Is there any precedent for what’s been happening to the NYT?
I mean all media is struggling, but something uniquely dark has been happening at NYT and it’s only accelerated since Trump
The problem may be they take themselves way more seriously than any newspaper should.
Accounts of inner drama remind me of the Fry and Laurie “John and Peter” sketches where a couple of small businessmen act like masters of the universe.
Guardians of Virtue in this case.
They’re just not that important. The whole “newspaper of record” tag is like flattering an elderly uncle at a wedding as the Oldest Family Member.
It’s gone to their head. Very apres nous le deluge airs.
The long-running conflict with tech is actually a minor sideshow and a symptom at best. The main tragic arc is in their mainstream reporting and op-eds. Trying to have your woke and Trump it too for 5 years will give you cancer.
If you follow @balajis you will probably have the filter removed... he writes that they are a direct competitor to tech platforms. Clubhouse seems to be a theater of operation where nyt reporters and tech people have gotten into tiffs. S/t like that.
The sad thing is, where it doesn’t touch their fucked-up areas, they still have the deepest reporting machine on the planet afaict. There’s just a shrinking number of “safe” topics it can be productively pointed at where their integrity is not compromised.
As many have observed for a few years, just shutting down their op-ed side entirely would be a start, but unfortunately that’s the clickbait in the business model right now. They can’t sell the news without it, they can’t keep it honest with it.
I *suspect* what’s at stake in this meta-story is that they they think they’re presiding over some sort of epochal transformation of the conversational norms that define “the public” but haven’t yet noticed that they’re now marginal to any coherent notion of “the public”
The whole tragedy-farce hinges on their apparent internal belief that everybody else takes their cultural cues from them and that what they decide on cultural trends is determinative and dispositive. This hasn’t been true for at least 10 years.
Dutch public broadcasting (NOS) has shifted markedly to the right (to the point of publishing Soros conspiracies and Breitbart talking points) while insisting they maintain a both-sides-ism.
I think the BBC has also had some issues but haven’t watched it in forever.
i think this is tied to a broader nyc specific elite bubble. was in that world for two years working on boards and CEO succession. all the elite people are all dependent on each other to keep the story of their status alive. everyone is addicted to knowing whats in favor.
Where's the money right now? people talk about the golden age of newspapers where you could live in Paris and write a piece every month for a living wage - where does that fat exist right now? Influencers? substack writers? grifters?