On February 8, Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report describing President Joe Biden as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" and “diminished faculties.” Although Hur concluded that criminal charges against Biden for mishandling classified information were not warranted, his assessment of Biden's mental state prompted a media firestorm. 

In the days that followed, the nation's most prominent media outlets described the report as "a political disaster," "a political nightmare," "damning," and  "a devastating portrait of an 81-year-old president," among other things. Few of these articles mentioned that Hur, a lawyer, was utterly unqualified to make judgments about Biden's memory, which requires medical expertise. Between the release of the report on February 8 and March 12, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal included Hur's assessment of Biden (a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory") in 66 separate articles, collectively.

But then, before Hur's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, a transcript of Hur's interview with Biden — which took several hours over two days in October — was released. It reveals that Hur's description of Biden was, at best, simplistic and misleading. Yes, at a few points, Biden struggled to immediately recall the exact details or dates of events that occurred years earlier. But overall, Biden had no issues responding to questions from Hur and his team. 

While Hur said that Biden had a "poor memory" in his report, during the interview, he remarked that Biden had a "photographic understanding and recall" of the layout and contents of his lake house in Wilmington, Delaware. 

Another aspect of Hur's report that attracted media attention was Hur's contention that Biden "did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died." But Hur did not mention, when the subject came up, that Biden immediately identified the month and day of his son's death. 

Biden was initially mixed up about the year of Beau's death when he told the story about how he decided to run for president in 2020. But, within a few seconds of being corrected by an aide, Biden said that Beau died in 2015. The exchange was not compelling evidence of a diminished memory. 

At other times, Biden demonstrated a remarkable recall of the most mundane details of his schedule as Vice President. At one point, one of the prosecutors working with Hur asked Biden if he remembered the purpose of an appointment on his calendar from 8:30 to 9 AM on February 16, 2017. Biden responds that it was a physical therapy appointment for his shoulder. 

Upon release of the transcript, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all acknowledged that Hur's assessment of Biden during the interview appears flawed or incomplete. The New York Times described Biden as "clearheaded" during the interview. The Washington Post concluded that Biden "doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be." And the Wall Street Journal found that Biden was "not stumped on basic factual questions." 

The media's incomplete coverage of the transcript

Yet, despite publishing dozens of articles promoting what these outlets now acknowledge is an incomplete or misleading portrayal of Biden's mental capacity, the outlets’ coverage of the transcript was inadequate. 

The most damning aspect of the transcript was Hur's assessment that Biden had a "photographic understanding and… recall" of certain information. While the precise language was likely puffery, it completely contradicts Hur's later declaration that Biden had a poor memory indicative of mental decline. 

Yet, only the New York Times included this critical anecdote in its own coverage of the transcript and Hur's appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. It was included in the last sentence of a 2,500-word article by reporter Charlie Savage that appeared on page A13 of the paper. The "photographic understanding and… recall" comment was also published by the New York Times as part of a transcript of a joke by comedian Stephen Colbert, in an online blurb by a member of the paper's editorial board, and in another article riffing on the transcript.

The "photographic understanding and… recall" comment was referenced once on the Washington Post website in a story that the outlet syndicated from the Associated Press (AP). But that story does not make it clear that Hur made the comment. "Biden gave Hur a 'photographic' overview of his home, long discourses on his political life and humorous asides about his sports car," the AP wrote. The comment was not mentioned at all in the Wall Street Journal. 

Biden's comments on Beau's death in the transcript received slightly more coverage in all three papers, but the outlets continued to suggest at times that the incident reflected negatively on Biden's mental capacity. "Mr. Biden did have difficulty recalling specific dates, most strikingly when he fumbled in remembering the day his son Beau — who succumbed to cancer in 2015 — died," the New York Times wrote on March 12. The Washington Post reported that "Biden was attempting to get his chronological bearings and wondered aloud when, exactly, it was that his son died." 

The Wall Street Journal's news coverage of Biden's recollection of Beau's death was the most comprehensive and accurate. "Biden correctly recalled the day and month of Beau’s death—May 30—and when an aide corrected him that Beau had died in 2015, he acknowledged the mistake and described how the family tragedy weighed heavily on the decision to run for the presidency," the outlet noted. But a column by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board blasted Biden for failing to "name within several years when his son Beau had died" without mentioning that Biden knew the month and day. 

None of the outlets mentioned that Biden could recall the purpose of a half-hour meeting on February 16, 2017, from memory.