On Monday, The New York Times said it was going to air an interview Tuesday with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller about President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy. But o n Tuesday's episode of "The Daily", they didn't air the interview. Reporter Julie Davis said the White House was not "comfortable" with The Times using the audio from the interview on the podcast. The New York Times backed down from airing an interview with White House policy adviser Stephen Miller on its hit podcast "The Daily" on Tuesday. On Monday's episode, host Michael Barbaro teased that they were going to have Miller on Tuesday to explain President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy. But on Tuesday, reporter Julie Davis said the White House was not "comfortable" with The Times using the audio from their West Wing interview with Miller on the podcast. The purpose of the interview with Miller was to discuss the evolution of Trump's migrant family separation policy at the border, and his quotes appeared in a text story on Sunday. But Davis and the White House apparently did not discuss "alternative uses" for the interview. "When [The White House] found out that [Miller's] voice was going to be on a podcast discussing this, they were not happy about it," Davis said. "So they asked us not to use it." The Times' decision to not air the interview with Miller drew questions and criticism from many journalists on Twitter, including Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple, who thought hearing Miller's voice "would have enhanced the production quite a bit." "It appears that the @nytimes complied with the White House's insistence that Miller's voice not be used," Wemple tweeted, adding, "In the best of circumstances, the @nytimes would have apprised Miller that they wanted to use his voice in a podcast. That said, if the comments were on the record, the @nytimes can decide how to use it." In a statement to Business Insider, The Times said the producers of The Daily decided they wanted to use the audio from the Miller interview after the text story was published. "White House officials objected, saying that they had not agreed to a podcast interview," the statement read. "While Miller's comments were on the record, we realized that the ground rules for the original interview were not clear, and so we made a decision not to run the audio." The Times reinforced that the substance of the interview with Miller was used in the original story and on Tuesday's podcast episode, just not the audio. The White House did not respond when reached for comment.<doc-sep>The New York Times said Tuesday that it complied with a White House request not to publish audio from an interview with a top aide to President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE even though Stephen Miller's comments were on the record. The newspaper said that reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear interviewed Miller, a staunch supporter of the president's immigration policies, for a story that was published in the paper's print and online editions over the weekend. The Times had also planned to use audio from the Miller interview for its podcast "The Daily," which is downloaded more than 1 million times a day. ADVERTISEMENT Miller was directly quoted several times throughout the story, which focused exclusively on a "zero tolerance" immigration policy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsCNN reporter's phone and email records secretly obtained by Trump administration: report Biden looks to expand legal assistance for minorities, low-income Americans One quick asylum fix: How Garland can help domestic violence survivors MORE that has resulted in the separations of thousands of undocumented children from their parents at the border. But the White House later said it was "uncomfortable" with audio from the interview being made public, and claimed the interview was only supposed to be used in print and online form. The Times relented, saying that the ground rules for the interview were not clear. "After the original story was published, producers of The Daily planned to talk with the reporter and use audio excerpts from the Miller interview. White House officials objected, saying they had not agreed to a podcast interview. While Miller's comments were on the record, we realized that the ground rules for the original interview were not clear, and so we made a decision not to run the audio," the statement from the Times's communication department explains. Davis, who interviewed Miller along with Shear, took to Twitter to offer a similar explanation for not using the audio for the podcast. "Actually [Shear] & I interviewed Miller WH before last for our piece on the evolution of the family separation tactic, & after the fact, The Daily decided to do an episode based on that conversation. WH would not allow audio to be used," Davis wrote. Actually @shearm & I interviewed Miller WH before last for our piece on the evolution of the family separation tactic, & after the fact, The Daily decided to do an episode based on that conversation. WH would not allow audio to be used. — Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) June 19, 2018 The Times immediately faced blowback for its decision, with some members of the media saying the paper caved too easily. Stephen Miller designed the plan to snatch migrant children from their parents. The NYT now won't run his on the record statements because it makes him "uncomfortable". It's more important to NYT to placate white supremacists than to speak the truth about the abuse of children. https://t.co/A5KYgQ76aB — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 