Critics Blast 'Clueless' New York Times for Dismissive Coverage of Historic No Kings Protests

The New York Times is drawing criticism for publishing articles that downplayed the significance of Saturday's No Kings protests, which initial estimates suggest was the largest protest event in US history.

In a Times article that drew particular ire, reporter Jeremy Peters questioned whether nationwide events that drew an estimated 8 million people to the streets "would be enough to influence the course of the nation’s politics."

"Can the protests harness that energy and turn it into victories in the November midterm elections?" Peters asked rhetorically. "How can they avoid a primal scream that fades into a whimper?"

Journalist and author Mark Harris called Peters' take on the protests "predictable" and said it was framed so that the protests would appear insignificant no matter how many people turned out.

"There's a long, bad journalistic tradition," noted Harris. "All conservative grass-roots political movements are fascinating heartland phenomena, all progressive grass-roots political movements are ineffectual bleating. This one is written off as powered by white female college grads—the wine-moms slur, basically."

Media critic Dan Froomkin was event blunter in his criticism of the Peters piece.

"Putting anti-woke hack Jeremy Peters on this story is an act of war by the NYT against No Kings," he wrote.

Mark Jacob, former metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, also took a hatchet to Peters' analysis.

"The NY Times saves its harshest skepticism for progressives," he wrote. "Instead of being impressed by 3,000-plus coordinated protests, NYT dismisses the value of 'hitting a number' and asks if No Kings will be 'a primal scream that fades into a whimper.' F off, NY Times. We'll defeat fascism without you."

The Media and Democracy Project slammed the Times for putting Peters' analysis of the protests on its front page while burying straight news coverage of the events on page A18.

"NYT editors CHOSE that Jeremy Peters's opinions would frame the No Kings demonstrations and pro-democracy movement to millions of NYT readers," the group commented.

Joe Adalian, west coast editor for New York Mag's Vulture, criticized a Times report on the No Kings demonstrations that quoted a "skeptic" of the protests without noting that said skeptic was the chairman of the Ole Miss College Republicans.

"Of course, the Times doesn’t ID him as such," remarked Adalian. "He's just a Concerned Youth."

Jeff Jarvis, professor emeritus at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, took issue with a Times piece that offered five "takeaways" from the No Kings events that somehow managed to miss their broader significance.

"I despise the five-takeaways journalistic trope the Broken Times loves so," Jarvis wrote. "It is reductionist, hubristic in its claim to summarize any complex event. This one leaves out much, like the defense of democracy against fascism."

Journalist Miranda Spencer took stock of the Times' entire coverage of the No Kings demonstrations and declared it "clueless," while noting that USA Today did a far better job of communicating their significance to readers.

Harper's Magazine contributing editor Scott Horton similarly argued that international news organizations were giving the No Kings events more substantive coverage than the Times.

"In Le Monde and dozens of serious newspapers around the world, prominent coverage of No Kings 3, which brought millions of Americans on to the streets to protest Trump," Horton observed. "In NYT, an illiterate rant from Jeremy W Peters and no meaningful coverage of the protests. Something very strange going on here."