Tag: New York Times

The Times tells Trump to be nicer

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

If only half of the stories they do weren’t about kissing Trump’s ass, it would be easier to take them seriously:

https://twitter.com/katierogers/status/1023585331369717760

Oh, and this:

https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1023380808915025920

‘In order to keep our editorial page completely balanced, we are hiring more dipshits’

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

McSweeney’s with what is meant to be a parody, but maybe not. After all, the Washington Post just hired the horrible Megan McArdle:

Here at the New York Times, we believe that all sides of the story should be tolerated and explored, from white supremacists being actually kinda cool if you think about it to people who believe that saying college campuses should be less PC is somehow an interesting use of 1,000 words. That’s why we’re expanding our editorial staff to include more dipshits. Because everyone, no matter how intellectually lazy their conservatism, deserves a column in our newspaper.

By the end of the year, we aim to have 200% more dipshits writing columns for us. As long as you are a Ben Shapiro knockoff who can string together the words ‘the intolerant left’ and occasionally criticize Trump, you have a home here on our opinion pages. Because this is what conservatism is now, and we have to respect that.

Why do we hire dipshits? It’s simple. After the 2016 election, we got yelled at a lot by right-wingers. How could you report such negative stories about President Trump by printing the words he says? Why don’t 100% of your stories talk about Hillary Clinton’s emails, rather than just the ones on the front page? They had a point. So, despite the fact that throughout the last year the right has decided they hate everything from Keurig to the NFL, we have decided to do the journalistically correct thing and capitulate entirely.

So today we make a promise. A promise to every moron that was a little too intelligent to for the Wall Street Journal, to every idiot that will go write for the Federalist if they don’t get hired by us. To you, we say welcome.

Go read the rest. Sigh.

NYT to readers: Do facts matter?

~ odd man out ~ 3 Comments


Daily newspapers subscribe to the notion of objective reporting, and newspaper editors are always eager to defend this foggy notion. Which makes it all the more curious that New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane recently asked readers whether “news reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.”

WTF! Brisbane, whether he knew it or not, was calling attention to the facade that the mainstream media constructed long ago to guard against the charge that their main function is to defend the status quo. In doing so, he chose a good example to illustrate what’s wrong with the mainstream mindset:

…On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same..?

Note that Brisbane quickly jumps back behind the facade, ignoring the question of whether Romney’s accusation against Obama is based on fact. He says reporters have been trained to not ask this question, even if evidence exists that could answer it. However, it’s OK for a columnist to ask and even answer the question, because columnists merely state opinions. As if opinions and facts necessarily dwell in different realms.

More here.