New York Times editor Dean Baquet slammed cable networks Fox News and CNN, saying their "mix of entertainment and news" is "bad for democracy."
"Fox News at its heart is not a journalistic institution," Baquet said in an interview with Financial Times on Friday. "Megyn Kelly is a great journalist, Chris Wallace is a great journalist, but it is some weird mix of a little bit of journalism, a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of pandering to a particular audience . . . I don't think Roger Ailes will go down as one of the great journalists of his time."
Baquet said CNN was wrong to hire Donald Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a commentator, calling him "a political shill."
"I'm sorry, that is outrageous. I cannot fathom that," he said of Lewandowski's role at the network.
He said that the conduct of Fox News and CNN is "in the long run, bad for democracy and those institutions . . . This mix of entertainment and news, and news masquerading as entertainment, is kind of funny except that we now have a guy who is a product of that world nominated as Republican presidential candidate."
Neither network responded to the Times' request for comment.
Baquet moved on to the GOP nominee, who's heavily criticized The New York Times for its coverage of the campaign. The Times described Trump as having "clung" to a lie in September when he admitted that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
Trump tweeted his critique of the Times in mid-October:
"We are used to warring philosophies, but this is different. [Trump] is a guy who makes stuff up. I am not opposed to his presidency, that is not my job. But my job is not to beat around the bush when a candidate lies."
According to Baquet, the job of his newspaper is to be "tough, and ask hard questions of everybody . . . the remedy cannot be not to say those things about Trump."
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