On October 12, 2024, Executive Editor of the New York Times, Joseph Kahn, sat down with NPR’s Steve Inskeep for an interview about the challenges of covering the 2024 election. The conversation touched on increasing concerns that mainstream media gives false equivalence to “both sides,” even when the facts don’t support such balance (and that this is a serious pro-Republican bias). While this critique may feel new to media leaders like Kahn and Inskeep, it’s a concern that academics have raised for years. As Rothschild and Watts argued in their 2017 piece, Don’t Blame the Election on Fake News. Blame It on the Media, editorial decisions about coverage can shape (and miss-shape) public perception just as much as outright misinformation, and mainstream media is increasingly trading off balance for objectivity, entertainment (horse-race and palace intrigue) for meaningful policy discussion.

In this interview, Kahn pointed to the Times’ coverage of Project 2025 as proof of their scrutiny of serious policy issues, and not holding their punches against Trump. Project 2025, a sweeping agenda spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, outlines the groundwork for reshaping the U.S. government should Trump win a second term. Kahn claimed:

“The sort of scrutiny of Project 2025 as it emerged actually originated with some really deep New York Times reporting… Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage really digging deeply, talking to people and allies around former President Trump about what his agenda might look like were he to come back into office.”

This claim obfuscates the facts. Although the Times did publish detailed articles about Project 2025—on April 20, July 17, August 4, November 1, and twice in December of 2023—Kahn frames these stories as groundbreaking discoveries, largely based on insider access to Trump’s circle. However, Project 2025 was no secret. The Heritage Foundation made its report publicly available online, meaning that in-depth investigative access wasn’t required to recognize its significance.

But even if we accept Kahn’s framing that the Times brought Project 2025 to light (which we don’t), the data tells a different story about how seriously the Times treated the issue.

The Numbers Tell a Different Story: Biden’s Age vs. Project 2025

From January 1, 2024, to November 5, 2024, we tracked every article featured in the top 20 slots on the homepages of 10 major publishers, including the New York Times. Using a combination of human oversight and AI categorization, we assign a category, topic, and sub-topic to every article. The results, shown in the figure below, are striking:

This disparity is telling. By devoting far more coverage to Biden’s age, the Times–more than any publisher other than Fox and Breitbart–signaled to readers that his fitness for office was a far greater concern than the policies Trump might enact if re-elected.

Kahn’s Defense of the Coverage

When Inskeep pressed Kahn on the extensive coverage of Biden’s age, Kahn doubled down, defending the extensive coverage of Biden’s age as necessary:

“I believe that our coverage of Biden's age was an important thing to do, whether or not it ended up being helpful to Donald Trump. It was important for the American people to understand that leading media in the country were paying very close attention to the fitness and the health of the person who is the leader of the country, who has access to the nuclear football.”

Kahn’s reasoning hinges on the idea that the quantity of coverage reflects the seriousness of the issue. By this logic, Biden’s age was 10.9 times more important than Trump’s Project 2025—a stunning conclusion when considering the potential long-term consequences of the latter.

This editorial decision matters for two key reasons:

Perception of Importance: As Kahn himself admits, readers interpret the volume of coverage as a signal of an issue’s significance. With weeks of front-page articles about Biden’s age, the Times framed this as a critical concern. Meanwhile, their relatively sparse reporting on Project 2025 indicated it was a secondary issue—despite its potential to transform American governance.

Agenda-Setting Power: The Times doesn’t just shape the views of its readers. Its coverage ripples across the media ecosystem, legitimizing narratives that are amplified by other outlets. Republican media frequently cited the Times’ relentless focus on Biden’s age to bolster their own attacks on his fitness for office. At the same time, the lack of sustained coverage on Project 2025 allowed Trump and his allies to downplay its significance, framing it as a fringe concern rather than a coordinated policy agenda.

What the Coverage Says About Priorities

The editorial choices of the New York Times in 2024 sent a clear message. Biden’s age was framed as a grave issue worthy of sustained attention. Trump’s age (just three years younger than Biden’s) was largely ignored, as was his ambitious policy platform. This imbalance didn’t just reflect the Times’ priorities—it shaped the national conversation.

While the Times prides itself on impartiality, its decisions reveal a different truth. By amplifying narratives like Biden’s age while sidelining substantive policy debates like Trump’s Project 2025, the Times contributed to a distorted understanding of what truly mattered in the 2024 election.

This isn’t just a critique of the Times. It’s a call for accountability across the media landscape. As readers, we must demand coverage that reflects the stakes of our political reality, not just the stories that drive clicks or maintain insider access. The consequences of these editorial decisions extend far beyond one election cycle—and we all have a role in ensuring the media fulfills its responsibility to the public.