Am I Being Too Harsh on the Times?

My Twitter friend Linda Fader responded to my last couple of posts about the New York Times with a thread:

1. Good posts. I'm not so sure the Times plans this in quite the way you suggest. It's complex. False equivalency & balance plague them.

— 👻 GobLinda Fader 🎃 (@lindafader) October 22, 2017

2. Importantly, journalists—all writers—attempt to order chaos, often by creating narratives, sometimes true, sometimes not.

— 👻 GobLinda Fader 🎃 (@lindafader) October 22, 2017

It's not that I think the Times, collectively, is asking themselves, "what can we do to ensure Donald Trump wins a second term?” But it just can't be 100% about balance and false equivalence. In the age of Trump, and after the 2016 election debacle, are the editors of the Times still blind to the fact that one side mostly lies to them and wants to do bad things to people, and the other mostly doesn't? It's hard to chalk this up to narrative building for narrative building's sake.

In trying to maintain the forced balance they’ve been giving us for at least 25 years, with the Republicans going so far to the right as a party that they’re literally bringing Nazis into their coalition (which remains an unbelievable thing to type without being hyperbolic), they've plucked out this narrative of "The Republicans are in disarray, but so are the Democrats. The Republicans may have a genocidal element to their ideology, but, my God, some Democrats want Medicare for all! The horrors! And furthermore, it's tearing the Democratic Party apart!"


And to do so, they're now citing people who aren't even Democrats. That's two columns of that nature in two weeks. It's inventing controversy to sell papers, as well as to a wealthier readership who still think to themselves, "Well, one side has Nazis, but the other is going to raise my taxes!" Only that sort of reader would look at the Times Op-Ed page and say that Paul Krugman and Ross Douthat are both providing something valuable to the conversation.

8. I think as well that the NYT sees itself as providing diverse writers on its op-ed pages—

— 👻 GobLinda Fader 🎃 (@lindafader) October 22, 2017

14. Ultimately, the NYT came away from this election w/arrogance. They dug in their heels. They attempted to have fewer anti-Trump articles.

— 👻 GobLinda Fader 🎃 (@lindafader) October 22, 2017

You do point out that their investigative reporting is better than op-ed & political (with notable exceptions). WaPo is better.

— 👻 GobLinhttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi0-KO-7IXXAhUBr1QKHau9DSYQFgguMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F04%2F20%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fnew-book-clinton-cash-questions-foreign-donations-to-foundation.html&usg=AOvVaw36jz7yw30ju0k_CFnVqOvKda Fader 🎃 (@lindafader) October 22, 2017

I do agree that their investigative reporting is better than their op-ed... but still, they gave us Clinton Cash and e-mails on the pages of their newspaper:

The WaPo's been impressive, and I actually subscribed to them a few months back -- the first time I'd subscribed to a newspaper in well over a decade.

I don't understand one of my own tweets.🤷🏻‍♀️I was up late… I think the complexities are clear. Jay Rosen perceptively analyzes the issue.

— 👻 GobLinda Fader 🎃 (@lindafader) October 22, 2017

Here's another example of the Times's bad behavior:

Your analysis is complete shit and I’m going to show you, line by awful line, how trashy it is, Michael. https://t.co/X4TdWB2qxb

— B.I.E. Felicia (@FeministaJones) October 22, 2017

You all recall that I mentioned how media treats WoC being attacked by men https://t.co/dQxhb9AbTn

— B.I.E. Felicia (@FeministaJones) October 22, 2017

Michael did the same thing here with Rep. Wilson. He frames this “quarrel” as one in which she has even footing with 45. She does not

— B.I.E. Felicia (@FeministaJones) October 22, 2017

In the 2nd paragraph, Michael puts the responsibility to end this “feud” on Rep. Wilson, suggesting she should have been nicer pic.twitter.com/D4TWBiZvTz

— B.I.E. Felicia (@FeministaJones) October 22, 2017

Click through to read the whole thing.


How can they "both sides" this? Yes, publishing news coverage is complex, but there has to be at least partly a simpler explanation somewhere. If none of what they're doing is deliberate, then the editors and writers at the newspaper widely regarded as one of the smartest publications in this country are really, really stupid and are incapable of learning from their mistakes.