DanielTunkelang

gone. all gone.

if_i_only_had_a_heart

if_i_only_had_a_heart

but i do think it's not only the one honorable position that's left to the times but it would also be profitable: done with all the tools of journalism to make it interesting and real plus analysis ... that is significantly missing from the market

and with a point of view

i think talkingpointsmemo.com does a fine job and i do believe in 10 years it will be the new wave of real journalism in a smart voice with real depth

we may now return to our regularly scheduled programming

would anyone let paris hilton adopt a child?

if_i_only_had_a_heart

In some ways, you seem quite familiar with its culture.

But in other ways, you're either choosing to ignore what you already know, or you need to get a better sense of the NYT in and of itself.

In the entire Tri-State, the locked wards at Bellvue are the only place that smells more strongly of craziness than does the NYT.

Even well before the recent round of lay-offs, when you walked into the NYT the odor of "fear pheromones" was so strong that it made your eyes water.

I don't know why people continue to insist that the NYT is staffed by knowable types such as "neocons" or bien pensant middle-of-the-road liberals.

The NYT is the nuttiest work environment on the planet. It is staffed by people in constant thrall of unspeakable dread.

These are addled people barely capable of remembering their own names. Forming the intent required for having an opinion or "political bias" is beyond them.

And yet given the NYT's pungent craziness, which is apparent to anyone who's as much as shared a coat rack or locker room with anyone who works there, you come up with breezy, rational prescriptions like this:

"Bill Keller needs simply to come to terms with the nature of modern newspapers. He and his colleagues will feel so much lighter if they do."

Simply?

"Had Sylvia Plath simply taken a brisk twenty-minute walk every day and eaten more fresh fruits and vegetables, she would never have written 'The Bell Jar' or shoved her head in an oven."

Hamud Ibn Hamud

Nick Denton

belltolls

As for what might seem to some people like vagaries by Keller et al -- it really comes down to this: very few news reporters are ideological creatures. As a group, they are more curious than anything else, and the idea is to highlight their curiosity -- the stuff they find out. In doing so, they may interject their opinions from time to time, but that is interesting only when their opinions derive from the facts at hand that are germane to the story at hand.

I agree that reporters should be allowed to interject their own well-informed thinking into their stories more often, but "well-informed thinking" shouldn't be simply a defense of some ideology. That should be left to the bloggers.

I realize that this idea is hard for ideologues of either the left or the right to understand because ideologues tend to think everybody else is an ideologue, too (hence the constant complaints of "bias" by both the right and left, often referring to the same story.) But most readers aren't ideologues, and that is who newspapers should be serving. Serving ideologues -- who seem numerous only because of their volume -- would result in certain death.

johnnypotatoes

johnnypotatoes

That's not to say that the NYT doesn't have a rich history of neocon infiltration. They are notoriously right-leaning for old, respected newspapers (which are quickly becoming very old, and not-so-respected)

LoveHandles

social policy, housing policy, education policy -- when was the last time the times gave serious daily coverage to those huge topic areas that affect the lives of millions of people

... waiting

if_i_only_had_a_heart

LoveHandles

flossy

flossy