The Turkey Pardon Almost Ruined My Thanksgiving
This year, Trump pardoned Gobble and Waddle, which were chosen by the American people.
No one wants to work on Thanksgiving.
But when you’re a journalist, the news never stops, and we have to keep the website refreshed for you, our readers. So, reporters write something called an “evergreen piece.” It’s an easy piece of original content that’s not tied to any particular newscycle. We write it ahead of time and schedule it to post on a holiday.
Our Editor-in-Chief, Dylan Housman, assigned me my Thanksgiving evergreen piece: the history of the presidential turkey pardon. He told me it would be easy and fun, and I could write it the day before Thanksgiving (and somewhat quickly if I used Chat GPT to help me research).
Wonderful, I thought at the time. A much needed break from the toll of White House reporting.
As I sat down to write, however, I discovered the history of the presidential turkey pardon isn’t that simple. It’s complicated, and those who previously wrote about it don’t seem to know what happened.
Allow me to break it down: