Maybe you didn’t know that Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was one of the “enemies of the people” that Trump likes to talk about so much. Perhaps before now, you were entirely unaware that Kushner owned and operated the New York Observer, a print newspaper that was founded more than three decades ago, and which Kushner only sold his stake in as his father-in-law was being inaugurated President.
But it really shouldn’t surprise you that birds of a feather flock together, as they say. And according to a new report from Buzzfeed, Jared and Donald are vultures from the very same circling kettle, feasting on the carrion of good journalism to make themselves look good.
In fact, like his more dastardly dad-in-law might rescind press credentials or revoke broadcasting licenses, Jared would personally order stories that he didn’t like to be deleted from the paper. Stories about lousy landlords? Out the window. Stories about his pal Adam Silver, the NBA Commissioner, buying a pricey pad in downtown NYC? Nixed. Not content to just eliminate stories that were unfavorable to his friends, Jared even once ordered a hit piece on a competing real estate rival, according to Vanity Fair (who have never deleted a story critical of Trump or his family, praise be to the Newspaper Gods).
But the best part of the story is the part that should probably surprise you the least: Jared was nowhere near “brave” enough to go to the editors’ room and demand the stories disappear — he’d have either been laughed out of the room or, more likely, faced a mass exodus of employees over what is universally considered among the most unethical practices possible at a newspaper.
Instead, Jared went behind their backs and ordered a lowly software engineer who happened to have access to the digital files where stories for publication were kept. The engineer detailed his experience in a Hacker News forum, and went on to say:
That a newspaper publisher would participate in an administration that labels the press the enemy of the people is a total betrayal of the journalists and other media professionals who worked hard for him for years.”
Other employees of the Observer were similarly critical after finding out. Elizabeth Spiers, the former editor-in-chief, tweeted on Monday:
I found out a few months ago that while I was the editor in chief of the Observer, Jared was instructing our third party tech provider to delete articles critical of his business associates w/out my knowledge. I don’t have enough choice expletives describe my feelings about that. https://t.co/EYyEn0YIKI
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) August 6, 2018
Spiers elaborated to Buzzfeed:
Jared’s such a coward. Went directly to Austin because he knew I wouldn’t do it.”
Yep. That sounds about right for a member of the Trump family.
Featured image via screen capture
