JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

I’m sure most of you have read, or at least read about, The Times’ latest expose on President Trump’s tax scam and how the bills are fast coming due on hundreds of millions in tax liabilities.

The Times posted the story Sunday afternoon, and in today’s print edition it starts on Page 1 and jumps inside, where it consumes five pages.

The Washington Post, The Times’ biggest competitor, called it a “blockbuster report” and has run several stories about it…Which shows that when one paper has a story this big, even the competition bows in acknowledgment.

What I really admire about this story, in addition to further exposing Trump as a con man and shyster, is the compelling writing that propels the story along and makes it seem shorter than it is.

The story contains a waterfall of facts and figures, which, without good writing, would prompt many readers to give up. But the three main reporters — Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire — and their editors packaged and wrote it in such a way that a majority of readers, I suspect, will read it all the way through.

Let me give you some examples of the outstanding writing…

:: What the complex web of numbers and other data mean:

Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.

:: How his faltering finances may have influenced his entry into politics:

Indeed, his financial condition when he announced his run for president in 2015 lends some credence to the notion that his long-shot campaign was at least in part a gambit to reanimate the marketability of his name.

:: On the president’s actual and potential conflicts of interest:

His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor.

:: On his practice of carrying forward leftover losses to reduce taxes in future years:

That provision has been the background music to Mr. Trump’s life.

:: The main takeaway:

The picture that perhaps emerges most starkly from the mountain of figures and tax schedules…is of a businessman-president in a tightening financial vise.

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That the story is beautifully written should not be a surprise. The Times has the best writers in the business, and many have won major awards.

In 2019, for example, Buettner and Craig were part of a three-member team that won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigation that shattered the myth that Trump was a self-made billionaire. The third member of the team that produced yesterday’s story, Mike McIntire, also has a Pulitzer on his resume.

Here are thumbnail bios of the three:

Buettner

Buettner is an investigative reporter whose work has focused, since 2016, on Trump’s finances. He has produced notable articles exploring Trump’s record of failure in Atlantic City and overstating revenues from his businesses. Buettner joined The Times in 2006 after working on investigative teams at The New York Daily News and New York Newsday. He got his undergraduate degree from California State University-Sacramento, and he attended the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism.

Craig

Craig joined The Times in 2010 and since then has produced investigative articles on a wide range of subjects, including presidential politics and state-house corruption. Previously, she was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and worked at The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. At The Journal, she was the lead reporter on a team of writers who were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis. She graduated from the University of Calgary.

McIntire is an investigative reporter, author and editor. He joined The Times in 2003 and shared the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on covert Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. Earlier in his career, he was an investigative editor at The Hartford Courant, where he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer for breaking news reporting and was a Pulitzer finalist for investigative reporting on medical malpractice.

McIntire

He has also been a national writer at the Associated Press in New York and a reporter and editor at several Connecticut newspapers. He graduated from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and government.

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Finally, another element that makes this story so riveting is the main photo that accompanies it on The Times’ home page. (The photo is also on Page A16 in the print edition.) The photo, by Doug Mills, one of The Times’ best photographers, is a black-and-white image of a menacing-looking Trump sitting in the back seat of his presidential limo. The reader’s eye goes first to Trump and then to the presidential seal, directly below Trump, on the side of the car. The photo leaves the impression Trump is hermetically sealed in a black, steel cocoon.