What if the New York Times Did Not Exist?

It would be grand if the New York Times folded. Good riddance to what has become bad and smelly (not to mention increasingly one-sided) garbage.

Age of typewriter was doomed when somebody invented transistors. WWW foretold the death of media of yester years. Gone is the age of elitist and ideologue pulpits that transmitted news as they saw fit. Now media is truly a cooperative and decentralized enterprise, truly of the people and by the people. So death of old behemoths is a natural evolution. They will not be missed and soon forgotten.

Mass media was made possible by technology and ultimately devoured by technology. Advent of TV created mass audiences and unified experiences that media never ever had before. But the same media soon ended up creating fragmented niche audiences, be it within newspapers, tv channels, tv programming. The fragmentation was taken to its logical conclusion by advent of internet and blogging. Fragmentation means there will no longer be any big overreaching players in media - it does not mean people will not get their news and information - it merely means we will not have consensus on what is considered news worthy and how news is interpreted among media. People will have nth level of choices in news content and interpretations.

It is ironic that life and vitality of liberal media depends on commercial advertisements generated by capitalism it so despises. Liberal state too depends on taxation of wealth generated by capitalism it so despises and persecutes. Goes to show liberal institutions can not survive on their own and if they kill capitalism, they too will have to die. Its time for Obama to bail out capitalism so liberalism can survive. Not sure NYT can wait that long.

Ruvy:

"It would be grand if the New York Times folded. Good riddance to what has become bad and smelly (not to mention increasingly one-sided) garbage."

Yup! For sure, we need the Torah Times, the Quranic Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor (yelp! it does exist) and The Hindu (yelp, that exists too!). OK, rewind and re-tape. We do need more newspapers that bring news that do not contradict so-called "revealed" bullshit of the Quran, the Bible, the Torah etc. that prophets such as Ruvy and Kerty wallow in.

re: the perfidy of the media, and them pretending to bring us the news, here's an interesting clip of michael moore ripping into CNN:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/michael_moore_rips_wolf_blitzer_on_cnn%3A_%22why_don%27t_you_tell_the_american_people_the_truth%22_%5Bvideo%5D/

media shenanigans...

enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bf3bp72G3Y&feature=related

media crap? enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrvrfG0zE6E&feature=related

so i guess the question is: what if michael moore did not exist??

(well, we will always have ruvy and kerty, but these gentlemen are exceptions)

BD,

I think the NYT's problems are more self-inflicted, than a victim of technology. IMHO its liberal bias and democrat lean has pushed many readers away, who now thanks to changing technologies, are better informed and have alternate choices.

My theory could be flawed, since the majority of voters just elected the most liberal President in history.

Here's some Rasmussan polling data.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

New York Times, Washington Post, and Local Newspapers Seen as Having Liberal Bias

"Among the print publications in the survey, the New York Times is perceived as being furthest to the left. Forty percent (40%) of Americans believe the Times has a bias in favor of liberals. Just 11% believe it has a conservative bias while 20% believe it reports news without bias."

Also from Rasmussan:

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

"Just 24% of American voters have a favorable opinion of the New York Times. Forty-four percent (44%) have an unfavorable opinion and 31% are not sure. The paper's ratings are much like a candidate's and divide sharply along partisan and ideological lines.

By a 50% to 18% margin, liberal voters have a favorable opinion of the paper. By a 69% to 9%, conservative voters offer an unfavorable view. The newspaper earns favorable reviews from 44% of Democrats, 9% of Republicans, and 17% of those not affiliated with either major political story.

The Times recently became enmeshed in controversy over an article published concerning John McCain. Sixty-five percent (65%) of the nation's likely voters say they have followed that story at least somewhat closely.

Of those who followed the story, 66% believe it was an attempt by the paper to hurt the McCain campaign. Just 22% believe the Times was simply reporting the news. Republicans, by an 87% to 9% margin, believe the paper was trying to hurt McCain's chances of winning the White House. Democrats are evenly divided.

