Media Criticism

On Sept. 5, the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed by a “senior official in the Trump administration,” calling into question the president’s fitness for office. The author, call him or her Anonymous, does not mention impeachment, but does speak about another constitutional process: the 25th Amendment, which provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, and which Anonymous dismisses as an overly “complex” process that might precipitate "constitutional crisis."

Liz Garbus’s new documentary series, “The Fourth Estate,” opens with Donald Trump taking the oath of office on January 20, 2017, but it doesn’t linger long on the new president. After a few seconds of him repeating the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, it cuts to a cityscape of New York, then to the New York Times building, then to the newsroom, where a group of Times reporters and editors are watching the inauguration on television. The paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, is leaning back in a chair, his hands pressed together.

You may be forgiven for having missed Thomas Baker op-ed, “What Went Wrong at the FBI,” published in the Wall Street Journal on March 19. Eminently forgettable in its own right, the piece is worth noting because, in at least two ways, it highlights how much has changed since Donald Trump took office.

No sooner did the internet ink dry on my analysis of Andrew C.