The (NY) Times tumbles down

National Post ^ | 5/31/03 | Matt Welch

[Timesink]

Which ones would those be? I guess you can count the NYPost as being somewhat right wing but beyond that which ones?

My guess is he means the New York Sun, a tiny paper of about 18,000 circulation that's only been around for about a year. It's very tiny in size too - one section, 18 pages day or so - but quite nice, though sadly, as you'll see from the above link, it's completely walled off from the Web unless you want to pay $1.25/week, which is why you never see a single article from it posted here on FR and also why nobody knows it exists. (They do offer a free four-week trial, no strings attatched, so you may want to sign up just to check it out. It is indeed staunchly conservative.)

Matt Welch is merely revealing his own biases by writing such a line as "three local tabloids and two right-leaning dailies" without explaining what the other "right-leaning daily" was. As you can see from his resume, which I posted a link to a couple of responses above, he's one of several "A-List" webloggers trying to start a weekly Los Angeles newspaper. So he and a certain few other bloggers were just rapturously celebrating the launch of the New York Sun last year, because it gave their own little business plan some hope. I'm sure that in his own mind, the Sun is absolutely as much a Regular New York Daily as the Post or the Times. However, it just isn't true. Most New Yorkers don't know the Sun exists, and won't for a number of years, at the slow rate the Sun is growing.

[mewzilla]

...can be forgiven for finding this notion laughable and borderline offensive...

Borderline?!

[sauropod]

All the news that's fit to slant...

[libertylover]

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg wrote... "It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Times defines public reality."

This arrogance explains the stark contrast of the "red states" and the "blue states".

[txzman]

"The Saint Paul Pioneer Press and The Plain Dealer [of Cleveland] will soon begin sending letters asking people who have been written about in their pages if they had been covered accurately."

Why am I not convinced that this might get mis-used in the wrong hands?

[Tom D.]

"A week ago, if you had asked 10 Americans about the journalistic significance of the word 'dateline,' nine probably would have said 'that stupid entertainment show on NBC.'

"Now, after Times reporter Rick Bragg was caught filing evocative feature stories with datelines from cities he barely visited, and two weeks after Blair was outed as an out-and-out dateline fabricator, it's a household word."

It's probably a good time to buy stock in motel chains that have a lot of motels in small towns. If a reporter actually has to spend time in the place where his story originates, there is going to be increasing demand for rooms in places like Murphy, North Carolina. I'll bet that after Bragg's admissions every reporter in the country will have to actually spend time in Murphy to write about the Rudolph capture.

I expect that we will get some stories about price goudging by mom and pop motel chains next.

[duckworth]

I used to be a reporter at a Western Pennsylvania daily newspaper. The editorial page editor would sit at his desk twiddling his thumbs until the New York Times came in. He'd just about jump over his desk to get to it. I'm not kidding. So I wondered what all the hullabaloo was about and tried to open myself up to it. Even as a pup I thought its reputation was unwarranted. It sounded like some boring pompous guy at a party that you couldn't stand listening to. And I was shocked that it does not have a comics section. Really.

[shrinkermd]

Celebration and and joy in their suffering is premature here. The Times is quite successful financially and is becoming more so. The Times, like CNN, is increasingly perceived as an international news organization not a national one.

I agree with all the criticism of the Times, that it is liberal, out-of-touch and so forth, but the real issue is the Times goals of international recognition and financial progress to the point of monopoly.

[jocon307]

"[A]nyone know the newspaper situation in Connecticut?"

The best known Ct. paper is the Hartford Courant, which has been around a long time. I have found it to be typically liberal when I have read it. There are probably some other papers there, but I don't know what they are.

[Freee-dame]

bump

[habs4ever]

I can only think the other right leaning paper would be the WSJ....

[Maigrey]

It's the paper they all want to work for and, in the meantime, emulate.

"Its authority ... isn't just journalistic; it's downright ontological,...It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Times defines public reality."

Man, someone sure is full of themselves. Maybe they are stuck in a time warp.

Even when I was wanting to work in the newspaper industry, I didn't want to work for the NYT. I wanted to work for USA Today's Sports bureau.

Besides, maybe he doesn't realize that readers are down, advertising is down, and people can just as easily get their news from better balanced and ethical media.

[Savage Beast]

"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Times defines public reality"

No. Truth defines reality--public or otherwise.

"Why are journalists so glum? Because The New York Times is their gold standard."

I don't suppose it occurred to them to set truth as their standard.

