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Perhaps I'm sensitive to this because of my training and work as a fiction writer, but the use of 3rd person POV close to Trump in the lede of this article has the effect of humanizing his actions. Don't know if this is intentional or not. nytimes.com/2019/08/09/us/… 
When I teach narrative writing, we talk more about POV more than anything else. The place where the narrative intelligence rests has a huge impact on how the story is perceived. These are not neutral choices and they must be made with care.
The POV shift in the next two paragraphs winds up giving a very favorable spin to a photo-op that many believe to be "grotesque." By framing it through the uncle, we have a different narrative.
If I were responding to this as fiction, I would praise the way the narrative strategy establishes characters and situation and humanizes a main character who might be otherwise a deal breaker turn-off for the reader. It promises to contextualize his rage. That's interesting.
Interesting as fiction, but this is journalism. Is this "backstory" of Trump's visit an accurate and true account of the events that illuminates the situation in a way that leaves the audience better informed than it was when it started? What if it was told from a different POV?
Imagine instead framing it through one of the shooting victims or a nurse on the floor and the lede is instead about their reaction to Trump pivoting to a brag about his El Paso rally crowd size. cnn.com/videos/politic…
"Jane Smith, an ER nurse at El Paso General, was exhausted and ready to go home after an unexpected 36 hour shift following the mass casualty terrorist attack at a local Walmart. But she stayed a little longer for the President of the United States. What she saw shocked her."
There's strong odds that the above hypothetical reflects the experience of someone in that hospital at the time of Trump's visit. Choosing that POV would fundamentally alter the narrative that runs in the most important newspaper in the world.
I'm not arguing the Times should have sought out that other story, but they could have. And one of the reasons they didn't is because the reporters who wrote the story have access to admin insiders who are eager to leak the internal scoop and gossip. That's a tempting story...
While it's a tempting story, I think it's worth asking if it's the right story, or if there needs to be more stories surrounding it. One of my personal frustrations with the Times is their seeming inability to break out of the patterns of how they cover things.
If the journalists are not aware of how the POV framing effects the reception of the narrative then I don't know what they're teaching in J-school and everyone who writes news should go get an MFA in fiction. If they are aware, why are they making this choice?
It's a juicy story for sure, but let's not be blind to the fact that Trump's staff is feeding this gossip to the journalists in order to try to influence Trump's behavior and/or preserve some personal distance from the terribleness of his presidency.
The Times is being used as a conduit and laundry service and they must know it. They must. But they don't care because they're convinced this is how the news is to be reported. They're not right about that, though.
These patterns of how power and influence and access have been in place forever in journalism, but it's Trump who puts them in such stark relief. We see his monstrousness with are own eyes, but power/access journalism legitimizes and normalizes it, daily.
There's a recent interview with Dean Baquet, exec. editor of the Times that I think is telling. Here he talks about the need not to "characterize" Trump's comments when he attacked four congresswomen.
But of course, it's impossible not to characterize when using the narrative techniques in the article linked at the top. The POV choice quite literally characterizes Trump's actions through Trump's point of view. This violates the Times stated goals when reporting "news."
I'm also not arguing that we shouldn't have narrative-style journalism, but I am irritated that the Times can claim one standard for news and another for "backstory." They don't seem to be thinking particularly deeply about the implications of their own work.
