The Decline and Fall of the New York Times

American Rattlesnake ^ | July 12, 2011 | Gerard Perry

[OddLane]

William McGowan, author of Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America, spoke to American Rattlesnake about immigration and how it has been covered by the newspaper.

He explained the basic premise of the book, and how the New York Times has betrayed its long journalistic tradition as the paper of record.

[OddLane]

The full interview, approximately fifteen minutes in total, is on the site. Some interesting explanations of why the Times is so biased on this issue, and what can be done to address the problem.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The NYT is no longer the newspaper of record.

[hosepipe]

The NYT could be the canary(coal mine) in the american psyche...
We could have a federal government that matches “the people” exactly..

Meaning the government is no more corrupt than the american people generally are..

[sauropod]

.

[Gondring]

He’s exactly right. It’s not a liberal conspiracy...it’s a concensus of values (and shared, common experience of schools and upbringing). He’s right that they “just naturally have the impulse in them” to try to make President Obama look good.

[Venturer]

One thing you have to say about the NY Times, although it has been losing readership and advertisements, it has never stopped in it’s effort to help Obama destroy America.

Could the Time be saved? Not as long as they print a trash paper that only appeals to half of the buying public.

Yes it could be saved if they started reporting the news and stopped trying to make the news.

[Hugin]

the New York Times has betrayed its long journalistic tradition as the paper of record.

The NYT has a long jurnalistic tradition of aiding America's enemies and attacking allies and patriots. Walter Duranty won a pulitzer in the 1930s for covering up the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians, an award still proudly displayed at the Times builing. They deliberately downplayed Communist infiltration into government in the Cold War, while they mischaracterized those trying to stop it like McCarthy and Nixon. Their distortion of the McCarthy hearings were so successful that even conservatives routinely denounce him with no real understanding of the actual facts. They have no record of journalistic integrity to betray.

[Hugin]

the New York Times has betrayed its long journalistic tradition as the paper of record.

The NYT has a long jurnalistic tradition of aiding America's enemies and attacking allies and patriots. Walter Duranty won a pulitzer in the 1930s for covering up the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians, an award still proudly displayed at the Times builing. They deliberately downplayed Communist infiltration into government in the Cold War, while they mischaracterized those trying to stop it like McCarthy and Nixon. Their distortion of the McCarthy hearings were so successful that even conservatives routinely denounce him with no real understanding of the actual facts. They have no record of journalistic integrity to betray.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

I live 70 miles from NYC, and my local store sells it, and people must buy it. When they stop carrying it, that will be a positive sign.

[GOPJ]

The New York Times is the newspaper of liberal elites and multimillionaires who wear blue jeans, don baseball hats and pretend they speak for ‘the people’. (think Michael Moore, Spielberg, etc etc etc)

[OddLane]

It's a remarkable book, and a great follow-up to Coloring the News.

I think I have an Amazon link to it in my profile page under the Best Books of 2010.

[OldNewYork]

In many ways, The Wall Street Journal has taken over from The New York Times. For news and commentary it’s far more reliable.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Thanks

[chuckee]

I also think the individual publisher has a lot to do with whether a newspaper is prone to bias as the NYT is. Pinch Sulzberger, the publisher and voting majority shareholder has always been pretty far left dating back to his misguided youth. He does not have to cajole his editors to swing left. The editors and staff tacitly understand what pleases their boss politically and most share his leftist viewpoint. The ones that do not necessarily share his extreme views like “conservative” columnist David Brooks are compromised by the culture and more often than not Brooks writes RINO left rather than conservative to keep getting a paycheck.. Having said that, Sulzberger is an incompetent manager who has run his rag into the ground. The guy would be sleeping on a grate if his forebears did not own the newspaper.

[OddLane]

Don't mention it.

[OddLane]

The failure of stewardship under Pinch is a huge part of Gray Lady Down.

You can't tell from the edited clips we uploaded, but a large part of our conversation dealt explicitly with the misguided editorial leadership at the paper, especially since A.M. (Abe) Rosenthal was sidelined in the late '80s.

[Reeses]

For the longest time The New York Times was balanced and quite readable. Take for example this article on climate change from February 3, 1889: IS OUR CLIMATE CHANGING?

Note there is no byline, typical before the Watergate-inspired envy-driven narcissists entered the field seeking fame. The article's conclusion: not only is it impossible for us to know whether any change is taking place in our climate, but that it will require some hundreds of years of observation before we can know what our climate is.

[OddLane]

BTTT.

[GOPJ]

Takes a long time to build up a reputation like the Times had - not as much to destroy it. Thanks for sharing a piece of the past.