Great points! I would also like the Times to finally examine the role those agents in the NY FBI office played in the “buttery males” debacle. The IG report in the FBI’s handling of the email investigation made it clear they were leaking to pressure higher ups to make public information about that investigation and the investigation of the Clinton Foundation to damage her and help Trump. Unfortunately they were successful, pressuring Comey to call her email practices reckless and later announce the finding of emails on Weiner’s laptop. They also pressured McCabe into leaking the fact that the ClintonFoundation was under investigation to the WSJ. Neither Comey or McCabe ever told us the Trump campaign was also under investigation for ties to Russia.
Even after the IG opened a separate investigation into those leakers the media refused to cover that shocking story. It’s not too late to do that now.
I am not so sure about the "brave effort" of May 26, 2004. It concludes: "We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight."
That seems to have been an unkept promise. And not-keeping this promise has led to a New York Times that for four years assured me, several times a week, that Jared and Ivanka were horrified and were working diligently to save us all.
You make a lot of very important points. But there's one that you overlooked, one that, had the issue been treated as a two sided issue instead of a one sided issue, Trump probably would never have been elected.
Since Sulzberger Jr. took over, the NYT's immigration coverage has been almost entirely one sided. By that I mean that it's largely been PR for mass immigration and open borders, full of stories about the problems immigrants were having, but none about the problems mass immigration is causing. It never asked how big a population the US could sustain environmentally (we're probably well beyond that point with the heating up, and the fires out west and the population out west fast outstripping water supplies--not to mention the decimation of ecosystem services).
It never examined how immigration was holding workers' wages down. It never examined how wrong its assumptions were about mass immigration--that a lot of the impetus for mass immigration comes from the GOP, people like the Koch organization and Z'berg, who like the oversupply of cheap labor because it keeps wages down, or that many Democrats oppose mass immigration for environmental reasons and because mass immigration holds workers' wages down. That vaunted Gang of 8 bill would have more than doubled legal immigration, admitting nearly one and a half NY states' worth of people every decade, while doing nothing to prevent illegal immigration, although hundreds of thousands of companies were already using E-Verify, and if I remember correctly, a handful of states had already mandated its use. But the NYT only praised that bill.
Most of the NYT reporters who wrote about immigration demonstrated obvious bias. Julia Preston was notorious.
And during the 2020 election season, it never wrote about how the two moderators from the Spanish language media asked questions designed to push candidates towards endorsing mass immigration--"Raise your hands if you will never deport "undocumented" immigrants who aren't terrible criminals, or something close to that, which is tantamount to pushing them to say they would support open borders. That should have been a big story.
I don't have a clear memory of the '16 debates, but I suspect a similar story could have been written back then.
And the NYT hasn't reviewed Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck, which I sent you, which is scholarly, yet quite readable, and which is the most important book on immigration in the US at least since the millennium. (Available for $9 on Amazon.)
Among much else in that book, the reader learns that every Gov't commission on immigration reform has recommended substantial reductions in the numbers of immigrants, through Barbara Jordan under Clinton, and you can learn that as early as the 1800s--before the Civil War--companies were sending ships to Europe to bring back European workers so that they could fire their Black workers--the 1800s equivalent of Infosys.
While the NYT had public editors, I sent numerous emails to them, and two of them had said they were planning to write about my concerns, but in both cases, they were gone within six weeks later. (I'll be happy to send you a sample of my critiques.)
Had the NYT provided good two sided coverage, Capitol Hill probably would have been forced to reduce immigration to manageable numbers (during 1990-2020, the US gained two NY states' worth of immigrants), and to ensure enforcement of immigration laws, taking the wind out of Trump's sails before he ever got to the point of running.
NPR and other mainstream newspapers are just as bad on immigration, although the WaPo has been improving.
I'm only being partially humorous here - if the goal of journalism is to parse the myriad, shouted media voices in this nation and arrive at the essence of what is actually happening, who benefits, and how it affects the average citizen, HST was the master. How that drug-and-alcohol-addled brain managed to offer so much clarity amid the cacophony of competing messages is a question I will probably never be able to answer, but he did. And, like his spiritual descendants Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah, he made you laugh your butt off in the process.
