There is something wrong at the New York Times | From presidential polls to refusing to report on Trump’s stumbles, things aren’t adding up at the Gray Lady
There is something wrong at the New York Times
The NYT Strikes me as an organization that would rather attempt to continue to exist under Trump than try to fight the rising fascist tide he's riding.
They've always been that high on themselves, and they've always been pragmatists to the point of standing for nothing except their own gravitas.
They're sort of like the old Italian man in Catch-22:
"I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I am an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American."
The only difference is that, as you note, NYT's focus is on their own gravitas. Their goal isn't merely survival, but to maintain their image as an authoritative voice in national affairs. And they do that in large part simply by currying favor with whoever currently has the biggest coattails.
Yep, they see which way the wind is blowing, and they'd rather be the one interviewing the fuhrer than be dismantled for unflattering words during his ascent.
I'm sure they genuinely, self-masturbatorily believe they are the peak of journalism, but in abandoning the journalistic cornerstone of informing and serving the public trust, they're anything but.
I'm old enough that for me the NYT lost a lot of credibility with their cheerleading of the Iraq war and WMDs and serving as a tool for Cheney to get revenge on a whistleblower and all that shit. The same organization that is now writing haikus to avoid saying Isreal massacred starving civilians in their headline, "As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll".
The simple fact is a second Trump term is good for the NYT. Trump does crazy shit, people are outraged, they buy newspaper subscriptions to read about it. The NYT monetizes doom scrollers, and Trump is a endless supply of doom.
So is it money, or is the NYT always just been a mouthpiece of neocons? Or both.
they've always been pragmatists to the point of standing for nothing except their own gravitas
Well said. Their reflexive need to “both-sides” even the most one-sided issues ultimately helps normalize the most extreme viewpoints. It’s what made me lose faith in them.
Also their headlines are consistently absurd, to the point of often being inaccurate. Remember around the 1 million mark, when they said Covid had caused countless deaths and then proceeded to tell us how they counted the deaths? Words mean certain things, and their meanings matter. Don’t use “countless” if the thing is countable.
Exactly.
objectivity ≠ equivocation
A murderer and their victim don't both have a valid point.
not to nit pick but COVID deaths happened by way of COVID exacerbating other illnesses, so saying someone died of COVID is difficult when they really died of COVID exacerbated Pneumonia. So saying "Countless" deaths, and then giving a number of COVID associated deaths isn't entirely inaccurate.
It's even simpler than that. The paper is class aligned. It's something run by something like a 4th generation rich kid.
Back when the stories broke that the CIA helped to fund itself for their Contra operations by smuggling cocaine into America they helped protect the CIA because they were angry that a small time paper and Gary Web broke the story instead of mainstream media.
There are declassified CIA documents talking about how helpful the LA Times and New York Times were on helping them cover up the scandal. They were worried about the continued existence of the CIA with everything coming out but mainstream media came to their defense unprompted.
Imagine how many lives would have been saved if we shutdown the CIA.
For sure. They're pretty open about prioritizing access over truth.
It has less to do with "being (...) high on themselves" and more to do with the reality.
We have a former president who led a violent insurrection against the government in an attempt to lynch the vice president and anyone in congress who he didn't like. The military actively ignored it and significant parts of the government are protecting him for it.
pretty much the next time republicans have power (trump or no trump), heads will roll: Literally. And if nobody is going to protect organization X on the way to that, why should organization X "fight the good fight" and paint a bullseye on their foreheads?
We see the same with a lot of branches of the government. When the best you can hope for is to have your career torpedoed (and the more likely outcome being you and your family literally getting torpedoed), why are you going to fight a losing battle?
Journalism is more important than any journalistic organization. The NYT has clearly forgotten that reality. The best journalists often put themselves in harm's way to shine light on ugly realities, and their country doesn't usually need to be falling to fascism to do so.
The NYT is good at protecting themselves at the cost of good journalism. Better to survive as a shiny brand than burn out as as journalists at a journalistic organization, I suppose.
pretty much the next time republicans have power (trump or no trump), heads will roll: Literally. And if nobody is going to protect organization X on the way to that, why should organization X “fight the good fight” and paint a bullseye on their foreheads?
In theory, we all hang together or we all hang separately.
