Taking Journalism’s ‘Experts Said…’ Chicanery About Facts to Its Natural, Absurd Conclusion

Yesterday, the NY Times published an article about Donald Trump’s threat to take away citizenship from a US-born citizen: Trump threatens to strip Rosie O’Donnell of U.S. citizenship. The Times Bluesky account posted a link to the article accompanied by this text:

President Trump said on Saturday he was considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship. Trump has feuded with the comedian and actress since before he became president. Experts said the president does not have the power to take away the citizenship of a U.S.-born citizen.

Large media companies, and the NY Times in particular these days, like to use the phrase “experts said” instead of simply stating facts. The thing is, many other statements of plain truth in that brief Times post lack the confirmation of expertise. To aid the paper in steering their readers away from notions of objective truth, here’s a suggested rewrite of that Bluesky post:

Donald Trump, who experts said is president of the United States, which experts said is a sovereign state on the planet Earth, which experts said is an oblate spheroid and revolves around the Sun, which experts said is a G-type main-sequence star about 93 million miles from us, said on what experts said was Saturday that he was considering revoking (which experts said is a process of making invalid) the U.S. citizenship of a person with the last name of O’Donnell, who experts said is a living human person and U.S. citizen with the first name of Rosie (which experts said is a diminutive of Roseann). Trump, who experts said has feuded with the person who experts said is a comedian and actress since, experts said, before he became president (again, experts said this, that Trump is the president and that also there exists a time (which experts said i— {Do we really need to cite someone on the concept of time here? Surely, time is just time and everyone kinda sorta gets that? -ed}) before he was president). Experts said the president, who experts said doesn’t simply float away into the cosmos because of the mutually attractive force of gravity between him and the Earth, does not have the power (which experts said is whatever Robert Caro said it was in that heavy book about Robert Moses; the experts honestly did not make it through the whole thing) to take away the citizenship of a U.S.-born citizen.

Or, I guess you could do it the easy way:

President Trump said on Saturday he was considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship. Trump has feuded with the comedian and actress since before he became president. Experts said The president does not have the power to take away the citizenship of a U.S.-born citizen.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

PS. Rolling Stone did waaay better with this story: Trump Thinks He Can Take Away Citizenship From Anyone He Doesn’t Like. And see also the NY Times Pitchbot if you are unaware of its existence.

PPS. The image is a political cartoon from 1894 — you can see the full version at the Library of Congress.

Tags: Donald Trump · journalism · NY Times · politics · Rosie O’Donnell