“the paper of record”
That’s part of the problem right there.
They haven’t been the “paper of record” except in their own pompous out of touch minds, ever since the days of Walter Duranty, cheif apologist in Moscow for Stalin and gilding over of the Holdomor in Ukraine.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/
Mr. Jones, excellent movie on the subject made in 2019. He was the journalist who finally was able to break the story of the Holdomor, and inspired George Orwell to write his books.