The New York Times Is Broken

The hard truth, especially for New Yorkers who have read the paper for decades, is that it’s not cluelessness or simply bad journalism keeping from NYT from defending democracy. It's business.

In an insightful Reuters Institute interview with A.O. Sulzberger, scion of the male Sulzberger line and thus, publisher of the most important newspaper in the United States, reporter Eduardo Suárez tells the story of the beginning of the paper’s digital transformation. In 1996, he recounts, a then teenaged Sulzberger asks Kevin McKenna, who created the initial New York Times digital news product with Martin Nisenholtz and Rob Fixmer, whether he would be able to get the late night NBA scores from the west coast games. Yes, answered McKenna - a brilliant guy who, as it happens, recruited me and Jason Chervokas to write a column on digital culture that ran for three years in the Times, mostly segregated to the online CyberTimes section (which was the home of many terrific journalists).

It’s a sweet and kindly way to introduce the quaint and damaging primogeniture that dominates New York Times culture, but there’s another anecdote that I think frames the paper’s current crisis of legitimacy in full. 

My grandfather had this old line: “When you buy the New York Times, you’re not buying news; you’re buying judgment.” That judgment is a really important part of our promise. 

Indeed. And that judgment is failing spectacularly.

Within the past two weeks, the leader of one of America’s only two major political parties - and a lock for its Presidential nomination - declared that if elected he will institute a national round-up of immigrants to concentration camps and encourage Russia to invade the European democracies.

Neither story led The New York Times.

Instead, the liberal paper of record continues to stage a mass freak out event over Joe Biden’s age - which, as I understand these things, remains 81, given that his birth date has not changed. Nonetheless the gratuitous gutter level sniping of a frustrated MAGA special prosecutor in service of his prospective junta employment about Biden’s age and mental acuity captured both the hearts and minds of the NYT newsroom.

Never mind that Biden promised neither concentration camps nor the destruction of the western alliance, and appears both more fit and mentally sharp than the 78-year-old Mussolini wannabe. 

The Times is not interested. And here’s why, folks - here’s the hard truth, especially for New Yorkers who have read the paper for decades. It’s not cluelessness, some misguided “both sides” ethic, or simply bad journalism. No, to me it sadly comes down to the now undeniable conclusion that the Class A shareholders of stock in The New York Times Company want Trump to win. Probably, for the money. Occam’s Razor.

And the newsroom got the memo.

The failure of liberal media to defend liberal values, the rule of law, and basic American democracy is a scandal that many of us have labored to point out since 2016. The Times, the Washington Post, CNN, et al have fallen. NBC and MSNBC do both sides (which is really one side, when you think about it). The Wall Street Journal is Murdoch. The political sites are obsessed with the MAGA/GOP court. And local journalism is gone. So there is no Fourth Estate defending the country from the ongoing totalitarian takeover attempt. It doesn’t exist.

Take Trump’s attack on NATO and virtual invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade western Europe, and his disgraceful comments on the death in custody of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. As the veteran journalist and media critic (and Columbia professor) Bill Grueskin asked on Twitter: “You’re the editor of the NYTimes. You have these 3 headlines for the top of your home page. Which do you place first, second and third?”

Wild guess as to which “blockbuster” didn’t make it above the fold?

The Biden campaign, to its credit, is no longer molly-coddling a political press corps that excuses Trump or - worse - is not-so-secretly aroused by his maniacal antics and threats. The campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo released this tough statement last week:

Every single time Donald Trump opens his mouth, he’s confused, deranged, lying, or worse. In tonight’s speech, he lied more than two dozen times, slurred his words, confused basic facts, and placated the gun lobby weeks after telling parents to “get over it” after their kids were gunned down at school. But you won’t hear about any of it if you watch cable news, read the prestige papers, or watch the Sunday shows. Beltway reporters may be numb to Trump’s horrifying candidacy defined by chaos, division, and violence – but the American people are the ones who will suffer and die if he’s allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again.

“This is not a drill – Donald Trump is THE fundamental threat facing the American people and everyone needs to act like it. Including the free press – while we still have one.”

But I still think the memo is coming from upstairs, at the New York Times and other companies. They made tons of money under Trump, increased subscribers, and built a movie studioesque “star system” of reporters with access to Trumpworld “sources” and confidantes, all the while pumping up the totalitarian class with the false plot of opposition. And while there are great reporters at the NYT and elsewhere, it’s a hard knock world for journalists these days. Layoffs and buy-outs are everywhere. Careers are ending. Nobody wants to leave the nest. And so, when it’s obvious that the Class A shareholders at the NYT really want Trump to boost their earnings in 2025? Well, folks. The silent memo is easily delivered. 

