Here is a headline over a news article on the New York Times website: "The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud." Here is the subheadline: "The president and his allies have baselessly claimed that rampant voter fraud stole victory from him. Officials contacted by The Times said that there were no irregularities that affected the outcome."
The article goes on: "top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success."
Imagine if the Times took this approach to reporting on potential fraud in other sectors. "The Times called CEOs of 500 big companies. All of them said their businesses are a remarkable success." Or "the Times called the chief executives of the state's top 50 hospitals. All of them said there were no systematic billing errors or medical mistakes." Or "the Times called 20 hedge fund managers. All of them said there was no insider trading." Or, "The Times called 20 major league umpires. All of them said they'd never missed a call that affected the outcome of a game." What does the Times expect, that the top election officials in charge of making sure the elections run smoothly and fraud-free are just going to confess—yeah, you know what, we totally screwed up!
To be clear, I am not saying the election was stolen. But the idea that officials denying it was stolen is somehow persuasive proof that it wasn't stolen seems sort of naive. It's a data point. But the lack of skepticism by the Times when it comes to the government officials' claims of success seems an exception to the paper's usual approach.