I have been a NYT subscriber since they first went digital and sent us emailed digests of their daily edition every morning. I responded to their "would you be willing to pay for this content?" survey, and I have happily offered up my credit card number for years in order to gain that early morning glimpse of the major issues of the day, presented as fairly and honestly as is possible in this day & age. I also adore Substack and Twitter, because I get exposed to quality criticism of the "MSM" as well. I am convinced that any honest effort to view the world as it is must always include an honest attempt to absorb context from opposing sources. I refuse to pay the WSJ's exorbitant subscription price and I could never stomach more than 30 seconds of FOX programming, so Substack & Twitter manage to fulfill that role.
But then I have time - or rather make time - to do this comparative reading on a consistent basis. Most Americans do not have that luxury, so they are forced to rely on just one source, and sadly, there are so many charlatans out there these days injecting so much poison into our political discourse that it's destroying our nation. And so while I am certainly aware of the NYT's shortcomings (as I am those of the US), I am also aware of our desperate need for the sort of solidity the Times offers. And so I have to join you in congratulating Mr. Kahn, and share your desire that the NYT will once again regain an honest and sincere desire to always keep one eye on the mirror.
I hope that at least several influential managers and stewards at the Times, beginning with the publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, address seriously and continually the issues brought again to light in Mr. Fallow’s assessment of the Times.
Dean Baquet did a good job, but fell short in accountability and humility.
One need only read Jill Abramson's memoir to see what Dean Baquet cares about. New York did a 6,000-word profile of Kahn with reference to only one so-called Timeswoman, Maureen Dowd, and then only because the author used to work for her and I'm sure did a LOT of fact-checking. As is obvious from Baquet's responses to reasoned criticism, there has been no interest in The Times examining itself. And it desperately needs to.
I read that after the Times basically said that their public editor would be replaced by social media and by allowing comments on more articles, Baquet told his people to ignore Twitter. From what I have seen the Times is also allowing comments on fewer not more articles. Let’s hope that disdain for their readers stops with this new guy.
Great points! I would also like the Times to finally examine the role those agents in the NY FBI office played in the “buttery males” debacle. The IG report in the FBI’s handling of the email investigation made it clear they were leaking to pressure higher ups to make public information about that investigation and the investigation of the Clinton Foundation to damage her and help Trump. Unfortunately they were successful, pressuring Comey to call her email practices reckless and later announce the finding of emails on Weiner’s laptop. They also pressured McCabe into leaking the fact that the ClintonFoundation was under investigation to the WSJ. Neither Comey or McCabe ever told us the Trump campaign was also under investigation for ties to Russia.
Even after the IG opened a separate investigation into those leakers the media refused to cover that shocking story. It’s not too late to do that now.
The tone of the NYT still leaves a lot to be desired says I, a middle of the reader!
Very informative piece. The Gallup Hillary Clinton word cloud is unforgettable.
I'm struck by the before-66 expected retirement. You can gain a lot of wisdom at 66+.
I am not so sure about the "brave effort" of May 26, 2004. It concludes: "We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight."
That seems to have been an unkept promise. And not-keeping this promise has led to a New York Times that for four years assured me, several times a week, that Jared and Ivanka were horrified and were working diligently to save us all.
Yours,
Brad DeLong
You make a lot of very important points. But there's one that you overlooked, one that, had the issue been treated as a two sided issue instead of a one sided issue, Trump probably would never have been elected.
Since Sulzberger Jr. took over, the NYT's immigration coverage has been almost entirely one sided. By that I mean that it's largely been PR for mass immigration and open borders, full of stories about the problems immigrants were having, but none about the problems mass immigration is causing. It never asked how big a population the US could sustain environmentally (we're probably well beyond that point with the heating up, and the fires out west and the population out west fast outstripping water supplies--not to mention the decimation of ecosystem services).
It never examined how immigration was holding workers' wages down. It never examined how wrong its assumptions were about mass immigration--that a lot of the impetus for mass immigration comes from the GOP, people like the Koch organization and Z'berg, who like the oversupply of cheap labor because it keeps wages down, or that many Democrats oppose mass immigration for environmental reasons and because mass immigration holds workers' wages down. That vaunted Gang of 8 bill would have more than doubled legal immigration, admitting nearly one and a half NY states' worth of people every decade, while doing nothing to prevent illegal immigration, although hundreds of thousands of companies were already using E-Verify, and if I remember correctly, a handful of states had already mandated its use. But the NYT only praised that bill.
