David McCraw reflects on Trump letter, state of journalism
Co-Written by: Adriana Belmonte & Gabriella Gamba
New York Times attorney David McCraw had no idea that his response to Donald Trump’s attorneys would go viral.
According to The New York Times, Kasowitz had publicly requested the retraction of an article that, “featured two women accusing Mr. Trump of touching them inappropriately years ago,” as well as an apology from the organization. Upon reading the request around 5 a.m. on Oct. 13, McCraw made the decision to publicly release his own statement.
“I think people should be free to complain about coverage without worrying that the letter will be on paper,” McCraw says. In this case, it was unusual that the campaign had publicly released the letter online. It seemed as though at that point, it was not a legal issue but a reputation one.”
McCraw pondered his response all morning, and transferred his thoughts electronically during a rare 45-minute slot of free time in between meetings. Ultimately, he knew that his biggest concern was the delivery of the message, and the way in which he would pose it — in layman’s terms.
“I wanted to think of it both as a legal response and to address a legal point, but I had to do so in a way that people who are not lawyers could understand what I was saying,” McCraw said. His method of delivery proved to be effective, given the responses he received from both lawyers and the general public.
“Several lawyers who wrote to me afterward noted that I didn’t cite any cases, but most of them complimented my writing style,” he recalled. “I set forth legal defenses but at the same time, any citizen reading it could understand the underlying point.”
Although he initially anticipated that only a small number of people would read his response, McCraw’s email inbox garnered 90 replies within the first 90 minutes of its publication, according to his follow-up article for “Times Insider.” By the end of the media storm, McCraw had received over 11,000 emails, only a handful of which were negative.
Most of the negative responses, he said, came from a misunderstanding of how libel law works. “I was confident that our lawyers did the right thing when they checked out our sources,” McCraw noted. The majority of the negative responses came from Trump supporters who saw the letter as an anti-Trump attack. “What I tried to convey in my Insider piece for the Times was that it wasn’t really political to me,” he said. “I believe people in power always attempt to misuse their power, and I believe that we have an obligation to stand up to that misuse.”
McCraw received a myriad of reactions to his response letter, but his favorite came from Clarence Jones, who was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s lawyer during the 1960’s. “It was a very nice, undeservedly flattering note,” McCraw said. In his letter, Jones mentioned to the famous libel case of Times v. Sullivan, which McCraw referred to as the “most important libel decision that the Supreme Court ever rendered.” In Times v. Sullivan, there was a lawsuit over an advertisement placed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his associates, complaining about their treatment in Alabama and asking for support. Jones remembered how the New York Times stood up for itself and drew parallels between the case and the current issue with Trump’s attorney.
“There’s a bit of a war going on with press credibility,” McCraw said. “Trump and the others have fed that fire. He tries to say: don’t believe them, believe me.”
This concerns McCraw because he believes that it is essential to have a press that is “respected, aggressive, and vital,” which comes from “public acceptance by public relief.”
“I”m concerned about what essentially is a besmirching of the press without specific allegations,” he said. “In the end, I think that all of us need to re-engage the nation in a healthy conversation about press freedom whether you agree or disagree with what an article says.”
When it comes to Donald Trump’s presidency, McCraw emphasized the New York Times’ recommitment to unbiased news. “In a recent meeting, our Executive Editor Dean Baquet said something very wise,” McCraw said. “He said: ‘The last thing we want is to become the last organ of the opposition party.’ The only way we can do our job is to approach the news as unbiased as possible.”
He acknowledged that remaining unbiased will be a challenge with the Trump administration because of the high level of hostility that exists but the Times “has to do what they’ve been doing for generations,” which is to be fair, give credit where credit is due, and make sure questions are being asked that are both hard and fair. “We come at this keeping in mind: What does the public need to know?” McCraw said.
Fake news has become a recent issue when it comes to the general public and what they believe. McCraw believes that those who are purveyors of news have a “moral obligation” to call out fake news when they see it. “The internet makes it easy to have fake news,” he said. “We are so polarized as a nation that people are more willing than ever to believe it, because it appeals to their sense of how the world is. Social media and other major information purveyors need to step in and try to prevent it.”
McCraw emphasized that those in mainstream media need to continue what they have always been doing: pursue facts and stories, and let the public decide how they want to react.
“Don’t be fearful of the threat of libel as long as you’re telling the truth,” he emphasized. “When you’re doing things right, you’ll be okay.”
