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

[oldgeek1]

This is the kind of naive commentary that was shopped around months ago, when saying the same thing about GM and Chrysler. If you read the papers (and I guess you don't want the NYT to be one of those) the nuclear option now has Congressman who screamed for the auto companies to go bankrupt are now trying to stop the affects.

Life is easy from the cheap seats. Read any paper in the country, the NYT is a major source because they have excellent reporters. If you want to read about cat's being saved from a tree or local fires, then you should support the failure of our major papers.

Life is easy from the cheap seats.

[dotsthefunist]

The cheap seats comment exposes your id.

[oldgeek1]

Exposes my id, hardly. I read the Washington Times, Post, NY Post and Daily News, the Boston Globe and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal daily. If you think that excessive than you under estimate how essential print news is in business and commerce.

Only large Newspapers like the NYT can afford staff's of investigative reports who can make a serious attempt to gather and check facts, do they on occasion make mistakes yes, but they are more reliable than most.

Fox, MSNBC are driven by ratings and have clear bias. If you want entertainment confine your selves to that or the blogs.

The loss of the Times would be a serious loss and that is a fact and not bias.

[Clavis]

Since the press is protected by the Constitution as an essential component of a free and democratic society, maybe the press shouldn't be owned by a tiny self-interested cabal of billionaires who have little interest in anything other than greed and hegemony? Gee, just a thought...

[corwin]

Clavis,
Not a very profound though,though. First, define the press. Radio, tv ,only print?
Secondly, who would you suggest own it? The government, perhaps ?Diffidently, I disagree?
I know, maybe a union. The San Diego paper is being pressured by a union that owns stock in platinum to change their editorials to make them less in favor of reforming the public unions in Calif.
Maybe you'd like to put up a few bucks to help?

[amebaby]

I thought his name was Punch. Was that a funny?

[levee]

I don't care about Jason Blair. It'd be a crime if that little snafu got used as some sort of seminal moment of decline. The times has always been a 3-steps-behind rag that has damaged progressive efforts by being perceived as liberal while really being only punditesque. You reap what you sow, and the times has sowed a long trail of nonsense. bye-bye, and good riddance.

[nycwerewolf]

"All the best writers write for the Times...An­d...There'­s no debating that."

Yeah right!

Great post, John!

[Derek Flood - Huffpost Blogger]

Considering Friedman, who is arguably the Times biggest "celebrity­"/journali­st, recently stated to foreign policy wunderkind Parag Khanna on MTV Innerview (in a highly sarcastic tone) that people should "Never forgive him" for his still remorseless advocacy of the Iraq invasion, the future of the Times as a viable institution does not bode well. Friedman still believes he held the moral high ground on Iraq, failing to mention the untold number of civilian deaths in Iraq since March 2003. Much of the Times reporting, particularly in late 2002 and early 2003, is a record of mortal shame. Considering how much the Sulzbergers invested in their prized Baghdad bureau, it almost seems as if they had just as much an interest in Iraq's perpetual chaos as other more scandalous cooperate interests operating in the war zone and nearby support countries. As Mr. Ridley states, "Let it fall" in the most brutal Darwinian fashion and hope it drags foreign policy Luddites like Friedman down with it. News is a business after all.

[neem]

Who is the government going to bail out next? Fox News? If people don't want to pay for the New York Times, what is the justifiction of FORCING them to pay for the New York Times, via their tax dollars?

[CenterOfMass]

What are you referring to? I don't see anything in this post that claims that the government will bail out either the NYT or Fox News. Ridley is simply listing his perceived benefits to a failure of the NYT.

[praxitas]

"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 most recently, david sanger on iran

[sufi66]

The Times has seen its troubles and I don't know how I feel about its ultimate demise, but through the years it has stood for general progressive ideas-- although I wished it was more radical in approach.

Nevertheless, it's been right more often than it's been wrong. Overall, an excellent, well-written newspaper.

We will be worse off without it.

[CHRISSYLEE]

Yes!
I will miss the Fashion section!

[cplKlyde]

Yes the Washington Post

[klondiker]

This is a rather misguided post. You are confusing strategic, business errors made by NYT management, with editorial mistakes made by editors. Unless you have concrete evidence that management has been involved in influencing editorial policy (which is a huge accusation), please refrain from mixing these two up.

And, in typical hysterical exaggeration, you end up stating that the paper is somehow worse than the Fox News. You really lost me there.

[sufi66]

Right, The Times has made mistakes, but it is hardly FOX.