How else to explain the NYT’s massive orgy of ageist glee over special prosecutor Robert Hur’s gratuitous political attack? As Philly Inquirer social critic Will Bunch wrote, it’s all a rather stark reminder that the media has learned approximately nothing since 2016:

The press corps’ feeding frenzy over Biden’s brain is maybe the worst example we’ve seen in 2024 of reporters playing the odds of a political horse race, as defined by media critic Jay Rosen, while ignoring what’s at stake between the only actual choices we have, Biden and Trump.

That was driven home in what I would argue was actually the biggest story of the week — which, of course, received minimal coverage. That would be Trump’s confirmation that he and his anti-immigration guru, Stephen Miller, are advancing plans for a Day One policy in January 2025 of large-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants, bringing dead-of-night door-knocking terror to the neighborhoods where people who deserve a path toward citizenship are working and raising families. The huge number of deportees would require massive detention camps near the Texas border, in a grim echo of the worst of modern world history.

Yet as media critic and former NYT ombudsman Margaret Sullivan wrote here on Substack, the paper seems obsessed with Biden’s age, as if they just discovered it - all the while easily dismissing concerns over Trump’s unhinged rants and openly fascist language.

Biden’s advanced age is, granted, far from ideal for a president seeking a second term, even the very effective president that he has been. Yes, he’s old; and, never a gifted public speaker, he makes cringe-inducing mistakes. It would be great if he were 20 years younger. His age really is a legitimate concern for many voters.

But for the media to make this the overarching issue of the campaign is nothing short of journalistic malpractice.

That’s especially the case when Trump is poised to take down American democracy, starting on Day One, and when he has been criminally charged 91 times in multiple states, including for trying to overturn the legitimate 2020 election. Also, he’s old and gaffe-prone himself.

It’s all part of a pattern since 2016 at the Times and other “liberal” media outlets, all of which fail to defend democracy against authoritarianism. As Sullivan noted:

If you didn’t have memory problems of your own, you might be at risk of getting PTSD from recalling a certain front page of the New York Times in 2016 when every story above the fold had to do with the supposed scandal over Hillary Clinton’s email practices. A few days later, she lost the election that nearly everyone in media was sure she would win.

Which brings me to Sulzberger’s incredibly scurrilous defense in that Reuters interview:

We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden. He is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it.

Good God almighty! Sulzberger believes the White House being “extremely upset” is somehow a sign his paper is doing something right. Hey look at us, Ma! He rips Biden’s age. And he calls him “historically unpopular.” So much for playing it straight in the face of the great fascist movement in America since before World War II. 

Which brings me to another key point in that Reuters story, one that few people comment on these days. See if you can pick up the thread: “in February 2009, the Times was forced to borrow $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.”

Oh yes, the Class A shareholders saw the apocalypse 15 short years ago. Then they saw the digital side explode under Trump. And as I said, the newsroom gets these memos. Much of the Reuters interview is taken up with market share, discussion of digital channels and comparing the New York Times to Netflix and Paramount+ content streams. This is troubling to me - the obsession with the media platform itself, rather than the societal platform of liberal democracy.

I want to be fair to Sulzberger. He’s clearly aware that critics who view the paper through the lens of saving American democracy through fearless journalism are not fans of his tenure, or his family’s attitude toward that goal.

I don't subscribe to the belief that independence is the same as balance. Balance is actually a somewhat insidious word in our industry because it suggests that the truth is in the middle. Instead, I’m much more interested in completeness and fairness. Are we covering the whole story? And are we doing it fairly? In the end the story won’t always be in the middle. You have to be willing to tell the truth, even when telling the truth may lead a partisan to think that you’re biased against them. 

But you caught that word, right?

Partisan.

It’s the word Trump whisperer Maggie Haberman uses to deflect any criticism. As does her vocal tribe of followers and hangers on in the newsroom. As did Dean Baquet when he was executive editor during the period when the Times blew the 2016 election. As does current chief Joseph Kahn. As do the hipster podcasters and data geek writers. As does the increasingly vocal public relations staff.

To the Times - once the Gray Lady, now more of a Gray Storm System - there’s no greater sin or easy disqualification than partisanship. The middle road must be traveled. The intellectually dishonest view from nowhere must be bowed to like the falsest god in the cosmos. There are always two sides. Even when one side is liberal democracy.

And the other side is deadly fascism.