My Husband's Farewell To The Times

My husband, Chris Noblet, just sent this to The New York Times. Feel free to use it as a model for your e-mail to them.

"I have read the Times for over three decades, have many times been a home subscriber, and have been a premium internet subscriber since you offered the service. Many times, I have emailed friends and associates with interesting Times articles. Many years, in many places, such as Connecticut, Manhattan and California, I subscribed to the paper edition of the Times.

As a former journalist, I admired the Times immensely. As a corporate communications professional for many years, I worked with the Times on numerous occasions, and in the last 15 years have been very disappointed to see the slippage in the quality and objectivity of your reporters.

I accepted, even occasionally admired, William Safire. I accepted David Brooks.

All that said, if you hire William Kristol, it will be the final cut. You will have betrayed everything I have ever admired in the Times. I am serious about this. I will terminate my email and any premium subscription. I will no longer purchase the Times or the Herald Tribune at newsstands. My interest in the success of your publication will cease, and I will get all my news from elsewhere. Any regrets I may have will be assuaged by my knowledge that your hiring of that arrogant, blockheaded, smirking, war-mongering scumbag proves you have finally lost your way."

I probably would have left out "scumbag." But it wouldn't have been easy!

See also

Comments

[Karin]

Writing to the Times and decrying Kristol's politics may just make Rosenthal dig in his heels harder. Here's another angle: conflict of interest. As far as I can determine from my reading, Kristol is an advisor to John McCain's presidential campaign. According to the Times own Ethics Handbook, journalists who work for them are not supposed to be advising political campaigns. I haven't seen any announcement that Kristol is giving up his advisory position. How about it people? This is what we should be complaining to the Public Editor about.

[CarolinaDem]

The kind of postmodern relativism that can view Kristol's as a 'conservative point of view' instead of as the propagandist that he is utterly misrepresents what is at stake. Right to speak is one thing; legitimation of a set of beliefs contrary to the national heritage is something else. Printing his letters honors his right of free speech; hiring him as an opinion writer legitimates his beliefs. He wants the powerful to be able without restraint to protect their power, and he calls it 'ours'. hah.

[novowel4me]

I must be one of the few people who doesn't read the New York Times for it's editorial page alone. I actually read for overall content not only the Times but every other newspaper I can latch onto in the course of a day. Usually it takes about 30 minutes to peruse a major newspaper front to back (OK, in the case of the SF Chronicle - 15 minutes). The NYT keeps me occupied with interesting information for the duration of the flight from SF to LA (not including the crossword puzzle). As for editorial content, I expect the Times to deliver a diversity of opinion some of which I despise.

[BenMurphyNYC]

Anyone interested in protesting in front of the New York Times?

[pbziegler]

The Times, like The Nightly News on NPR, provides a lot of he said/she said and not a lot of deep investigative searching for truth. So hiring Crystal is just more of the same. The man's an idiot first, and a dishonest idiot second. Love it when he goes on John Stewart pimping his books while Stewart makes a complete fool of him. Well, actually Bill does a good job of making himself the fool without needing any help from Stewart. I do think its worth letting the Times know what you think of Crystal however.

[rienzi]

wah wahhhhhhh the times is hiring bill kristol so i'll stop reading after 30 years wahhhhhhhh

no you won't - i guarantee you won't . . . i don't care - i'm a proud liberal, and i don't give a rat's ass that they hire that moron - one column isn't going to ruin the times people

it'll say more about you then it will about the grey lady if you yank your subscription because they hire bill kristol - period

[moderationsmuse]

Here's a Kristol quote I found on Weekly Standard, dated 12/31: “We are now winning the war. To say this was not inevitable is an understatement. Even those of us who were early advocates and strong supporters of the surge, and who thought it could succeed, knew the situation had so deteriorated that success was by no means guaranteed. Two military experts told me early in 2007 that they thought the odds of success were, respectively, 1-in-3 and 1-in-4. They nonetheless supported the surge because, even at those odds, it was a gamble worth taking, so devastating would be the consequences of withdrawal and defeat.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/518ffvyn.asp

Kristol says that the US is winning the war in Iraq. The pretext of the remark is a quip about Newsweek's Person of the Year feature, and his pointed comment about their not choosing Nancy Pelosi.


Here's Kristol's idea, a specific assertion. Are we winning in Iraq? Debate, anybody? Would winning in Iraq be a good thing? Etc.


Lots of ideas to discuss. I think we could let the ad hominem go.

It would be more generous to argue why Kristol's ideas are mistaken rather than to indulge all this venting.

[sgk]

Besides letters to the editor at the Times nytimes.comimes.com), you may also send a comment to Andrew Rosenthal, Editorial Page Editor via email: nytimes.comes.com.
He has been quite curt in his responses, criticizing readers of a lack of tolerance re:Kristol! Keep the pressure on the Times.

[rich3324]

Will the Times call Kristol's columm "I don't know dick, and I get to write about it.

[tkondaks]

Uh, gee folks, I could be wrong but in the early days of the HuffingtonPost, wasn't Bill Kristol one of its columnists?

[Garee]

Maybe with this misstep the "tail" will lose some of its power over the "dog". I have always been tired of the east coast telling the rest of us what we think. Maybe we'll cancel all of our subscriptions to the east coast media monstrosities and find some other means of making our own minds up. Kristol is certainly motivation enough to begin this process of introspection.

[Rachel36]

The Times readership has been on a steady decline for many years with help from Judith Miller and Jason Blair. May be Bill Kristol this is the anchor they finally need to sink them leaving the door wide open for a Wall Street Journal style buy out.

So long dear friend; I used to like you but no more. '-(

[factanonverba]

I wrote the NYT two days ago to voice my dismay and received this reply:

Thank you for your e-mail concerning Bill Kristol. We appreciate your interest and your taking the time to let us know how you feel.

Mr. Kristol's column will be appearing on the Op-Ed page, where we offer a range of diverse opinions -- often differing from our own editorial opinions. Given that we are a news organization that believes in vibrant political discourse, we have brought Mr. Kristol on board after a long and thoughtful search through the ranks of strong conservative voices.

Will you -- or will we -- agree with him? Probably not very often . . . but that is the point of offering multiple views and providing
intellectual diversity. We hope the column will engender open debate and discussion in the democratic tradition of newspapers. And we hope that you will continue to read and to express your views to us. We very much value your readership.

Sincerely,

Catherine Mathis
SVP, Corporate Communications
The New York Times Company

What strikes me is the phrase "ranks of strong conservative voices." Apparently David Brooks and Thomas Friedman (I know he thinks himself a liberal, but he is not) are not enough. I wonder if Mr. Kristol's competition included Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin. Still I do expect a veritable war in the op-ed pages with Mssrs. Rich, Herbert and Krugman.

[mpeck3]

I too have canceled all contact with the NYT.
The new "conservative" columnist being hired is just too much to take. It has been years since I began thinking the Times was slip sliding dangerously close to losing importance. The many failings listed in the above comments one could hope were odd moments of libo-conservo panic. But, now, the Poor Times has sealed its fate. Serializing Mein Kampf over several months would benefit us infinately more than the new columnist ever could hope to. Times...I hope you enjoy "Mein Idiot"

[gcalknet]

Mrs. Noblet must be very proud of her husband's closed mind. He can still read the unreasoning comments of Krugman, Rich, Dowd, etc. to offset the attack of credibility offered by Mr. Kristol.