[Savage Beast]

"The Times sets the news agenda that everyone else follows."

"Our basic awareness of what is going on in the world derives in large part from the Times."

This, of course, is an acknowledgement that the American "newsmedia" is a propaganda organ that speaks with one voice and from one point of view.

And this is exactly why the American public sees it as ridiculous and holds its so-called "journalists" in such contempt.

Evidently, all this is beyond the comprehension of these "journalists".

[festus]

;"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Times
;defines public reality."
;
;This will certainly come as news to the "public," 99% of
;which doesn't read the paper.

Roger that. 'Till the Blair scandle broke I thought the NYT was 'just another newspaper'. One that, based on the few stories I'd seen from it, was either completely delusional or else a mouthpiece for the office of misinformation.

I had no idea that they were "the grey lady" or "the paper of record".

Exactly who believes such lines ? Oh right. The editors at the NYT.

[qam1]

BTW: You forgot to add the Staten Island Advance, and the Bergen Record (Nearly as bad as the NYT). People in Westchester tend to read the Times and the Post. "Snoozday" is as boring as Lawn Guyland (I delivered it as a child) and the Star Ledger is good for Paul Mulshine (my dad delivered it when it was the NEWARK Star Ledger).

Actually I used to like Newsday a long time ago (10 to 15 years ago). The Daily News you can read in about 5 mins and the Times was always the Liberal rag it still is today and back then the Post was the daily version of the National Enquirer. Newsday used to be the only paper that had any substance. Unfortunately they tried to break into the NYC market and for some reason they thought they had to go ultra left and they hired (stole) many of the most Liberal "Journalist" from the Daily News and other papers. It was a big failure of course and they had to reduce their ciculation back to just Long Island (and Queens). It was really funny because a lefty journalist goal of course to be in Manhattan and now all these elites were stuck in the middle of nowhere(to them)on Long Island. Apparently Newsday still hasn't changed and is a left as ever.

As for the Bergen Record, I was thinking of it but it's just a cheap clone of the Star Ledger.

But Paul Mulshine?????? I guess compared to the rest of the Ultra liberal Star Ledger you can call him Right Wing, But for what I have seen he is just another liberal writer. Some of his recent coulums include

» Rick's views on rights are best kept private
» The right should back local filters on smoking
» Hating the French is a waste of time
» Smoke-free bars? I'll drink to that

Actually It seems lately all he writes about is How wonderful the NYC smoking ban is and how evil and rotten smokers are.

[Timesink]

Celebration and and joy in their suffering is premature here. The Times is quite successful financially and is becoming more so. The Times, like CNN, is increasingly perceived as an international news organization not a national one.

The New York Times company, which is large and diversified, is successful financially - though it's been meandering back and forth in the same $10-15 range for the last three years, and not particularly growing at all in terms of strength or power, much less marching forth towards any sort of information "monopoly", which is impossible in today's world anyway.

The New York Times itself, however, just the one newspaper, is losing circulation hand over fist, and that was well before the first news started leaking out about Jayson Blair.

And frankly, its "reputation" overseas is irrelevant, since it sells almost no copies outside of the United States, and over there they're just preaching to the choir. If their reputation is becoming "enhanced" in Europe, it's only because Howell Raines has pushed them so far to the left that the America-haters are finally accepting the Times now that they're "towing the party line." Since this is the same push to the left that is, eventually, going to cost the Times so many paying readers here in the US that Raines will eventually be overthrown and some sort of semilegitimacy restored to the paper, I can't get too worked up about it.

[Timesink]

I can only think the other right leaning paper would be the WSJ....

Only the WSJ's editorial page is right-wing. Their newsroom is as liberal as any other big city daily's. The WSJ has, arguably, the single strongest "Chinese Wall" between the editorial page and the news pages of any paper in the country. They have little to do with one another.

[habs4ever]

The editorial page sets the tone for the paper and gives it a legitimacy and respect in the business community that the NYT would never garner.It's a well know fact that that page is the most read in America, ergo..it has the greatest influence, so to the shallow minds found in today's media, it is a "right leaning" paper.

[Labyrinthos]

When O.J. Simpson was ruled not guilty of murdering his wife, the United States discovered overnight the chasm of difference in perception between blacks (who found the verdict reasonable) and whites (who found it insane).

I'm one white guy who found the verdict reasonbable given the incredibly incompetent lawyering on behalf of the prosecution. They sucked and the police (other than Furman) weren't much better.