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!

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Comments

[fabrom]

Once upon a time, we could rely on the NYT to carry on intelligent discourse. That ceased several years ago. I ceased reading the NYT when they became shills for the invasion of Iraq. The hiring of Kristol is the logical extrapolation of that idealogy.

[Ramus]

"We Cannot Recognize Our Country"
NYT Laments Over America In End-Of-Year Editorial" And they hire the uberneocon idiot Kristol? It doesn't occur to the NYT that Kristol is one of the reasons the Times can't recognize its country?

I am currently out of the country. Americans are not popular.

[westwind]

William Kristol has been wrong about everything he has said regarding the US's biggest foreign policy disaster. Thousands of US troops have died, multiple thousands more have been wounded, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died and been maimed, our country is being bankrupted by it, and world economic stability is being jeopardized by it.

A thoughtful and realistic commentator would see the problems with an action that he loudly advocated and modify his pronouncements. But Kristol is neither thoughtful nor realistic, and he now wants to make an awful situation ten times worse by invading Iran.

If this is the ideologue that the New York Times is hiring, it shows how far they have fallen. Their editorial writers today bemoan the fact that they cannot recognize their country, as if the "reporting" of Michael Gordon and Judith Miller, as well as the editorials kowtowing to the administration in the run-up to the Iraq war had nothing to do with facilitating it.

The New York Times has proved itself to be a friend to chickenhawks everywhere, and so it's probably fitting that they hire William Kristol.

[Jacksonian]

If the Times is looking for diversity of opinion, I have four very opinionated cats. They mostly think I am wonderful but view everything else with suspicion and a predator's instincts. Bill Kristol mostly thinks George W is wonderful but views everything else with suspicion and a predator's instincts. My cats will work for kibble, catnip, and fuzzy toys. So you see they're every bit as opinionated as Bill, but at a fraction of the cost.

[Pete22]

I too was stunned by the news that the Times was giving space to Kristol. I would have thought that one totally discredited neocon (David Brooks) was more than enough for any newspaper, let alone the Times. People say that if you don't like Kristol's column, just don't read it and, indeed, I haven't read a single piece by Brooks since he began a column a few years ago with a perjorative sentence mentioning both Tom Delay and Howard Dean in the same breath. But the problem is twofold: Kristol will be taking up space that could be better put to use by a more thoughtful and less beligerent writer, and the column gives Kristol undeserved recognition.

I don't mind the Times having conservative columnists (I used to read William Safire regularly), but I DO mind that the Times is hiring a conservative without recognizable principles. Unfortunately, these days it's difficult to find ones that do, but that's hardly any excuse for the Times to stoop so low.

[evesegal]

Great email. As soon as I saw the announcement online Saturday night I went to the NYT subscribers' page and cancelled my subscription, telling them it was because they'd hired a fascist neocon warmonger. I followed up with a phone call today. As you say, it's merely the last straw. In reply to the phone rep's query as to why I was cancelling,I also mentioned Judith Miller and the Times's consistently pro-war imperialistic policy toward the Middle East.

[Nancyann]

Bravo. If my husband would agree to it I would cancel the NY Times also. Their political coverage is blatantly pro Democrat and in The Dragon Lady, Hillary Clinton's pocket....­..

[bookish]

Ms. Reardon, does your husband have a blog? Link please? I'd like to read more of his thoughts. Thanks.

[Bladernr1001]

See, this is just another example of how the left in this country wants to squelch debate of both sides of an issues.

I think the Times is finally making a move towards more neutrality (they have been the mainstay of mainstream liberal bias for many decades). This is a good thing.

This is why conservative talk radio has become so successful. Publications like the Times rarely if ever tackle conservati­ve/liberta­rian issues. TV netwrok news is even worse. I think it is about time that the we air more conservative and libertarian viewpoints in the mainstream press. That will give everyone a more complete treatment of the issues. We need more John Stossels, Rush Limbaughs and larry Elders.

If you are going to whine, plug your ears shout and not even air out a view that opposes your own than so be it. That only means you must be not confident enough in your positions to defend them in open debate.

[DMM1029]

While I find myself in permenent disagreement with Bill Kristol on probably everything, absolutely no one can deny his honesty in the sense that he does not hide who and what he is. An old episode of Frontline, Behind Closed Doors, pointed this up quite well.

Dave McGlaughlin

[heyletsevolve]

It's just so disgusting to me to read today's mewling editorial in the Times -- posted on HuffPo -- bemoaning the sins and crimes of this administration. Who do they think they're kidding -- or are they kidding themselves? Do they also suffer from this sudden need to wash the blood off their own hands, like all these ex-Bush comrades now writing their books and saying "we didn't know!"

They knew, and they let it happen. Where was the NYT when Bush was stealing both his elections? That might have been a moment to actually do some reporting and expose to the world how the coup actually went down.

Now we are occupied and the Times graces us with it's impassioned, articulate overview of our demise. Ah, thank you. Thank you so much . . .

[Wintergreen4President]

If memory serves, the NYT motto used to be "All the news that's fit to print." Unfortunately, Kristol does not fall into that category. Op ed commentator or front page journalist, he taints everything and anything he comes into contact with.

[wadenelson1]

2020: The New York Times, once considered America's "newspaper of record" and now reduced to nothing but a crossword puzzle, ads, and Bill Kristol op-ed pieces, today filed for bankruptcy.

[clumberfeet]

Let William Kristol speak.
He is his best worst enemy.
You mat be surprised how many people don't just read and believe.

[UltraClassic]

The NYT readership is going down the tubes. Taking Krystol on board is obviously an effort to boost their patrons.

I don't see the problem. If a paper can have Maureen Dowd, why not William Krystol?

You folks that are so upset, use this as an opportunity. Krystol's pieces will be widely published which is all the more opportunity to shoot his stuff down. What's wrong with more ideas and opinions? Maybe the wider Mr. Krystol's opinions are published, maybe the more public his detractors may become and maybe the more public he can be defeated.

Sorry, I'm a "glass is half full" kind of guy.