In terms of its ultimate impact, opinion is more mixed. Overall, 30% believe the Times article helped McCain, 34% believe it hurt, and 29% say it had no impact. A plurality of Republicans believe the article helped their party's presumptive nominee while a plurality of Democrats held the opposite view."

Also...

July 13, 2006

Total Dysfunction at the New York Times

By Jed Babbin

"The New York Times's publication of two classified anti-terrorist programs and the Times's nose-in-the-air defense of its actions have inflamed conservative anti-media passions to a temperature not reached since Watergate. Michael Barone - who was fair and balanced before Fox News was born - put it in perspective. Barone compared NYT executive editor Bill Keller's explanation of the Times's decisions to, on one hand, not republishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed with those to, on the other hand, publish both the NSA terrorist surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking terrorist money through the Belgian "SWIFT" consortium. Barone wrote, "Disclosing classified programs that help protect us against terrorism is just dandy. But publishing cartoons that would be 'perceived as a particularly deliberate insult' by Muslims is beyond the pale. Coddling tender sensitivities is more important [to the New York Times] than protecting national security."

More here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/tumultuous_times.html

And my personal favorite:

Monday, August 08, 2005

New York Times: A Study in Dysfunction

http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2005/08/new-york-times-study-in-dysfunction.html

Ciao Guido

so i guess the question is: what if michael moore did not exist??

(well, we will always have ruvy and kerty, but these gentlemen are exceptions. I forgot to add Guido, who while ignoring how all the media caved in and became an arm of the government during the rush to the invasion of iraq, complains, like his fellow-travelers, of a "liberal" bias in the media. Sorry Guido, didn't mean to ignore you)

qommonsense isn't aware that The Hindu is a left-wing newspaper. This is like if Rupert Murdoch were to start a paper called The Socialist. Just because it has a particular title, doesn't mean that it's editorial leanings tilt towards that direction.

I'll be glad to see this Euro-centrist rag collapse. Their advertising base has been shrinking, because more and more people get their news online, from a variety of sources. That's a lot better than everyone being spoonfed by the NYT empire. More differing viewpoints being read means a fuller and healthier awareness of issues.

Sanjay:

""qommonsense isn't aware that The Hindu is a left-wing newspaper.""

just as you are unaware of sardonic sarcasm...

I didn't detect any in your remark. You must be doing it wrong.

I didn't detect any in your remark. You must be doing it wrong.

I second Ruvy.Good riddance to bad rubbish

for prophets such as ruvy, so-called revealed holy texts are sufficient for news about the past, present and the future too.

for mere mortals such as us, NYT and other newspapers are good enough, if we do not swallow everything they put out, hook, line and sinker, but read between the lines. an approach that is applicable to any media, be it mainstream or on the fringe.

NYT and other newspapers are good enough, if we do not swallow everything they put out, hook, line and sinker, but read between the lines. an approach that is applicable to any media,

I see, "comradesense". You would sentence yourself to a future of reading all newspapers as if they were Trud or Pravda. This is your choice, for you. You may walk on this path, comrade. Don't trip on the propaganda!

Having seen a once respectable newspaper of record sink to the level of an overblown partisan rag, I would rather see the internet age inter the trash before it stinks too bad or does too much damage.

if we expect newspapers and other media outlets to simply duplicate our thoughts, our views, our prejudices and biases, there is no need for anyone of us to either consume them or wish them dead. we can just choose to exist in our own delusional bubbles.

We are all entitled to expect a newspaper of record - not a blathering tabloid, mind you, a newspaper of record - to report the truth. The New York Times is nothing but a blathering tabloid for the banking élite in New York. The WSJ, a trade paper at bottom, has to report something closer to the truth. People make investment decisions based on its content. They read the NYT to flatter their egos on how smart they think they are. If the WSJ doesn't report a reasonable facsimile of the truth, its readers will just walk away - and the advertisers will follow.

Ruvy,
You only care about the NYT's ridiculous bias when you're affected by it. Indians have been complaining about NYT's overwhelming and vicious slant for a long time. The NYT slant against Israel has only been there since the late 90s, when C Howell Raines decided to vilify Israel after the Oslo "peace process" broke down.

