David Remnick said on Sunday's "This Week" that Michael Bloomberg "detests" the New York Times.
The panel on the Sunday morning news show was talking about the sale of the Washington Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. During a discussion about what Bezos might do with the newspaper, Remnick said, "Mike Bloomberg is a great innovator, but I've have to say, I've heard straight from the horse's mouth that he detests the New York Times... Mike Bloomberg thinks that the New York Times has an opinion page on the front page and he loathes it."
He jokingly added, "Now that may be the function of being covered day after day and having an ego —"
"I can't imagine that any New York mayor thought differently," George Will responded.
For years, it's been rumored that Bloomberg wants to buy the Times. He has denied those reports, and the Sulzberger family has also said that the Times is not for sale. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. stressed that point again recently — telling staffers, "The Times is not for sale" — after Bezo's purchase the Post prompted speculation about whether the Times would be sold next.
On Sunday, Remnick also noted what the Times is not for sale, but said that families like Sulzbergers and Grahams supporting newspapers are the "exception" in the print business and speculated that Bezos could be the "wizard" who keeps newspapers running.
That the New Yorker editor said Bloomberg "detests" the Times comes as no surprise, as the two have clashed many times before, especially over the NYPD's controversial programs. In April, Bloomberg defended the police department's stop-and-frisk policies and wagged his finger at the media, claiming that the Times criticized the program while ignoring the shooting death of a teenager in the Bronx the week before. "Do you think that if a white, 17-year-old prep student from Manhattan had been murdered, the Times would have ignored it? Me neither," the mayor said.
The Times also criticized Bloomberg over the NYPD's Muslim surveillance program last year.
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