USA Today on Wednesday night issued an editor’s note following intense backlash over its publication of White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s op-ed criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Cause that worked out so well for the NYT 
Sternberg wrote that the decision to publish Navarro’s op-ed is part of USA Today’s “longstanding tradition” of giving “readers another point of view” and that the newspaper reached out to Navarro individually.
Good idea to give readers another point of view…as long as their point of view are truthful, scientifically sound and credible!
Steinberg, you are a moron!
The damage has already been done when accuracy and context are not checked PRIOR to publication. The note is a poor form of CYA/excuse.
When one side talks rubbish, do you then proceed to guild the bin?
As for the USA Today hit on Fauci, it’s hard to describe how untrustworthy Navarro is, especially on the topic of Covid-19. Tapped as a dishonest White House surrogate, he has spent most of this year lying about the virus and putting the public at risk. He has falsely claimed “everybody” thought the virus would wash away in warm weather.
He’s a huckster who claims “Communist China” weaponized the virus in order to sink the U.S. economy. Note that Navarro “was first recruited by Trump because he wrote a string of books about the Chinese strategic threat – one called Death by China – despite having spent almost no time in the country and having no grasp of the language," the Guardian has reported.
I hadn’t realized that McNewspaper was still in existence, until I saw the Trump, I mean Navarro, Op-Ed.
If it weren’t for Twitter the op-ed would only have been seen by all eight people staying in hotels right now.
Like this crap?
Publius Decius Mus was the pseudonym of Michael Anton, who in January of 2017 left the private sector to serve on Trump’s National Security Council.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-election/
"2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances."
Journalism with integrity shouldn’t require the issuance of notices, apologies, or rationalizations “after the fact.” Such post-publishing info is just plain shoddy.
Forget it, Jake, it’s USA Today!
Strange.
As with the NYT, I thought there were people there whose job it was to read these op-eds before publication to assure that they met the paper’s standards.
But, it now seems to be, “Publish everything now, backtrack in a 2 font at the bottom of page 12 later.”
Journalism sure has changed since I was a kid.
Now the LA Times is reporting that Trump authorized the op-ed – and encouraged Navarro to write it. That explains why Navarro was not fired.
Quote Tweet
Glenn Kessler
@GlennKesslerWP
· Jul 15
Curious to hear from former White House (political appointee) officials: If you wrote an unauthorized op-ed trashing a civil service employee regarding an issue where you were not an expert, do you think you would have been fired?
11:40 AM · Jul 15, 2020·Twitter Web App
Dare I say it, fact check before you publish. Seems like such a beautifully simple solution.
What’s interesting to me is the urge to accept WH denials of facts the WH pushed:
Several White House officials distanced themselves from Navarro’s op-ed on Wednesday.
When pressed by reporters about whether he approved Navarro’s op-ed, Trump dodged by saying “that’s Peter Navarro, but I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci.”
Vice President Mike Pence echoed Trump soon after by telling reporters during a campaign call on Wednesday that the White House “couldn’t be more grateful” for Fauci’s “steady counsel.”
Deputy White House press secretary Alyssa Farah tweeted Wednesday morning that Navarro’s op-ed “didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes.”
None of those statements is credible. I’ll believe them when Navarro is fired.
That wouldn’t necessarily have saved Navarro’s job, especially if the blowback had been worse.
Nobody’s safe from his wrath, even if they’re doing what he wants.
It is the throw everything against the wall and see what sticks School of Journalism.
Their bull shit is getting mixed up with their horse shit which somehow seems to create chicken shit. If only they could produce good governance as well as they can produce ugly excrement.
I was a journalism major. I worked in Radio and TV under the fairness and equal time doctrines.
USA Today, you’re not journalism.
USA Today just “both-sided” Dr Fauci, one of our top health experts during a pandemic.
Steinberg should do the honorable thing and resign.
