Our Newspaper of Record

This is a continuation of a subject we've been discussing for awhile.  Ongoing dialog over the course of years is a cool thing that you can do with friends.

Back in May, after the Times hired Bret Stephens, I sent you guys a link to this article:  SIX WAYS THE NEW YORK TIMES COULD GENUINELY MAKE ITS OP-ED PAGE MORE REPRESENTATIVE OF AMERICA.  As the author Zaid Jilani said:

Public Editor Liz Spayd responded to readers’ complaints about Stephens by writing that the Times is looking “to include a wider range of views, not just on the Opinion pages but in its news columns.”
But hiring another prominent writer whose ideology hems close to that of the nation’s elites — in this case, fossil fuel corporations who are polluting the world and advocates of Western military might — is hardly adding intellectual diversity to the pages of the Times.

Since then, I have read more complaints about the NY Times Opinion pages, and shared this recent article on the subject;   Leak: How NYT Editor James Bennet Justifies The Op-Ed Page To His Own Paper.  This article makes the point that not only do the Opinion writers lack diversity, but they are sometimes hacks who distort the facts.  Here is an example of this:

On Feb. 12, two days before the massacre in Parkland, Florida, Bennet’s section ran a piece titled “Background Checks Are Not the Answer to Gun Violence.” The author was John Lott, a man famous for distorting data to push the pro-gun agenda from which he makes his money. This would certainly seem like an astounding oversight from the paper of record.  On Feb. 17, however, a Times editorial included this paragraph: “In a speech last month, [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions said undocumented immigrants are far more likely than American citizens to commit crimes, a claim he found in a paper by John Lott, the disreputable economist best known for misusing statistics to suit his own ideological ends. In this case, it appears Mr. Lott misread his own data, which came from Arizona and in fact showed the opposite of what he claimed...

So the Times published an op-ed by a "disreputable economist best know for misusing statistics" (their words), although they don't acknowledge their mistake in publishing his op-ed.  I'm confident that I can find many more examples.  Remember, this whole conversation started in April 2017 when they hired Bret Stephens who questioned climate science in his first column, then was forced to correct the only line containing any reference to actual science three days later.

Now, in response to comment set #1:

• "I’ve read the Bennet slam piece in HuffPost"The HuffPost article is just one of many reporting on the dissatisfaction.  Here is one from VanityFair:  “THE NEWSROOM FEELS EMBARRASSED”: BACKFIRES AND EXPLOSIONS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES AS A POSSIBLE FUTURE CHIEF RE-INVENTS THE PAPER’S OPINION PAGES
  
• "Bennet has a thankless job.  Those of us who appreciate the page’s liberal bent like the result, in general.  But the white man predominance will cause much flack, for perhaps good reasons."
  The issue is lack of diversity in range of views, not in identity of writers.  As Glenn Greenwald says:
  

  If your goal were to wage war on media diversity in all of its forms, and to offer the narrowest range of views possible, it would be hard to top the roster of columnists the paper has assembled . . . literally every one of them fits squarely within the narrow, establishment, center-right to center-left range of opinion that prevails in elite opinion-making circles 

   
• " 'Erosion of trust in what the NYT does'?  Oh please.  The news slant of the NYT and the slant of the op-ed page are basically together.  If you don’t like the slant, read or write for a rag of your persuasion.  Not enough people of color, women, women of color, etc.?  Of course. Not enough conservatives?  Of course.  The damn page has only so much space."
• My friends and relatives read the the NYT.  So even though it is not my choice to read regularly, it is important to people I care about, and therefore matters to me.
• The NYT is a newspaper of record, i.e. a major newspaper that has a large circulation and whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered professional and typically authoritative.  Perhaps when a newspaper of record goes off the rails, societal problems follow?  The NY Times famously bungled the major issue of the 21st century, the 2003 war in Iraq, for example.
  
• "If more diversity were wanted, I would suggest Bennet might consider adding Stephen Henderson, late of the Detroit Free Press (probably turfed out from the Freep more because he was too expensive than because he harassed a would-be girlfriend after his divorce) or Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald.  Both African Americans but both, oops, of the same political/liberal persuasion as most of the guys on the current NYT op-ed page."I like both Henderson and Pitts, though I'm not sure if they would address the diversity of opinion issue.
  
