Interesting NYT choice to paywall this op-ed 😄. It’s a stop-loss op-ed. I canceled a few months ago after nearly 2-3 years of steadily growing dissatisfaction.
Subtitle is interesting. Frames growing dissatisfaction as “mistakes”.
No it’s not “mistakes” in the case of the NYT. It’s a deliberate, skillful, and consistent pattern of choices on both news and op-ed sides designed to harvest the “newspaper of record” brand equity.
The op-eds are being used as a pay-to-play platform currency to co-opt any political actor with critical mass.
The reporting on non-culture-war sensitive stuff is deep and good as people expect from NYT.
Main political reporting, headline is always “we are preserving access”
The consequence of these choices is that NYT has effectively turned into a narrative protection racket and reputation laundering outfit. While NYT manages to hang on to “official newspaper of record” status with a shrinking audience it debases that status to extend brand life.
I keep hearing this thing about a civil war within NYT between old timers and young wokies. The latter being in the subscription revenue with clickbait, the former backstop the “newspaper” status with access journalism tentacles into White House etc. Symbiosis from hell.
Shades of Pelosi vs AOC in Congress. Generational war of control over a rapidly hollowing institution.
Both can be saved and are worth saving I think. Not sure how though.
I’d resubscribe to NYT if they figured out a more robust formula. No personal animus.
I’m too much of a pragmatist to expect a politically powerful newspaper to conform to a noble journalistic ethos but I expect a less cynical and unimaginative threading of the various needles.
The dangerous thing about the drift in the NYT is clear signs of growing contempt for, and even active hatred of, an empowered audience. Even as they become increasingly reliant on the crowd to determine what’s worth covering and how.
To be clear I haven’t read the op-ed since I no longer have a subscription. It’s apparently about local newspapers, not a look in the mirror.
I’m just riffing off the headline and subtitle since clearly they have a direct interest in shaping this conversation for themselves.
Good analysis. I stopped reading it after I invented a game: Find an article without one of these hooks: racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, greedy corporations (mini-Marx), Palestinians are victims. It's one of those games where everyone who plays loses.