19, 2018 NYT has audio of Stephen Miller talking about the family separation policy but it isn’t playing it because, even though on the record (as far as I can tell), White House says interview wasn’t conducted with understanding it might wind up on a podcast. Huh? https://t.co/Z1wxOPhY9B — Josh Greenman (@joshgreenman) June 19, 2018 So New York Times has big, newsworthy interview with Stephen Miller. Story posts last week. The White House knows there is a podcast called The Daily. Miller knows he is speaking into a microphone. But yesterday WH says, don’t use audio. And then NYT says... okay, never mind? — Robert Mentzer (@robertmentzer) June 19, 2018 I've had conversations when recording interviews that it's for accuracy, not broadcast. So I'd get NYT not running Stephen Miller audio if violating a source agreement. But the decision to hold back a clearly newsworthy recording is because it makes the White House uncomfortable? https://t.co/ah9q3sTkcU — Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 19, 2018 This seems odd. Unless the Times felt that it miscommunicated about the audio somehow. What the White House is comfortable with is not normally a factor. https://t.co/cACSzlVXUG — Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) June 19, 2018 In the best of circumstances, the @nytimes would have apprised Miller that they wanted to use his voice in a podcast. That said, if the comments were on the record, the @nytimes can decide how to use it. — ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) June 19, 2018 This is rather explicit acknowledgement by the NYT that it's willing to make sacrifices to preserve its access to senior people within the White House. Is that access worth it? Maybe—they get a lot of scoops! But let's not pretend there aren't trade-offs. https://t.co/VJe4jrQixX — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 19, 2018 According to Times reporters who conducted the interview, Miller was a key figure in urging the president to enforce the zero tolerance policy toward migrant families, which has sparked heated debate across the country via heavy media coverage. Several polls show Americans decidedly objecting to the policy. A Quinnipiac University on Monday poll found respondents oppose the policy by a 66 to 27 percent margin. A majority of Republicans, 55 percent, support it, however. Just 28 percent of Americans surveyed in a CNN poll said they support Trump's policy. It was supported by more than half of Republicans, 58 percent, pollsters found.<doc-sep>"Translation: We at 'the paper of record' decided to put our thirst for continued access to the architect of a barbaric program separating children from their parents ahead of the public's right to have the fullest possible picture of that program and the twisted mind behind it." —Naomi Klein Although far-right activist-turned-White House policy adviser Stephen Miller has been a chief architect of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy and its forcible separation of families, he has remained largely behind the scenes as outrage has grown over the practice—and on Tuesday, with help from the New York Times, the White House kept it that way. After conducting an on-the-record interview with Miller for an article that appeared in the New York Times last week about the family separation policy, the Times submitted to a White House request to not include audio from the interview in its popular news podcast "The Daily." The New York Times asks Stephen Miller, architect of the most vile supremacist policies of this administration, for approval on their editorial output. Pathetic. https://t.co/g3I3WxboJE — Anil Dash (@anildash) June 19, 2018 Reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who had interviewed Miller for the article, explained before describing some of Miller's comments to "Daily" host Michael Barano: When I went into the West Wing to interview Stephen Miller with Michael Shear, my colleague here at the Times, the purpose was we were doing a big deep dive story on this family separation practice that's broken out all over the country. And we didn't talk about any sort of alternative uses for the interview. And when they found out that his voice was actually going to be on a podcast discussing it, they were not happy about this. So, they asked us not to use it. Many journalists and media critics viewed the newspaper's cooperation with the White House as a violation of political outlets' supposed purpose—to give the public a full understanding of the government and its policies. This is just bullshit. Miller is orchestrating a systematic, criminal, human rights abusing, child abuse operation. Let the public hear his sick rationalization to understand how utterly evil this is. https://t.co/7z8WQUSFe0 — jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) June 19, 2018 So New York Times has big, newsworthy interview with Stephen Miller. Story posts last week. The White House knows there is a podcast called The Daily. Miller knows he is speaking into a microphone. But yesterday WH says, don’t use audio. And then NYT says... okay, never mind? SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Never Miss a Beat. Get our best delivered to your inbox. — Robert Mentzer (@robertmentzer) June 19, 2018 Others argued that while Davis relayed Miller's comments on the podcast, Barbano's interview with her was no substitute for hearing Miller describe, in his own words, why he feels it's acceptable for the Homeland Security Department to separate families—in some cases, reportedly deceiving parents and then informing them that their children have been taken away. In the podcast