.

It’s a natural reaction to see Rufo publicly detail his plans to manipulate the Times and other news companies into carrying his culture war water and wonder how it works on them anyway. But the premise is wrong. The Times isn’t being manipulated; it’s using Rufo as an excuse to do what it wants to do.

Here’s what I wrote about Rufo & the Times back in July:

The most perverse thing about all of this is that describing himself as a propagandist and announcing his intent to deceive didn’t hurt Christopher Rufo at all — to the contrary, news companies like The New York Times take him more seriously because of it. Describing himself as untrustworthy was a marketing ploy, and it worked on his intended audience: The nation’s leading journalists and editors. If Rufo was just some run-of-the-mill right-winger, the Times (probably) wouldn’t have published him.³ But because Rufo announced a grand strategy behind his lies, the Times views him as an important voice and hands him the world’s most valuable op-ed space.

And last month, in response to incredulity that Rufo is comfortable publicly announcing his plans:

Those tweets are marketing tweets. They don’t endanger his success; they are central to it. Rufo uses them to brand himself a master strategist; the news media uses that brand to justify taking Rufo seriously and behaving the way he wants them to.

The irony here is that Rufo is merely saying that which liberal media critics have been saying for decades: The news media regurgitates right-wing BS regularly. When we say it as criticism, we get eye-rolls. When Rufo says as statement of intent, they proclaim him a genius strategist.

Christopher Rufo and Elise Stefanik understand that the New York Times¹ wants to behave this way. They want to inflate academic jaywalking by Harvard’s president into a massive scandal worthy of weeks of wall-to-wall coverage. But it obviously isn’t, and so they need an excuse, both for their readers and for themselves. Rufo and Stefanik provide that excuse: Influential conservatives are talking about this, so we have to cover it. And that’s where Rufo’s public announcements of his dishonest propaganda campaigns helps. If he kept his mouth shut about his plans, nobody would ever have heard of him. By announcing himself a successful propagandist, he gave the news media an excuse to make him one.

Rufo isn’t a master strategist or propagandist; he just understands that what progressive media critics have been saying for decades is true, and behaves accordingly.

There’s an endless supply of right-wing grifters and con artists like Rufo. He isn’t really the problem; he’s fungible. The problem is that whenever a new huckster on then Right emerges, the New York Times falls all over itself to amplify his lies. They did precisely the same thing with James O’Keefe almost 15 years ago.

At some point, when the same news company seems to keep falling for transparent bullshit, we’re the suckers if we don’t conclude that they’re just doing what they want to do. And we’re helping them get away with it: The Times’ doesn’t much care if liberals think the Times is easily manipulated by right-wing liars — they’d much prefer that to liberals recognizing that the Times purposefully helps peddle right-wing lies. The former merely leads to exasperation with the Times and frustration that right-wing propagandists are so effective; the latter would lead to cancelled subscriptions.

1. Not only the NYT, but most importantly the NYT.