The NYT is doomed, and I for one will be cheering its demise. They're not built on journalistic integrity, but on Atlanticist/Euro-Centrist bias. And as the NYT collapses, I'm hoping that the fiction of Wilsonianism will collapse with it.

if we expect newspapers and other media outlets to simply duplicate our thoughts, our views, our prejudices and biases, there is no need for anyone of us to either consume them or wish them dead.

better still, start your own newspaper and name it THE TRUTH or something like that. problem solved.

Sanjay,

Ruvy, you only care about the NYT's ridiculous bias when you're affected by it. Indians have been complaining about NYT's overwhelming and vicious slant for a long time.

I have been reading the New York Times since I've been in the fourth grade - around 1960. I first noticed its biases (against Israel) after Israel won in 1967. I noticed its further biases when it covered the Biafra rebellion in 1969-70 with the bias towards the Nigerian regime. As the paper representing the rich Jewish assimilationist establishment in New York thirty years ago and further, it vilified Rav Meir Kahane, z"l, hy"d. I'm not an Indian, so I would not know why you have complained about its biases.

I've seen a great newspaper of record slowly slide down till it has become little better than the propaganda rag of the bankers' élite today. Let the internet age inter it. Good riddance to bad garbarge.

Ruvy:

""and further, it (NYT) vilified Rav Meir Kahane, z"l, hy"d""

so you admit it is not biased?

By the way, the correct spelling is (Mr.) "jekyll" and "hyde", even though Meir Kahane had only a single personality: a racist thug and NYT described him as such.

qommonsense,
Kahane never killed anyone, nor did anyone from his Kach Party or from the JDL. This is in contrast the murderous Egyptian Hamas-supporter who assassinated him. That should tell you who's more dangerous.

Back on the subject of NYT, they're not paying their bills, and that's the bottom line. If they're such a popular publication to read, then they should be able to maintain the requisite readership to sustain their so-called journalistic operations. But they've long since fallen out of favor with the US public, and have been living on borrowed time.

People want choice in what they can read, and they want a healthy mixture of opinions so that they can make their own choices. NYT doesn't provide anything like this - instead they've arrogated themselves the ritual of forcing one narrow set of opinions down everyone's throat. People are tired of this, and have decided to move on.

Nobody owes the NYT their money or their reading time. The NYT hasn't caught up with reality, and is now paying the price for their narrow ethno-centric ambitions.

Pro-Pak types like qommonsense may feel a sudden love for NYT because they want to piggyback on its ethno-centric agenda. This is not unlike how Pak use to boastfully call itself USA's "most allied ally" when it found it useful to similarly piggyback on the US. I see this as yet another sign of hypocrisy from their camp.

Ruvy, how come you don't remember people like A.M.Rosenthal, former NYT editor, who still had column space right upto his death? Even today, you can see the odd Op-Ed piece from the likes of Israel stalwarts such as Ben Stein. But the Euro-centrist Cold War NYT has been against India since the 1971 War.

sanjaytheatheist, yah, diddly doo.

nice reply, qommonsense

about the same as everything else that comes out of you

Sanjay,

Truth of the matter is that after 1974, I stopped following the NYT that much. I could see only anti-Israel editorials and condemnations of Jews who weren't pork eating violators of Jewish law who were dying to assimilate into American society and run away from their Jewish identity. Teh NYT ceased to be worth the expense to me. The general trend of Ha'aretz follows what the NYT was thirty-five years ago. Which is why it is filled with so much anal-retentive trash.

And why it is so extensively quoted by anti-Israel (and therefore anti-Jewish) writers here.

I realize that the antipathies felt by Pakistanis toward India and Indians and vice versa are grounded in centuries of hostility, conflict, death and persecution; viewed that way, the history of the last 61 years on the Sub-Continent is only the cherry atop a cake of pain and tragedy consumed by most of its inhabitants. But my ignorance of the region at the time of the 1971 war ending East Pakistan was such that I would not have been able to discern bias in the reportage of the NYT.

