NYT Reporter Slams Media Integrity

A former New York Times reporter has demonstrated the “Russia Collusion” story was not just a sham, but represents another nail in the coffin of media integrity. His past reporting on China adds vital perspective on Biden, China, and the media’s coverup of ties between the two.

Sometimes history does a loop on itself,  the way the old “spirogyra” disks allowed children to trace circles within circles, creating a complex, overlapping picture with colorful intersections. Understanding them can be hard, but also important. If you can believe it – and this may be the nub of the thing – China is a living mirror for loss of objective US media coverage, on everything.

In 1999, a New York Times reporter won the Pulitzer Prize for a remarkable series of articles, detailing how the Clinton Administration allowed the transfer of highly classified satellite technology to Communist China, for money. The articles were shocking.

In 10 powerful reports between April and December 1998 – a midterm election year – by the intrepid reporter, Jeff Gerth, explained how the transfer to China occurred, posing major “national security risks.” Gerth’s 1999 accounts of China’s tenacity – peeled back by a fact-focused media team – were illuminating. After China punched money into 1996 congressional races, aiming to tip them Democrat, China targeted highly classified satellite technology.

Gerth’s 10 articles were entitled: “Companies are investigated for aid to China on rockets,” “Democrat fund-raiser said to name China tie,” “How China won right to launch satellites for the US,” “US knew China military used civilian satellites,” “China said to reap gains …,” “Pentagon Inquiry faults missile maker’s Chinese aid,” “Evidence of China Plan …,” “CIA Ignored reports of payments to Chinese for satellite contracts,” and – the punchline – “House Panel Says Chinese Obtained US Arms Secrets.”

Now, wind the clock ahead. In the first quarter of 2023, we learn that President Joe Biden – whose son was in the pay of Chinese entities – placed highly classified documents on foreign operations in his garage and office, which it turns out was underwritten by a university paid millions of dollars – by China.

In fact, by all appearances, the elder Biden’s office and salary look like a “passthrough” from China, since tens of millions were given to the university, which built Biden’s DC office and paid him a salary.

But that is not all. These classified documents – still not fully described, discovered in non-business locations, and kept secret through midterms – may have been accessed by the son of the former vice president, who was working with the Chinese.

Put all that on the backburner, however. Just keep it in mind, as the last two sets of facts are recalled.  Also this quarter, we learned about China’s hard-to-believe intrusion on our national security – with high altitude surveillance balloons, at least one of which was not prevented from entering US airspace, but allowed by Mr. Biden to transit sensitive military locations.

All this is highly disturbing, and warrants congressional investigations, and action. But the irony – the last circle drawn – is the one that came out last week.

Last week, the same New York Times reporter who earlier revealed China’s links to the Democrat Party, access to satellite technology in the 1990s, and won that Pulitzer, completed a 24,000-word series of articles in the Columbia Journalism Review. The series flays the New York Times and modern media – for misleading the American people with a “Russia Collusion” story that fundamentally altered the way our nation saw a sitting President and hamstrung his ability to serve.

All this is shocking – yet in some ways not so shocking. What this reporter – and those like him who remain focused on truth – confirm is: The American media establishment is corrupt, as if we did not know that already. Real reporting has been replaced by false narratives, easily promoted, an extension of political activism into newsrooms. Gone are honor, honesty, and a pursuit of truth that once characterized the profession.

Most remarkable: Jeff Gerth’s new report – which defends truth and slams the modern media, comes at the same time another Democrat president allows China to spy with impunity. We are seeing the collapse of integrity among America’s elites – political and media – in the mirror of China’s rising influence. The slide is reversible, but will require renewed concern for national security, journalistic integrity, and media literacy among American citizens.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.