Roger L. Simon: The New York Times' free fall is a good thing no matter what side you're on

New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt takes his own paper to task this morning over the NYT's coverage of John McCain's putative affair and supposed bias in favor of a lobbyist. Excuse me for going psychoanalytic, but there was something weirdly self-destructive in the newspaper's behavior on this matter.

I cannot believe that an intelligent man like Bill Keller was entirely unaware that most people would be repelled by the thin gruel his paper published - even though he evinced astonishment at the huge number of negative comments, including many from Obama supporters, that appeared on their website. Others may say he and his fellow editors were just unconscious of the way people think, but I am not convinced. As evidence I offer the simple fact that they were for months reluctant to publish. Was the imminence of The New Republic story on the inside deliberations at The Times the trigger? Maybe partly. But again I suspect there was more to it. The New York Times is run by human beings, like everything else, who are subject to the same conflicting cocktail of motivations we all are.

The Jayson Blair affair, of course, was damaging to the paper, but I suspect the fallout here will be worse, since we are in the midst of a presidential campaign to determine the leader of the Western World. I don't think this necessarily means any kind of shakeup in editorial staff. It means something more serious - the continued degradation of the newspaper's already weakening reputation.

And this is a very good thing. No matter what your politics, for too many years The New York Times has had far too much power over our national discourse for one outlet. No media source should have that much authority in a democracy. We need, pardon the expression, a thousand flowers to bloom. I know Bil Keller agrees with that, because I have heard him acknowledge it. He was clearly under considerable pressure from his reporters and editors to publish this unprofessional nonsense. Why did he finally pull the trigger? I submit that he may have done so, at least in part and most likely unconsciously, to shoot himself and his own institution in the foot.

Comments

Comments require registration through TypeKey. Abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Roger Simon.

Not a perjury trap because he wasn't under oath, but McCain's blanket denial of ALL charges in the NYT story will come back to bite him. Within the declining journalistic ranks of liars, hypocrites and buffoons, the Times has idol status. These sycophants will pursue the charges contained in the Times hit piece to the ends of the earth in order to rescue their biblical "news" paper from the pyre of ridicule, AND see to it that the Republicans lose come November. Washington Post, Newsweek, Boston Globe, NBC will attack him relentlessly over the lobbyist. Next: the Times will begin a relentless "women at Augusta National" campaign, except this one will be front page for six months. Every criticism of Obama will be declared racist by the usual suspects and the Times will dutifully "report" all of them.

Help! I think I'm a captive in the Bizarro World and can't get out! My TV is showing: Tim Russert asking Doris Kearns Goodwin to comment on the "plagerism" charges mounted against Barak Obama ('just words'); Chris Matthews asking Dan Rather to comment on the NYT article (accurate without substantiation?); and, Ralph Nader rising up to run again! Please get me out of here and back to the real world where everything makes sense and the bizarre is confined to fiction.

Perhaps it's the Dems writ large that are really afraid to have the power, if we extend the analysis beyond the Times. Maybe they're afraid to have the reins and be blamed for what goes wrong (as stuff does go wrong). When they get into power, as they have in the House especially, they don't look too good to supporters and detractors alike. And the current decisions are really big.

President Democrat will sit in the Oval Office and will really see the need to approve NSA eavesdropping, but what about FISA? What if he/she tries to pull out of Iraq and bloodletting among Iraqis leads the evening news time and again with the US pullout being blamed? What if Wall Street reacts very negatively to Dem tax increases to pay for X, Y, and Z, and Baby Boom Dem supporters watch the value of their 401 (K)'s plunge so close to their retirement ages? What if the Iranians get close to the bomb, what will President Dem do, especially after having just pulled our troops out of Iraq, we're going to turn around and send them back in to the region? What happens if the generals complain, being concerned they won't be allowed to finish the mission and that if we had stayed in Iraq, we'd be better positioned to deal with the Iranians? What if there is a significant terrorist attack on the US with a Dem sitting in the White House, after there had been nothing of significance after 9/11?

What if you have to wake up and realize that you must assume great responsibilities the morning after having gotten drunk on the cult of personality?

To your thesis I say "wrong". What we have here is a moment of clarity. We are finally seeing that moment in the trajectory of every endeavor when the character of the thing is finally stripped of all pretense. I think Keller is keenly aware of the NYT's diminished currency, and it's more likely that he decided to spend his rapidly debasing coinage while he still has a few ragged coins jingling in his pocket.

Fear of appearing timid, ego, fear of being scooped, and self-awareness of their dwindling influence all came into play. But this certainly wasn't some kind of bizarre altruistic self destructive act. But I always enjoy reading your crazy take on things!

"President Democrat": What if he/she tries to pull out of Iraq and bloodletting among Iraqis leads the evening news time and again with the US pullout being blamed?

Sorry, that's not a good assumption. The NYT is not the only apple in the MSM barrel, and all them apples will endlessly append to that grim evening news a litany of complaints that said bloodletting would NEVER have occurred had the evil GW Bush not lied us into Iraq in the first place. And isn't President Democrat doing well in lavishing all the proper voting groups with deficit social programs.