The gamble that execs at the NYT appear to make is that they can ingratiate themselves to Trump for the six months to two years of his relevancy, and he won't hold any grudges or notice the knife they've got waiting for him the moment his approval rating falters.
Maybe they're right. Trump is notoriously easy to distract. But he's increasingly surrounded by folks with better political playbooks, deeper pockets, and a longer memory.
The Wordle people have a journalism outlet???
Games like that are a key part of how they pay to run the news outlet.
Lmao it's pretty good too as long as you remember it's class aligned to the wealthy.
You really do have to get into the mindset of a yuppie NYC writer who went to Brown to get the full experience
They aren't "the wordle people", they are the people who purchased wordle, an existing good idea gaining popular traction. Same as musk is not the "tesla or twitter people".
This is why I always LOL when some far right (or some kind of "moderate" NPC) person starts up with the "liberal media" in reference to the likes of NYT.
Seriously, people need to POINT and LAUGH at such things being taken for granted. Exactly how is NYT in any meaningful way "liberal"?
They are in fact liberal, just at the other end of the spectrum to what right wingers mean.
Maybe this isn’t the place for this but, I do pay for their website, and some stuff is quality. However, even as a paid user, I’m subjected to CONSTANT, and I mean CONSTANT aggressive ‘upgrade’ offers. I was even thinking to post to mildlyinfuriating about it. I did the math a bit back and it was something like every 3-4 days since 2022 that they send me emails pushing me to upgrade from their least expensive plan. Not to mention forcing me to reject it anytime I clear my browser cache and have to re-log in. Also when I’m on the site I’m subjected to it. It’s frankly disgusting. When it comes to marketing they are only marginally better than Condé Nast 🤮🤮🤮
Weird. I'm a paid user and I've never once been encouraged to upgrade anything.
I've got just about the lowest pay option too, so you'd think I'd be a prime target.
I use the app and a desktop browser (but with adblock). Where do you see them?
Yeah I don't get anything either. I normally always just try to cancel when my subscription is up and they offer me an even lower deal than normal, like $1 per month or something.
I appreciate the detailed link, but I do understand profit chasing. They’re just super aggressive about it. 🫠
The Times/Siena poll also somehow comes up with 12 percent support among Democrats for Rep. Dean Phillips, who has yet to get more than two percent of the vote in a primary. Even Phillips himself posted a tweet that said “When the NYT/Siena poll shows me at 12%, you better believe it’s flawed. Only 5% even know who I am.”
It's like in those ninja movies where the guy stabs his sword through himself in order to kill someone behind him.
The only polling I even partially trust is aggregated and adjusted for quality (like 538). And only a month (...or a week) before the election. Polling is broken and only getting worse, for many reasons. But I guess there is money in it, so it continues until it's worthless.
This is a great article. I was skeptical at first, because I used to consider the NYT one of the best journalism outlets in the country. But the author here does an excellent job of laying out the evidence for why I get more and more of a bad feeling from my former gold standard.
The polling issues are just inexcusable and nonsensical. Their sample seems highly unrepresentative of the population, to the point that it makes me wonder if it was on purpose.
Would've been nice to have people speak up about this when they were spreading lies about trans kids, or WMDs in Iraq, or Iran Contra, or any of the other million and two instances of them abusing their position to protect the powerful and oppress the powerless, but yeah, the New York Times sucks. Not as bad as a Wall Street Journal or a Fox News, but they're just as stupid and shallow and sensationalist as CNN, and definitely below reputable outlets like NPR/PBS and the Guardian.
That all being said, this poll was likely pretty accurate considering it parallels what a bunch of others are saying (archived)
A day after Democrats dragged a New York Times/Siena College poll that showed the president falling 4 points behind his likely Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, in a general election matchup, Sunday brought an additional three major surveys also showing Trump leading amid broad and deep dissatisfaction with the incumbent.
Don’t worry, the democrats are going to turn this around by telling you it’s your fault for being unhappy with them! 🫠
Yeah. They are the news of the New York coastal elites. That’s not to imply that New Yorkers are elitists, they are, but this isn’t the random New Yorker who thinks they’re better than some removed in Cleveland. They’re the newspaper of the sort of people who the left hates having to share a party with. The ones who would rather discuss “the trans issue” with “respected academics” like Janice “eradication” Raymond and Ray “doesn’t believe in bisexuality” Blanchard than with actual trans people even philosophers and academics like Natalie Wynn, Janet Mock, Julia Serrano, or even the late Leslie Feinberg. These are the people who get whipped up into frenzy and go to war because capital was attacked and still are uncomfortable praising John Brown’s methods. They’re the ones who will say they resisted all they could while kissing asses and risking nothing, but occasionally wagging a finger and tutting, but if it comes to socialism or barbarism they will always choose barbarism and blame the socialists for their choice.