Most of the NYT reporters who wrote about immigration demonstrated obvious bias. Julia Preston was notorious.
And during the 2020 election season, it never wrote about how the two moderators from the Spanish language media asked questions designed to push candidates towards endorsing mass immigration--"Raise your hands if you will never deport "undocumented" immigrants who aren't terrible criminals, or something close to that, which is tantamount to pushing them to say they would support open borders. That should have been a big story.
I don't have a clear memory of the '16 debates, but I suspect a similar story could have been written back then.
And the NYT hasn't reviewed Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck, which I sent you, which is scholarly, yet quite readable, and which is the most important book on immigration in the US at least since the millennium. (Available for $9 on Amazon.)
Among much else in that book, the reader learns that every Gov't commission on immigration reform has recommended substantial reductions in the numbers of immigrants, through Barbara Jordan under Clinton, and you can learn that as early as the 1800s--before the Civil War--companies were sending ships to Europe to bring back European workers so that they could fire their Black workers--the 1800s equivalent of Infosys.
While the NYT had public editors, I sent numerous emails to them, and two of them had said they were planning to write about my concerns, but in both cases, they were gone within six weeks later. (I'll be happy to send you a sample of my critiques.)
Had the NYT provided good two sided coverage, Capitol Hill probably would have been forced to reduce immigration to manageable numbers (during 1990-2020, the US gained two NY states' worth of immigrants), and to ensure enforcement of immigration laws, taking the wind out of Trump's sails before he ever got to the point of running.
NPR and other mainstream newspapers are just as bad on immigration, although the WaPo has been improving.
Where's Dr. Hunter S Thompson when we need him?
I'm only being partially humorous here - if the goal of journalism is to parse the myriad, shouted media voices in this nation and arrive at the essence of what is actually happening, who benefits, and how it affects the average citizen, HST was the master. How that drug-and-alcohol-addled brain managed to offer so much clarity amid the cacophony of competing messages is a question I will probably never be able to answer, but he did. And, like his spiritual descendants Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah, he made you laugh your butt off in the process.
I have been a NYT subscriber since they first went digital and sent us emailed digests of their daily edition every morning. I responded to their "would you be willing to pay for this content?" survey, and I have happily offered up my credit card number for years in order to gain that early morning glimpse of the major issues of the day, presented as fairly and honestly as is possible in this day & age. I also adore Substack and Twitter, because I get exposed to quality criticism of the "MSM" as well. I am convinced that any honest effort to view the world as it is must always include an honest attempt to absorb context from opposing sources. I refuse to pay the WSJ's exorbitant subscription price and I could never stomach more than 30 seconds of FOX programming, so Substack & Twitter manage to fulfill that role.
But then I have time - or rather make time - to do this comparative reading on a consistent basis. Most Americans do not have that luxury, so they are forced to rely on just one source, and sadly, there are so many charlatans out there these days injecting so much poison into our political discourse that it's destroying our nation. And so while I am certainly aware of the NYT's shortcomings (as I am those of the US), I am also aware of our desperate need for the sort of solidity the Times offers. And so I have to join you in congratulating Mr. Kahn, and share your desire that the NYT will once again regain an honest and sincere desire to always keep one eye on the mirror.
OMG, I hope someone influential at The New York Times is paying attention to you.
I hope that at least several influential managers and stewards at the Times, beginning with the publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, address seriously and continually the issues brought again to light in Mr. Fallow’s assessment of the Times.
Dean Baquet did a good job, but fell short in accountability and humility.
One need only read Jill Abramson's memoir to see what Dean Baquet cares about. New York did a 6,000-word profile of Kahn with reference to only one so-called Timeswoman, Maureen Dowd, and then only because the author used to work for her and I'm sure did a LOT of fact-checking. As is obvious from Baquet's responses to reasoned criticism, there has been no interest in The Times examining itself. And it desperately needs to.
I read that after the Times basically said that their public editor would be replaced by social media and by allowing comments on more articles, Baquet told his people to ignore Twitter. From what I have seen the Times is also allowing comments on fewer not more articles. Let’s hope that disdain for their readers stops with this new guy.