It was only in the mid-seventies that India became real to me in the face of a Christian from Madras with whom I worked in an office in Manhattan.

So, Sanjay, I apologize for my ignorance. New Yorkers are generally provincial in nature, believing that the sun rises in the Long Island Sound and sets in the Delaware River. I was not much different from my counterparts in those days.

"Truth of the matter is that after 1974, I stopped following the NYT that much."

Thanks for the clarification. So much easier to be a fanatic when you only read what you agree with, isn't it?

"Truth of the matter is that after 1974, I stopped following the NYT that much."

Thanks for the clarification. So much easier to be a fanatic when you only read what you agree with, isn't it?

Ruvy, maybe the Chinese will buy the NYT, to remove its last fig-leaves of "independence":

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/13/china-global-media-oped-cx_rm_0114meredith.html

At least when the Old Gray Lady fully embraces the lifestyle of a kept woman, she can roll in the lap of luxury that she's become accustomed to.

as i said, and keep repeating like a parrot, if you are expecting your views/prejudices/biases to be reinforced by newspapers/media, create your own. If your pet newspaper is toeing your line of fanaticism, you are wasting your money buying it and time reading it. simply commonsense.

most thinking folks (your truly for example :-)]do not in ever expect any media/newspaper to spill the unadulterated truth nor to reinforce what we already know.

NYT, like other mainstream newspapers, is hit and miss. good columnists such as Paul Krugman, plus reasonably broad coverage of news.

The reason it is on the decline is because of the "chaney khao mast raho crowd" or "don't worry be happy" crowd, who do not have a sustained interest in serious news. And of course, the likes of Ruvy and Sanjay who were apparently born with built-in news atennae. For Ruvy, news transmitted directly from God of course!

sanjaythatheist, yah twooo diddly doos to yoooo tooo

At least when the Old Gray Lady fully embraces the lifestyle of a kept woman, she can roll in the lap of luxury that she's become accustomed to.

You can extend that idea just a bit, Sanjay. When will the Arabs and the Chinese buy out the whole US of A? Or will the Americans decide to go to war on her creditors to eliminate the debts by killing off the creditors?

It's been done before....

Ruvy

When deficit was a hot issue under Reagan administration, I remember 700 club speaking about a way in Bible to write off deficit and start with a clean slate. Nobody took Pat Robertson's comment seriously than. But I am sure this time around, when America can't tax or grow out of deficit, it will be looking for creative ways to kill the creditors rather than the debt.

Ruvy,

I think the Libertarians like Ron Paul & Co have the right idea, that Americans must live within their means, rather than condemning themselves to a Sisyphian cycle of racking up debt and then looking for some stunt to get them out of that debt.

Krugman is exactly the opposite, preaching that the US govt must spend as heavily as conceivably possible, and resort to the magic snakeoil of protectionism to conceal from its own people their loss of competitiveness and comparative value in the wider world.

Ron Paul and Co point out that if it weren't for unaccountable institutions like the Fed, with their murky political-backroom linkages, then the US economy would constantly be in a state of correction, not allowing any catastrophic bubbles to build up in the first place.

But the Krugmans will hear none of that, and instead spend their time fuming that the US can't be saved without a regime change. Well, now that they've gotten their change, with Obama coming into the whitehouse, these same Cassandras are now shifting gears without missing a beat. They're now claiming that Obama's plans are not enough.
They're demanding that even more gasoline be poured on the fire, insisting that this is the only way to douse it.

No wonder the European-run Nobel institution awarded Krugman with a prize. He's a die-hard lackey, like fellow Nobelist Amartya Sen.

The US also further needs to to improve its anti-trust legislation to ensure that nobody becomes "too big to fail". That will encourage responsible corporate governance, by making sure the big guys can't distort the market truths and consequences with their weight.

Ruvy:

""Truth of the matter is that after 1974, I stopped following the NYT that much. I could see only anti-Israel editorials and condemnations of Jews who weren't pork eating"

yah! it's the pork stupid! pork is bad news.