It's not even good toilet paper.
Well not since they fired Judith Miller for lying about the Iraq war
Sorry, we replaced all the actual journalists at the NYT info desk with Ross Douthat, a junior officer at the IDF, and six copies of the latest ChatGPT software.
The place that Judith Miller called home is a cesspit of misinformation and bias?!?
This is my complete lack of surprise. I have no clue why anyone takes the NYT seriously.
The problem is that they have huge distribution and much of what they publish is in fact an honest attempt to get things right
I don't think there's a conspiracy at the NYT, at least because they're never going to pass as a conservative organization. Pessimism about Biden won't change that.
My guess is that, like many people, they're panicking in slow motion. It's hard to maintain your composure when you think your nation and your way of life are seriously threatened, but then things look worse when you panic.
I don't think there's a conspiracy at the NYT, at least because they're never going to pass as a conservative organization. Pessimism about Biden won't change that.
The New York Times is absolutely a conservative organization. They supported the Iraq War including with an infamous series of articles that included, more or less, outright fabrications. They along with the rest of the mainstream press shit relentlessly on people like Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders whose wild popularity among voters is due to him being much better-aligned with their political views, in opposition to either the center-right or the far-right-sorta-Nazis that are the two choices that exists in modern Washington. I haven't looked at their coverage of Gaza but I'm sure the viewpoint it begins at is horrifying.
I like Biden and I like the New York Times. But in most places in the world they'd be a conservative paper. It's only because the Overton window has shifted so, so far in this country that they're considered as some kind of liberal bastion because they occasionally report the truth instead of slavishly fawning over the leader like some kind of Belarusian hack.
I think if you define mainstream Democrats as center-right, then by that standard the NYT would indeed be a conservative organization. However, that's beside the point - even if you call it conservative, it's still clearly an organization that does not support Trump. Some doom-and-gloom about Biden won't change that reputation, especially since he'll get their official endorsement. (They haven't endorsed a Republican presidential candidate since Eisenhower in 1956.)
shocked pikachu you mean the media is slanted and not honest? who could have known?
Your take is non-specific, unhelpful and wastes energy towards a valid frustration about a SPECIFIC issue.
These type of comments might feel cathartic to you personally, but they ADD nothing for the people around you - in fact, they deflate the energy of some people that might be moved towards some meaningful action in response to that valid frustration.
So fucking knock it off, please.
How about you just don't tell other people how to feel and react to something on an open forum? IDGAF if you think it's helpful or cathartic. It's MY comment, on a board that is open to anyone to comment on. So stop trying to dictate how other people feel and how they choose to respond to that.
Mind your own fucking business.
shocked pikachu you mean the people on the internet are randomly mad about what other people say on the internet? who could have known?
who the fuck is the "grey lady"? Never heard that before
It's a nickname for the New York Times.
It’s been the nickname of the Times for over a century.
I’m sorry, no mention of the following re genocide in Gaza?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piDVPUicgKo&t=1358s
Fuck that rag
The premise of the article is that no one here was alive and could read in 2016.
Yeah. NYT is effectively a pro-trump spin machine. No shit. So is every other corporate news sewer hole.
A lot of current voters were too young to vote and not paying attention in 2016.
Like 15%, sure.
Sorry the NYT's centrism isn't left-leaning enough. But, that's kinda the point.
When Republicans and Democrats disagree about whether it is sunny or raining, I don't want a news outlet to split the difference; I want them to look outside and see what's actually happening.
Y'all need to vote for Trump this year so we don't have to do this again 4 years from now. He'll have hit his 2 term limit and will simply retire to his estate.
No
But....think of the memes....and Jon Stewart was retired for some fucking reason last time. It'll be the funniest show in the history of forever....If Biden wins Stewart will just retire again. You don't want that, do you? The last guy replaced him sucked. Maybe Colbert will start being funny agai....no nevermind, that didn't happen last go round.
