New York Times (2)

The New York Times
Category: Print Media
Neighborhoods: Midtown West, Theater District
Update - 4/1/2012
The New York Times is still the best newspaper in the world, but I'm decidedly dismayed by the decision of the publishers to limit online access to the newspaper (10 articles per month unless one is a subscriber).

This effectively puts "all the news that's fit to be print" out of the reach of most lower-income and many middle-class Americans.

Nothing should necessarily be given away for free. But that would apply also to objectivity.

The recent spate of free publicity given to supporters of Trayvon Martin is both thunderous and partisan.

Has the Times forgotten, in its rush to judgment, the allegations of rape by members of the Duke lacrosse team? Or the Tanya Brawley affair?

http://www.nytimes.com...
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4/1/2009
I firmly believe the N.Y. Times is the best newspaper--either the print or online editions--in this country. The quality of the reporting and the writing is usually very high, despite the occasional big-time flubs (Jason Blair, Judith Miller, Wen Ho Lee).

The fact that they allow their news archives to be read by anyone deserves the highest praise.

But there are certain things that bother me about a newspaper which has often set the standard for Western news reporting.

Generally, the N.Y. Times is pretty even-handed in its political coverage--witness the last presidential election cycle, for instance.

But much of the coverage of national news seems to be dominated by severe liberal white guilt.

At the same time there is a constant underlying refrain--in all its coverage of race--of assigning blame for all that ails that community to historical factors (slavery/racial prejudice) without acknowledging, much less questioning, the all-pervasive ideology of blacks as eternal victims ("If it's not group X that been doin' it to 's this time, it's group Y"), to which the N.Y. Times unabashedly subscribes.

Latter-Day Israelite Flight from Egypt to (the Freedom of) the Promised Land ?

Then there is the longstanding obsession with coverage of the Ivy League, for which I assume the editorial board has responsibility. First, It is really is NOT that a subject of all-consuming interest for most Americans, as it is for the N.Y. Times, over-ambitious parents, and the Eastern seaboard, in general.

This disproportionate interest is also puzzling in light of the fact that the Ivy League is primarily an athletic league and that there are at least a dozen "better" institutions (at least measured by SAT scores, selectivity, achievement, etc.).

The coverage of international events--especially Europe and Asia--is, exemplary, I might add. No wonder, the Times is also a wire service on a par with A.P., Reuters, Agence France-Presse, etc.

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In Seattle, I turn to our local daily for coverage of local news. For national and international, as well as arts and culture, technology, and travel, I read the N.Y. Times.