How The Times Covers Trump’s Social Media

I’m Patrick Healy, an assistant managing editor at The New York Times. President Trump posts a lot on Truth Social. He announces policy. Attacks opponents. Fires people, makes threats. It’s his main method of communication. He posts an average of 18 times a day. But it’s also a strategy. Presidents always want to drive the news. So how does The Times cover not just a president, but his social media feed? It comes down to newsworthiness. We turn to our reporters with expertise on the economy, law, war and other areas and ask, Is President Trump making news that could affect lives or policy or the world? If they think so, they start reporting to get the full story. But we don’t publish everything a president says. President Trump, Biden, Obama used Twitter for talking points and press releases. Those often weren’t newsworthy on their own. And sometimes what’s news is how President Trump talks, like when he dropped an F-bomb on Truth Social on Easter Sunday. Our stories quoted his actual language, even though we usually don’t publish swear words. But when the president posts a message that threatens a sovereign nation and uses vulgar language to do it, that’s newsworthy. Our role is to assess information and use our own judgment to decide what’s newsworthy. And in the case of a president who does things we’ve never seen before, it’s important to look carefully at what he’s saying on Truth Social.