That MSM has spent the last six years or so preparing for this election by savaging the Bush administration on a daily basis. Remember the Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for decades after the 1932 election, and their MSM branch will simply substitute Bush for Hoover.

I think they have just gotten away with so much for so long they thought the party would go on forever. But McCain is not Bush and the truth be told, I thik most people know the Times has badly treated the Bush administration, but they let them have a pass because it was Bush. However, that does not mean that everyone wants this stuff to go on forever.

Every article and blog I read on this subject is based on the assumption that Mr. Keller and his ilk are intelligent. Then, their actions are assigned varying motives ranging from nefariousness to a momentary lack of reason.
Allow me to posit another theory. Perhaps they are not intelligent. I know many people who have four or more years of university under their belts and high paying jobs who simply cannot function outside of their learned comfort zones.
Unfortunately, we someday may have to admit to ourselves that despite outward appearances, Mr. Keller is just a moron and therefore is not responsible for his actions.

I have just retired from 37 years as a professor in America's college/university system. A BA/BS/MA/ME/MS/DSc/MD/OD/DDS/PhD only certifies that the recipient has minimal competency in some narrowly defined area. This could be (hopefully in the case of MDs) a substantial level of specialized knowledge. However, a great many very stupid people legitimately earn college/university degrees, even MDs.

Question: Was this the big "sex scandal" Ron Rosenbaum was talking about a few months ago?
http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/ronrosenbaum/2007/10/29/shocking_inside_dc_scandal_rum.php

Its pretty likely it is, it fits all the pieces of the puzzle together neatly as to why it was quashed, including the media's (at the time) reluctance to damage McCain, the thinness of the sourcing, the lurid details of the possible affair that were too good not to be true, or at least published.

If it is, we can safely ignore Patterico's "inside sources" like LAT editor Matt Welch, who claimed at the time the story that there was a story was completely bogus and he had heard nothing nohow noway about any buried sex scandal, and he knows all the plugged in people in politics and the media, so he should know, right right?
http://docweasel.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/editor_from_lat_the_paper_that_missed_the_villaraigosa_scandal_under_their_nose_assures_us_all_theres_nothing_to_see_here/

Goldman Sachs predicted in January that the Times ad revenue will plummet another 5 - 10 % in 2008. Its stock is what: $ 14 per share. In ten years time, the Boston Globe, its Northeastern brother, will not exist, the IHT, its crappy international daily, will be fodder on the bottom of canary cages, and the Times will be a freebie handed out on the Subway. Most people in America will read news on the Net; unbiasedly edited by Indians in Hyderabad and Madras. The lede leads, the quotes follow and some young man for the Times in Bangalore opining on a vote in the US House of Representatives will ask: "does the USA have one or two houses in Parliament?"

Why did the NYT wait until NOW to publish their speculative ravings about McCain? That's an easy one. McCain was the SWEETHEART of the NYT, as long as somebody more conservative than he were still running. If they had unloaded on McCain before this week, when McCain effectively wrapped up the nomination, it might have pushed voters to someone else; Thompson, Hunter, Giuliani, Romney, ANYBODY except the RINO we're going to end up with.

Now that the nomination is McCain's, of course, all the dirt they've ever been able to dig up or forge will be thrown at ol' "Honest, Straight-talking John" - because in the general election, anybody with a lick of sense KNEW that McCain's NYT endorsement was going to vanish like a summer mist; The Times is Hillary's rag, bought and paid for.

Keller HAD to do this. *His* motives aren't clear, really. But he knows his paycheck depends on presenting the appropriate 'view'. Is that not the piper we all deal with, at one time or another.

First, let me say "Amen" to Bob Sykes, who is right on the money. I'm personally responsible for a few of those nitwits, for whom I apologize.

Second, let me advance another conjecture for the NYT's anomalous behavior: they realize the Dems have already lost the 2008 election, and are flailing wildly in a futile attempt to avert that outcome.

Why do some leaders keep printing money in order to deal with the wild inflation which their excessive printing of money has already caused? It's seldom if ever because of a secret desire to undo their own regime for the greater good. They just can't resist further bites of the forbidden apple. The solution to the problem of X is always more X. And they don't know what else to do in order to hold on to power/influence, resources, glory, standing, etc. So they just keep digging themselves deeper into a hole -- "In the long run we'll all be dead" (i.e., what's the difference in the end?) is sometimes their rejoinder to warnings. So the devaluation of the NYT's word continues apace, despite what some of its reporters like John F. Burns do to lend the NYT (not to mention the soiled Pulitzer) continued luster.

Sorry, I'm not buying the rejoinder or the assumptions behind it. Being in the White House and actually governing is not the same thing as running from the outside. Even the MSM likes conflict and to see pols twist in the wind (even the Dems sometimes). And the decisions have real consequences not just pixels on the page.

Blaming the blood on the screen today on W's yesterday and directly attributable to leaving a place we are (infinitely different than deciding to go a place we aren't, e.g., Darfur) ain't gonna be easy. HRC won't leave no matter what she says. She's evil not stupid. BO won't leave either, but he'd pay a very big price among the lefties for it, and he knows it President Dem would only bask briefly and won't if there is a big price to be paid in the Market by many of the folks who voted him/her into office. But really the issue involves the Dems swarming to support someone who could turn out to be a very problematic candidate, i.e., BO.

