The New York Times: Let it Fall

There's been much hand wringing over the decline and potential total implosion of the New York Times. But, really, is there any news organization that would benefit more from being wrested from its family control and given new ownership than the Times?

The so-called "paper of record" has been, since its inception, insular and incestuous, and has remained so by design. A nifty covenant drawn up in the mid-1980s guaranteed that the family's stock in the paper could only be traded within the "The Trust" for decades forward.

This insured little opposition in January of 1992 when Arthur Sulzberger Jr. -- often called "Pinch," but rarely to his face -- became the 5th member of the Ochs/Sulzberger family to run the paper. And by all accounts, the least qualified. From poor strategic decisions (buying Abuzz.com in 1999 for $30 million only to shut it down, taking a nearly $23 million write down, a mere three years later) to lax oversight, Sulzberger has been to liberal nepotism as the Bush clan has been to the conservative kind.

The issue isn't just that under Sulzberger's leadership the Times has occasionally gotten stories wrong. You can't have the world as your beat and not make mistakes. The issue is that the Times has built up a culture that prefers celebrity above journalistic ethics. How else could you explain a cycle of flawed reporting from its "best" writers?

The Wen Ho Lee reporting. Howell Raines's crusade against Augusta. Jayson Blair. Rick Bragg (among others) doing the "toe touch." Judy Miller's WMD reporting. Judy Miller's Plame reporting (and her showy stint in jail. And, considering their close past, Pinch should have completely recused himself from another entanglement with Ms. Miller). The Kurt Eichenwald mess (did he finance kiddie porn?). Right on up to Dowd getting a pass on plagiarism and Friedman taking speaking fees from government agencies. In every instance there were editors and higher-ups aware that the reporting was suspect or going to print with minimal fact checking. And in every instance nothing was done until the scandal broke.

Fox News may be a hack outfit, but they're up front with their bias. And despite their lowered bar of expectations, can you honestly name as many scandals of significance perpetrated by their "reporters" over a similar period of time?

The Times would dearly and severely benefit from new leadership that was more responsive and responsible to their shareholders. In that regard, the paper cannot change hands quickly enough.

For more perspective please visit That Minority Thing.com.

Comments

[AngieMom57]

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[vanmungo]

The problem is not that The New York Times always gets it wrong--the problem is that the Times always gets it right, as in right-wing. The Times has long been a loyal servitor of corporate interests, although more explicitly so in the last quarter century or so, when it began to squeeze out indepdendent, liberal-minded elements in its ranks the better to present a solid wall of neoliberal dogma to the world. The worldview of the Times is "correct"--if you're a smug corporate liberal seeking to maintain the status quo. See the following trenchant analysis of the Times by the radical scholar Ed Herman (it's a two-part article, so there are two links):

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/12957

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/12964

[toocoldout]

They are a very liberal paper, they're only conservative when it comes to middle east, but that's more because of their ethnicty than their politics.

[vanmungo]

"They are a very liberal paper." I can see you didn't bother to read the material in the links I posted. If you had, you could not make such a preposterous statement about The New York Times.

Since you do not bother to support your assertion with any facts or examples, I can only conclude that you haven't really thought much about this issue--you just have a rote formula in your head that you keep recycling.

[LiberalBuzz]

I'd hate to see it fall. A few mistakes that are blown so far out of proportion as to be laughable hardly makes them worth falling.

If Fixednews was taken to task for their lies, made up stories and unbelievable bias as much, proportionately as the NYT, they would have been out of business years ago.

[kobio]

Don't forget the Jayson Blair mess.

[raker]

irrelevant. The Times didn't scheme to put a plagiarist on staff. Jayson Blair arose from a corporate culture problem. But really, who cares.

I do care about Judith Miller, lying to America on the front page of the paper, regurgitating neocon talking points that the White House used to say that even the NY Times supports them. Diabolical. But don't the bosses read their own damn paper? Are they afraid of their star reporters? Pretty stupid.

I also care about William Kristol, The paper wanted to ad yet another"conservative voice," so they picked the worst possible person, a key neocon pundit who has a track record of being wrong about absolutely everything. The Times's standard for choosing columnists has fame and provocativeness trump intelligence and talent? Pretty stupid.

Still, I find more of interest to read in one NY Times than I find in a week of Boston Globes. I hope it survives without having to reach way over to the right the way NPR does.

[brooklyncitizen]

Well at least they didn't hire Yoo.
But seriously we're not going to miss them.

[bigOther]

I've subscribed to the NYT for over 40 years. It is only a shadow of what it once was. The main problem these days is the editorializing inside news articles, often supposedly with a view to 'balance.' One horrible example occurred in coverage of a series of tributes that had been made to Ted Kennedy, some quite moving. In the middle of the article, we hear he had his critics: "Ann Coulter calls him a drunken, fat slob." This is criticism? or just a chance for a right wing blowhard to spout nastiness without any edifying intent. I don't get why the Times conceded, like all msm, so much to a right wing with so very little to say, that was so wrong on so many counts. What did they think they would get in return? Money? Love?