itself, @juliehdavis did indeed quote Miller; they just didn't use Miller's own voice, which would have enhanced the production quite a bit. — ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) June 19, 2018 Since Davis and Shear's interview with Miller was on the record, the reporters technically had permission to use the content of their discussion with the senior policy adviser in the Times' reporting—not necessarily just in the article they were writing. The Associated Press defines the phrase "on the record" as denoting that "the information can be used with no caveats, quoting the source by name." In a statement, the Times said the reporters had not made clear to the White House that Miller's audio could be used in "The Daily." "While Miller's comments were on the record, we realized that the ground rules for the original interview were not clear, and so we made a decision not to run the audio," read the statement from the paper's communications department. Critics including author Naomi Klein refused to accept the newspaper's excuse—accusing the Times of being more concerned with its access to the White House than giving a full accounting of what it learns from its interactions with Trump administration sources.<doc-sep>This image was removed due to legal reasons. Tuesday’s episode of The Daily, the New York Times’ mega-popular news podcast, threw listeners a curveball. In opening a show about the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the southern U.S. border, host Michael Barbaro and White House reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis described to listeners an audio clip they would not hear: Barbaro: Julie, you talked recently with Stephen Miller, President Trump’s domestic policy adviser, about this very controversial situation playing out at the border with parents and children being separated. And we were going to hear that audio on the show today. Davis: Right. Barbaro: Julie Davis covers the White House and immigration for the Times. Davis: We were, until I heard from the White House earlier today that they were not at all comfortable with us using that audio, because when I went into the West Wing to interview Stephen Miller with Michael Shear, my colleague here at the Times, the purpose was we were doing a big deep dive story on this family separation practice that’s broken out all over the country. And we didn’t talk about any sort of alternative uses for the interview. And when they found out that his voice was actually going to be on a podcast discussing it, they were not happy about this. So, they asked us not to use it. Barbaro: Alright, so, instead of hearing that audio, we’re going to talk to about the conversation you had with Stephen Miller and his thinking around this practice. So, how does Miller talk about the way the immigration system used to work? Advertisement The conversation carried on from there without a clear explanation of why the Times agreed to the White House’s request, or would even ask for such permission in the first place. Davis analyzed Miller’s perspective at length, meaning at least portions of their conversation were on the record. And a front page story on Sunday—co-bylined by Davis and Shear and portraying Miller as the mastermind of the policy amid a divided White House—appeared to rely in part on this same interview. It included one direct quote from him: “No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement,” [Miller] said during an interview in his West Wing office this past week. “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.” Davis has been covering the family separation policy intensively for much of this month, writing or contributing to several stories on the topic that include input from Miller. In a June 11 piece about Attorney General Jeff Sessions cracking down on asylum seekers fleeing gang violence or domestic abuse, Miller was quoted defending the administration’s plan: “We effectively have a policy where if you make an unproven assertion up front of having quote unquote credible fear, that you can be released into the United States almost immediately,” Stephen Miller, the White House senior policy adviser who has been the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, said last week in an interview. Likewise, in a Saturday story about Trump’s “false assertion that Democrats were responsible for his administration’s policy,” Miller was on display backing up his boss’ call for hardline immigration reform: “The loopholes, both legal and judicial, are now wholly owned and belong to Democrats,” Stephen Miller, the president’s senior policy adviser and top immigration hand, said in a recent interview, “because they alone oppose their changing.” “No one in our government is willing to take moral lectures from people who support and perpetuate policies that grievously harm innocent Americans,” Mr. Miller added. Advertisement Per Tuesday’s episode of The Daily, the White House did not want the recording of Miller saying such things to be made public. But listeners were left unclear as to why the New York Times would agree to that request on a news story dominating the national political conversation. I emailed both Barbaro and Davis about it this morning, and I’ll update this post if I hear back from them. Davis did provide something of an explanation on Twitter Tuesday morning: Advertisement Davis’ implicit argument is that she represented how she would use her interview with Miller in one way, and thus felt the need to circle back to the White House before using it in a different way. It is possible Miller wouldn’t have initially granted the interview—apparently used in multiple stories that were mostly critical