The Sun Sets on The New York Times

Living overseas I would sometimes run into English colonialists. Left over from another time in India and Africa, these relics have stuck around in a country that no longer needs or wants them. They spend their days in British "clubs," sipping gin and tonics and calling waiters "boy" as a ceiling fan whirrs overhead and, outside, life progresses without them.

So it is with the New York Times. There is something almost cute about the way they puff out their chests trying so hard to assert their relevance after the media revolution came and changed everything they knew to be true -- the staff busy inserting themselves into a National Tragedy of their own making.

Don't get me wrong. I like the Times. I even prefer it. I like its international reportage and its op-ed page. I also like a frosty mug of IPA but that doesn't mean I wish India had never gained its independence.

Like an elderly Brit after the fall of the Raj, it seems the Gray Lady is too old to change. She prefers to sit in a chair on the veranda waxing nostalgic as the world moves beneath her.

You may feel sorry for the Times, so alone and vulnerable, at the bar in a safari hat. But remember, it was once powerful, seemingly invincible. It was, in the end, arrogance that brought it here -- a refusal to be of the "times" and to adjust accordingly. It seems the Times thought it was the only conduit for news. But it never owned that information.

So, here's one for the road.

Comments

[Singerman]

Well, in my territory, we said goodbye to the Rocky Mountain News last month. I found one alternative to it's Op-Ed / analysis section in a blog called Rocky Mountain Views. It's here:

http://www.rockymountainview.blogspot.com

[Singerman]

Whoops, it's actually:

http://www.rockymountainviews.blogspot.com

left out the 's'

[MPeter]

Thanks Jessica. That is exactly how I feel about the old lady. These guys once thought they had all the answers. They even once saw themselves as part of the ruling elite; they determined for us who our rulers should be....they thrived on endorsing and dissing our leaders. Now, let them eat crow.

[Witkacy]

Certainly Judy Miller (with the help of boyfriend Chalabi) did her little bit to help...