[ProfessorDuh]

Fox News, which bills itself as "fair and balanced, " is "upfront" ABOUT NOTHING, especially when it claims to practice journalism. It is a right-wing propaganda organization which exists to peddle falsehoods that SUBVERT journalism.
When the New York Times claims that Abraham Lincoln debated Frederick Douglass instead of Stephen Douglas, or changes the party affiliation of a congressman caught in a sex scandal in order to smear the political party they always target, or cites the "Paris Business Review" as evidence of its claims, you just let me know, will you?

[gaudete]

Professor Duh (well named).

Of course Fox New is not fair and balanced, that is their little ironic joke on you and yours, sorry you are not able to perceive such humor. They ARE balanc-ing, against your nyt, washpost, latimes, bglobe, cnn, nbs, cnnbc, cnn, npr, cbs, etc. etc.. but you and yours cannot perceive that there is such a thing as balancing, because in your Pravda eyes, there is only one Truth.

[research]

Fox is the official Plutocrats channel.

Robber Barons trying to convince the peasants to work hard and submit.

Which you do gleefully.

[ProfessorDuh]

You can't balance the truth with lies.
The Republicans have waged a long campaign against journalism — denouncing it, infiltrating it, faking it, extorting it, distorting it, planting prostitutes in it and telling every manner of lie about it.
Spring-boarding off right-wing radio ranting, in 1996 a propaganda TV news channel, Fox News, became the Pravda of the Bush White House.
Even Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted that corporate media reporters had willingly rolled over for the Bush lies that caused war.
The rescue of Private Jessica, the “enemy attack” slaying of Pat Tillman, the fall of Saddam’s statue, the WDMs — all were lies planted in the news by the Bush administration.
To fake news, they added fake journalists. They bribed columnists. Local TV stations aired propaganda generated by Bush PR hacks that the stations pretended had been prepared by real reporters.
The $200-an-hour male prostitute named “Jeff Gannon,” a/k/a James Guckert, was able to get daily access to the White House press briefings for two years while working for a hack right-wing “news service.”
“You couldn't find a more revealing measure of the state of the dominant media today than the continuing ubiquitous presence - on the air and in print - of the very pundits and experts, self-selected ‘message multipliers’ of a disastrous foreign policy, who got it all wrong in the first place,” Bill Moyers said.

[ProfessorDuh]

You can't balance actual reporting with falsehoods.
The Republicans have waged a long campaign against journalism — denouncing it, infiltrating it, faking it, extorting it, distorting it, planting prostitutes in it and telling every manner of lie about it.
Spring-boarding off right-wing radio ranting, in 1996 a propaganda TV news channel, Fox News, became the Pravda of the Bush White House.
Even Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted that corporate media reporters had willingly rolled over for the Bush lies that caused war.
The rescue of Private Jessica, the “enemy attack” slaying of Pat Tillman, the fall of Saddam’s statue, the WDMs — all were lies planted in the news by the Bush administration and trumpeted by Fox News.
To fake news, they added fake journalists. They bribed columnists. Local TV stations aired propaganda generated by Bush PR hacks that the stations pretended had been prepared by real reporters.
The $200-an-hour male prostitute named “Jeff Gannon,” a/k/a James Guckert, was able to get daily access to the White House press briefings for two years while working for a hack right-wing “news service.”

[aramos]

Morally the Times has been bankrupt for years, the paper is just catching up!

[brooklyncitizen]

Excellent.

[nhs76]

Just so long as they don't take away my Sunday crosswords.

[oldfuzz]

The NYT is what it is. Of course adding bleeding-heart liberals like William Kristol to the team certainly makes it more left-leaning than before, but I can filter out his socialist bias by relying on the hardcore centrist commentary of David Brooks. What would Sunday be without a pot of coffee and the Times after Temple (Humanist, of course).

[research]

The Medium is the message.

Paper news is obsolete.

The message of the NYT is based on it's history of paper distribution.
The NYT can make the transition to a net news site, but their legacy message may impede them.

[TommyMcCarthy]

For exactly as many years as I've been reading the Times...........I've been hearing that "the old grey lady" is alternately:
A:) a right-wing rag dedicated to the preservation of the status quo.....and/or
B:) a conduit for the dissemination of the views of the liberal elite

.....occasionally from the same critics!

Methinks they must be doing something right.

Mr. Ridley's assertion that fox is "upfront" about their bias doesn't pass the guffaw test.
tm

[Darcman]

"Fox News may be a hack outfit, but they're up front with their bias. And despite their lowered bar of expectations, can you honestly name as many scandals of significance perpetrated by their "reporters" over a similar period of time?" Wow! Your kidding right? Whatever you think the Times is guilty of magnify that 10 times and you have Fox News! Sean Hannity to this day still tells people we did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! Not to mention the most obvious question people like you don't seem to have an answer for! If newspapers go under where are you TV people going to get your content info from? R u actually going to go to Darfur yourself?

[LiberalBuzz]

Magnify it ten times?

How about a THOUSAND TIMES?

[Yozac]

fox news is up front with their bias alright, everybody knows that even if they think they don't...haha

[RealistDem]

Fox "fair and balanced" News is upfront about their bias?.......sorry you lost me right there.