of the administration—had he known it was also podcast fodder. It’s also possible that Miller talked about Trump’s family separation policy in a way that would be even less flattering in audio form, and that the White House “would not allow” it to be used after seeing how the media narrative played out. Regardless, a recording of his remarks likely would have proven quite the contrast to the recording of crying children published by ProPublica on Monday. Now, we’re all left more curious about what Miller said and how he said it—not to mention the extent to which “on the record” is actually on the record at the Times. Podcasts are a new beast for the newspaper. I’ve reached out to Spokesperson Danielle Rhoades-Ha about whether it has a policy for such crossover situations and am awaiting her response. Advertisement Update, 12:15 p.m.: The Times issued a statement about the matter.<doc-sep>
The New York Times angered journalists and progressives by deciding not to publish the audio recording of an interview conducted with White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, citing confusion over its original ground rules. New York Times reporters Julie Davis and Michael Shear spoke with Miller—one of the chief architect's of President Donald Trump's border policies—for their story on how and why the Trump administration decided to enforce separations of illegal immigrant parents and children at the border. Adweek reporter Josh Sternberg reported the White House did not want the Times to run the recording on "The Daily," Michael Barbaro's daily news podcast, and asked the newspaper not to use it. The NYT spoke to Stephen Miller on the record with audio and they spiked it because the White House "were not comfortable using the audio…when they found out his voice was going to be on a podcast they were not happy about it. So they asked us not to use it." — Josh "1/2 vaccinated" Sternberg (@joshsternberg) June 19, 2018 Davis explained she and Shear interviewed Miller "the week before last" and the White House did not want the audio to be used once "The Daily" decided to do an episode based on the conversation. Actually @shearm & I interviewed Miller WH before last for our piece on the evolution of the family separation tactic, & after the fact, The Daily decided to do an episode based on that conversation. WH would not allow audio to be used. — Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) June 19, 2018 *week before last, that is… — Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) June 19, 2018 At the beginning of "The Daily," Davis instead recounted her interview with Miller to Barbaro. Ultimately, the New York Times public relations account tweeted out an explanation. .@nytimes statement on the decision not to use audio of an interview with Stephen Miller https://t.co/MvyDTZuMgI pic.twitter.com/rsHbiOSU6M — NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) June 19, 2018 "We conducted an extended White House interview with Stephen Miller for a weekend story about the Trump administration's border policy. Miller was quoted, on the record, in that story," the Times said. "After the original story was published, producers of ‘The Daily' planned to talk with the reporter and use audio excerpts from the Miller interview," the paper continued. "White House officials objected, saying that they had not agreed to a podcast interview. While Miller's comments were on the record, we realized that the ground rules for the original interview were not clear, and so we made a decision not to run the audio." "But to reiterate: the Times made extensive use of the Miller interview in both the original weekend story and ‘The Daily.'" Progressives became upset at what they viewed as the Times bowing to the White House even though the interview was on-the-record. HuffPost covered the controversy with the headline, "New York Times Caves to White House on Stephen Miller Interview." "Bowing to pressure from the White House, the New York Times did not include in its news podcast an audio clip from an on-the-record interview with Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump," HuffPost reporter Sara Boboltz wrote. Splinter writer Katherine Krueger sarcastically called it "brave stuff from the Times," according to Fast Company. brave stuff from the Times https://t.co/4nU8vPLBYz — katherine krueger (@kath_krueger) June 19, 2018 The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald called the Times decision "too incredible to believe." This seems too incredible to believe. Definitely interested in hearing from the NYT if that happened. https://t.co/0y6NPGIX3P — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 19, 2018 Press critic Jay Rosen said the White House's comfort level is "not normally a factor" in such a decision. This seems odd. Unless the Times felt that it miscommunicated about the audio somehow. What the White House is comfortable with is not normally a factor. https://t.co/cACSzlVXUG — Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) June 19, 2018 Mediaite compiled other angry responses to the Times decision. Stephen Miller designed the plan to snatch migrant children from their parents. The NYT now won't run his on the record statements because it makes him "uncomfortable". It's more important to NYT to placate white supremacists than to speak the truth about the abuse of children. https://t.co/A5KYgQ76aB — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 19, 2018 The New York Times asks Stephen Miller, architect of the most vile supremacist policies of this administration, for approval on their editorial output. Pathetic. https://t.co/g3I3WxboJE — Anil Dash (@anildash) June 19, 2018