.....one that causes people inside the Times to gulp—is that difficult, less-than-humble, not-ready-for-prime-time descendants of 19th-century newspaper owners have been the cause of the decline and fall of a great many newspapers.....
Ouch!! Ithink I see blood on the floor.
You have done a yoeman's job posting the news defining the Death Watch, but this is without doubt the best of all. Vanity fait.....just imagine the pain and suffering anf oughtright embarassment this piece will cause.
It's wprthy of a ping to all the old guys
This old guy still posts keyword additions to CCRM
Best regards,
CATFIGHT!!
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11724
From CHARLES KAISER: Michael Wolff's latest piece about the New York Times is an excellent example of the sensibility that informs all of his work: contemptuous envy. The article also highlights his nearly-pristine ignorance of the history of the media as well as an unquenchable appetite for non sequiturs.
A few examples: Wolff writes that because of its decision to become a national newspaper, "The New York Times is no longer principally a metropolitan paper...the Daily News and the New York Post, have far more readers in New York City" than the Times does. True enough; but Wolff doesn't mention that the Post and the News have outsold the Times within the city for at least thirty years, and probably quite a bit longer than that.
Wolff says the Times believes "some things should not be revealed because of national-security considerations, except when, in its own wisdom, it decides they should be." He calls this "its essential and contradictory defense." Actually, there is nothing contradictory about this at all. It is, quite simply, the way the Times exercises its news judgement, a concept which is clearly alien to this "critic."
Wolff claims that because Arthur Sulzberger Jr. exercises "editorial power," he has subverted "the traditional autonomy of the Times newsroom." Actually, there is nothing different about the way executive editor Bill Keller reports to Sulzberger from the way Abe Rosenthal and Max Frankel reported to his father. Most of the time, major news decisions are the sole provenance of the executive editor. Occasionally, when issues of extraordinary importance are involved, (the Pentagon Papers, or the Times recent N.S.A. story), the executive editor consults with the publisher. It has been forever thus.
Then there are non sequiturs like this one: "If this were the 50s, I asked, would he want the Times to buy a television network? "You bet I would," said Arthur." What is noteworthy about that? The Times was famously slow to get into television (and unlike the Daily News, never had its own New York City station) and it would surely be a more profitable company today if it had purchased a network in the 1950's. So what is Wolff trying to convey with this anecdote? I have no idea.
Full disclosure: I am a friend of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. I am aware that he has a few weaknesses as well as many strengths. But articles like Wolff's are both so vicious and so unfocussed that they aren't truly informative at all. They merely offer the author an opportunity to vent his limitless venom.
Heh; old guys eh? At the risk of commenting without having read the VF article(which I intend to do), could it safely be said this Wolff character is troubled by the wheels falling off the Times' wagon but by way of suggestion, he would like to see more grease added to the remaining hub??? IOW, another clueless "progressive"?