• "I happen to like Krugman, Brooks (usually), Friedman, Douthat, Bruni (gay guy), Kristof, Dowd, Blow, etc."I don't read any of these people except when someone has a problem with one of their articles.  So please feel free to share any of their articles which you think are good.  The writer I'm most familiar with is Krugman, and I've written about some of his mistakes as an economist:  Is Paul Krugman Ever Wrong?. 
  
• " If the newsroom of the NYT feels embarrassed by the op-ed page, they might want to know that some of us who read the NYT read the op-ed page even before we read their stuff.  Their stuff is not 'fake news', and is well researched and well written, but in this polarized world, I want to see first what the whiners of my persuasion have to say about the messes in the world."
  I also read the "whiners of my persuasion" first, in general.  I just happen to have a different set of opinion writers that I follow.  My number one opinion writer at the present timehappens to be on an anti-NY Times kick.  According to his perspective, the NY Times is partially responsible for this moment of Trump.  One thing he points out is that the Times (along with the Washington Post) uses unnamed sources who are often government insiders.  They are sometimes fed false information, such as the infamous Judith Miller affair leading up to the war in Iraq.  Miller invoked reporter's privilege and refused to reveal her sources in the Central Intelligence Agency leak and spent 85 days in jail protecting her source, Scooter Libby. 
       Anyway, reasonable people can differ on who they trust to filter the news.  I used to rely more on NY Times columnists, but have migrated to others in recent years. 
  
• "Grumpy Bill M. who is proud of what he’s saying"Everyone's entitled to his or her own opinion!  

In response to comment set #2:

one of the purposes of paper like the New York Times or the Washington Post is to take on major investigative efforts to root out and expose serious societal problems.  And, to express well-reasoned editorial opinions.  This is less likely to occur within the realm of blogs where personal opinions tend to drive the written word. I see the purpose of the New York Times as providing an enlightened viewpoint in the editorial pages, and a well-researched news analysis in the news sections. They won't be right all the time in the editorial portions of the paper, but they are worth supporting for the high frequency of getting it right.   These are both critically important functions to the ongoing process of a functional democracy (and we have reason to be concerned about the "functionality" of our democracy with a President such as Trump who seeks to undermine what our Constitutional democracy is about without really understanding what it is -- or should be -- in the first place).

That is very well said, in my opinion and fits in well with my comments above on the NY Times being a newspaper of record .  My perspective is a little bit different in that I see the Times and Post as being complicit in an ongoing basis with regard to our societal dysfunction.  They are pushing very hard to make the case that Trump is an aberration, whereas I feel that the Republican party has been off the rails for most of my lifetime.  

David Brooks provides a very clear example of this as a serious Republican who supported the war in Iraq and Sarah Palin, while repeatedly bashing Obama for not compromising enough with the Republicans in Congress.  See Obama in Winter:

White House officials are often misinformed on what Republicans are privately discussing, so they don’t understand that many in the Republican Party are trying to find a way to get immigration reform out of the way.

He also dismisses Sanders supporters such as myself as extremists comparable to neo-Nazis.    

The most important caucus formation will be in the ideological center. There’s a lot of room between the alt-right and the alt-left, between Trumpian authoritarianism and Sanders socialism.

Paul Krugman is the most liberal of the times columnists, and he likewise considered Sanders' policy positions, which basically represent the status quo in all other developed countries (e.g. universal health care) as too extreme.

Well meaning people want to believe in the country and the newspapers of record as anchors in an increasingly frightening world.  But anyone can see that the United States is far behind other developed countries in many measures of societal health -- poverty and income inequality, health care, education, the environment, guns, military and intelligence spending, etc. There is something wrong with a newspaper of record that considers a political leader who points this out as beyond the pale, while treating seriously the likes of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain.  As Bill might say, the newspapers of record are in a difficult position given the powers behind the scenes in American society.  But I will thank them when they start getting things right according to my values.

Again, reasonable people can have differing opinions!  Thanks for the thoughtful responses.