The Dem voters are looking for a messiah, but that is a very self destructive mode of thinking. I guess we'll see where that gets 'em.

It ain't theory, it's fact. I went to high school with NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger. He was a nitwit and a nonentity. It's a damned shame when relatives marry, or inherit control of one of the nation's leading newspapers. Well, it used to be.

Why would Bill Keller do this? Geez, maybe because of he thinks Obama is Nelson Mandela and MLK all wrapped up in one.
Martin Luther King = Nelson Mandela = Barack Obama

As reported by the Huffington Post, the New York Times Bill Keller compares Obama to Nelson Mandela:

The executive editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller, sees "unmistakable" similarities between the campaigns of Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, he said in a podcast interview on the paper's website.

The interview, done for the New York Times Book Review, is on the subject of Keller's young adult biography of Nelson Mandela, whom he covered. Asked about Obama, Keller calls him "fascinating."

From the audio transcript of the interview with Ben Keller, kindly via Ben Smith @ Politico:
You want to be careful about drawing historical parallels between societies that are so different, but there are a couple of similarities that, if you watch what happened South Africa, that are unmistakable in the Obama campaign.

One is the inspirational quality of it. Mandela, like Obama, although he wasn�t always the most riveting public speaker, was the kind of speaker who didn�t dwell on the details of his ten-point program, but went for emotional lift. He was appealing to the higher sense of purpose and history in his public appearances, as Obama does.

And the other thing is that both of them, in a way, transcended race � at least, to a degree transcended race. Colin Powell used to use this line when people used to try to draw him into conversations abot race and what it was like to be the first black secretary of state, the first black this, the first black that, and he would say, "I ain�t that black."

And what I think what he meant by that was not just that he was light-skinned, but that he didn�t grow up as preoccupied by race as a lot of other African-Amercans who rose to prominence. And something of the same thing can be said about either Mandela or Obama � that they somehow rose above race while still clearly being black.

"..for too many years The New York Times has had far too much power over our national discourse for one outlet. No media source should have that much authority in a democracy. We need, pardon the expression, a thousand flowers to bloom."

It could be argued that some of that power has been granted them by the choice people make when the buy the paper. We can debate the quality of that choice, but not at the expense of not having it.

The paper is a business first and as such it is their fiduciary duty to grasp as much of the market share as possible.

Roger, it's the same (lack of) judgment that led the NYT to run the General Betray Us ad.

And I.S., the NYT may not be the only apple in the MSM barrel but it's rotten and spoiling the entire bunch. They all take their headlines and marching orders from the NYT. Come on.

"The paper is a business first and as such it is their fiduciary duty to grasp as much of the market share as possible"...not precisely. Their fiduciary duty is about *profitability*, not about market share. There are many situations when settling for a smaller than possible market share is better in terms of profitability, and choosing such a strategy is a reasonable exercise of business judgment.

I do think it can be asked, though, whether NYT is in fact honoring their fiduciary responsibilities by acting as "a business first," or whether their political desires are biasing the company's strategy--in terms of news coverage, not just editorial--to the point at which it interferes with that responsibility.

Roger, That's a very interesting possibility. Some readers have offered others some of which are also possible. It was a bone stupid move and the paper's response to the tsunami of criticism from even those who normally back them seems to have come as a surprise to Bill and his fellow editors.Maybe some brain killing fumes are pouring out of the air exchanges in the new building.

Both Hillary and the Times are sliding into irrelevancy. Recognizing this, both will exhibit conflicting and bizarre behavior in futile attempts to regain stature.

What if you (President Democrat) have to wake up and realize that you must assume great responsibilities the morning after having gotten drunk on the cult of personality?

It isn't hard to belive that one messianic President Democrat would indeed act on that notion. However, are those 'great responsibilities' due to the people of the United States and the Constitution which is the foundation of its government? Or are they due to a larger body of the human race?

What if President Democrat has loftier notions, and wishes to place US resources at the service of the international progressives of the world, to the best of his abilities? He's orated endlessly how he'd 'bring everyone together', and how he'd rush across the seas and personally chitchat with every ruling antidemocratic thug on the planet, and thereby bring about peace and understanding. Acting on such notions might well satisfy his sense of responsibility.

As for 'bringing everyone together', lefties have always known how to do that. Just lower the boom on those naive citizens who treacherously oppose the leader's fulfillment of his sense of responsibility, and get them headed in the 'right direction'.

re: Luther:
I wouldn't need TinyURL if I could figure out how to post a friggin' link on this format. html code (href=) doesn't work. Is it some sort of BB code with brackets instead of html code?

It's a given that the NYT is solipsistic and self-referential. Therefore it should suprise noone when they behave in an (increasingly) solipsistic and self-referential manner. Don't try to figure them out with the initial assumption that they are acting irrationally from the perspective of their own world-view.

February 24, 2008: The New York Times' free fall is a good thing no matter what side you're on

Comments

Post a comment

Email This Post