Posted on 04/25/2009 3:33:16 PM PDT by kellynla
The nation's largest left-wing newspaper and the bible for network news producers and bookers may be going under. This week, The New York Times announced more staggering losses: nearly $75 million dollars in the first quarter alone. The New York Post is reporting that the Times Company owes more than $1 billion and has just $34 million in the bank. A few months ago, the company borrowed $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at a reported 14 percent interest rate. With things going south fast, pardon the pun, Slim might want to put in a call to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
The spin from Sulzberger is that the Internet is strangling the newspaper industry, and there is some truth to that. Why read an ideologically crazed paper when you can acquire a variety of information on your computer? But other papers are not suffering nearly as much as the Times, so there must be more to it.
There is no question that the Times has journalistic talent. This week the paper won five Pulitzers. It's true that the Pulitzer people favor left-wing operations (the past eight Pulitzer Prizes for commentary have gone to liberal writers), but New York Times journalists often do good reporting.
The problem is that under Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller, the Times has gone crazy left, attacking those with whom the paper disagrees and demonstrating a hatred for conservatives (particularly President Bush) that is almost pathological. The Times features liberal columnists in every section of the paper, and they hit low, often using personal invective to smear perceived opponents.
That unfair and unbalanced approach has alienated a large number of readers and advertisers. According to a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, 46 percent of Americans define themselves as conservative. Just 34 percent say they are liberal. In this very intense marketplace, insulting half the country on a daily basis may not be a great business plan.
The Times company also has a major problem with The Boston Globe, which Sulzberger bought back in 1993. That paper is on the verge of bankruptcy and recently told its employees that it will cut their pay and health benefits. Since the Times and the Globe are big on "universal" health care, that caused some giggling in anti-Times precincts.
Over the past few months, newspapers in Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and Denver have either folded or filed for bankruptcy. With the exception of The Rocky Mountain News, all the papers were committed left-wing enterprises. The truth is that most Americans are traditional-minded folks. They believe their country is noble; they want respectful discourse. Fanaticism of any kind is not the American way.
The New York Times is most definitely a committed left-wing concern that is openly contemptuous of the conservative, traditional point of view. That is the primary reason the paper may soon dissolve. And all the cash in Carlos Slim's fat wallet is not going to change that.
Why can't Krugman save the business that writes his pay check???
Good riddance...
I can see an affluent liberal rescuing the paper.
Too much at stake to let it go into bankruptcy court. The NYT provides lots of union jobs as well as being a soapbox for a lot of prominent liberals.
Any one who still believes this is living in a fool's paradise. Look at the last election. Look where public policy has gone in the last few decades. Even when Republicans won it was just a holding pattern until the next lurch to the left.
Homosexual marriage was judged to be a constitutional right in Iowa of all places. Even the heartland has rotted out. Sorry, but the silent majority is dead, assuming they ever existed in the first place.
As for the New York Times, they're suffering from the same thing that every other print paper is suffering from. O'Reilly is just engaging in wishful thinking. Print media will die off, only to be replaced by a far more powerful left wing electronic media. There's no real cause to celebrate here.
That means they are insulting about 90% of all readers..
Iowa has been rotting out for a long time. The insane government subsidies for ethanol keeps Iowa leaning far left.
Grassley and Dung Heap Harkin as senators? Please.
Sounds like a great opportunity for a FREEP! :-) Too bad I’m way out here on the left coast.
There was some talk about the Boston Globe being under a May 1 deadline. This makes sense.
If they close it early enough, the employees will not have to take a vacation day to carry all those red banners in the big May Day Parade in Harvard Square.
I have argued for decades that “the Heartland” has been at least in part antithetical to traditional mores. Yes, they posture as traditionalists, but for the most part it has been the incubator for radical populist progressivism, aka communism. Minnesota was the home of Henry Wallace, the commie VP to FDR, and the state Dems are actually a watered down version of the CPUSA. Iowa has long been a hotbed of agrarian collectivism. Ditto Wisconsin, who IIRC was the seedbed from whence sprouted government indoctrination camps, aka “public” schools. All three of these places are simply leftist asylums, and I say this as a former Minnesotan. They mouth patriotism but when push comes to shove they vote commie. In addition, Minnesota “niceness” has rendered them incapable of imposing judgement on the crisis of islamofascism which has definitely taken hold in the Great White North.
Yes. Contrary to what this article suggests, winning a lot of Pulitzer Prizes is usually a mark of shame, not of quality.
It’s like the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe once in 5 or 10 years they give it to someone who deserves it, but that’s more the exception than the rule.
And there are few more incestuous relationships than the NYTimes and the Columbia School of Journalism. Essentially they are giving the prize to themselves.
Well...I have to wonder where folks are going to get such a high quality bird cage liner if they fail...
NOW is the time to send boycott letters/e-mails to advertisers of the NY Times, and put this evil rag out of business. Click for Boycott the NY Times:
I guess O'Reilly nodded off for the last eight years.
The Times and Globe going under is almost as unthinkable as the USSR going under. There is hope.
The Times has systematically destroyed most of its true equity, whis is its reputation and credibility.
The Gray Lady will never recover.
Good bye, and good riddance!
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