34 Comments

They lied us into a war that killed my son. For that I will never forgive them

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My heart aches for those who were sucked into that mess. One of our extended family members came back, but changed, with PTSD. One never gets over the loss of what was.

May the NYT's owners fall so far that we will only pity them.

The NYT also helped install the president that got us into Iraq through its sensationalist--and false--coverage of so-called Whitewater, by relentlessly demeaning Al Gore, one of the more decent politicians America has ever had, and by hustling him off the stage by criticizing him for standing up to have Florida's votes counted.

Their owners and editors are bad people. They have been cheerleaders for the rise of fascism.

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NYT more than DOUBLED readership from 2016-2020 precisely from liberal subscribers like myself alarmed and trying to make sense of '45's daily outpourings of crazy. https://www.axios.com/2021/02/05/new-york-times-digital-subscriptions

NYT made an enormous amount of money off of liberal America precisely because of our collective feelings and doubts over Trump; but now craps in our faces by normalizing and sanewashing his accelerated cognitive decline and the same craziness that caused us to subscribe in the first place.

I've found myself reading WaPo lots more and NYT a lot less since the Gaza war started. Unless NYT course-corrects, I'm not going to renew my subscription.

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As Dan can tell you, the Washington Post will also disappoint, though maybe less intensely than The Times. The New York Times will not course correct until Arthur Sulzberger is replaced as publisher, and maybe not even then.

We need a whole re-working of journalism. I believe what we are seeing is the result of having lost the subscription model of journalism--in other words, when subscribers are who pays the largest share of an outlet's revenue--and having it replaced by the advertising model. Advertisers tend to be large and corporate. Subscribers tend to be people like you and me. If our opinions matter, then the content will reflect that.

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NYT's current revenue is over 3.5:1 subscription vs. advertising. So they are indeed playing a risky game with their rightwards shift, thinking their mostly liberal readership will just suck it up. https://www.statista.com/statistics/192911/revenue-of-the-new-york-times-company-by-source/

But I 100% agree with you that the entire 4th Estate needs a makeover. Either a tightening of our libel laws and/or some sort of return to the Fairness Doctrine. The endless torrent of lies especially from FOX & its lesser imitators is getting worse not better, and unless the bulls*%t can be stopped our democracy will not survive. If companies like Dominion can more easily sue FOX et al for lying, RW media will be forced to grow up...and move the Overton window back centerwards.

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Thanks! I hadn't realized the NYT was still getting that much from subscriber revenue). So--unless a lot of subscribers vote with their credit cards against what the Times is doing--even a subscriber model wouldn't help.

Libel laws are a tricky business. The UK had very restrictive laws, which resulted in at least one serious miscarriage of justice that I know of (Barrick Gold v. The Guardian; see www.gregpalast.com/the-truth-buried-alive/).

One idea I have had is that tax exemptions could be provided to news organizations under the same rules that we used to have for licensing broadcasters. That is, the news part of the business should be favored unless there was serious and verifiable objection from the community that an organization served.

Ultimately no system will work unless there is reasonable good faith. That's really the problem today: Fox feels free to lie. The NYT feels free to normalize fascism. Many outlets feel free to prioritize entertainment and scandal over news. Many voters feel free to be ignorant of the issues. But as the saying goes, freedom isn't free, and now we are paying a price.

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Agree 100%: crafting--and then passing--some new "truth in journalism" law would require the best and brightest Dem legal minds to pass Constitutional muster.

But the tsunami of "media" lies, almost all of it coming from the RW, is getting worse not better. And a goodly portion of that is Russian Intelligence hit pieces getting immediately run by X and other sites as genuine news. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/10/22/russia-election-disruption-tim-walz/?utm_content=readinghistory_Justice__position1&utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou

Wapo today ran a bombshell followup on this, outing a former US Deputy Sheriff working for the GRU as one of their top deepfake producers.

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The NYT and the other mainstream news outlets all came out for the illegal wars of this country, shamming anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the wars. Look what happened to Phil Donahue. Yes, Al Gore used to be "decent," but he didn't fight for a recount, but even if he had, the Scalia Supreme Court stopped it cold. I met Scalia later and asked him why. He said, "Get over it." Nowadays, Al Gore wants censorship in a BIG way. When did the Dems become so insane as to want to get rid of the First Amendment? At least, the Republicans want to keep it and want no censorship.

Jill Stein gets my vote. She wants healthcare and education for all, and NO genocide.

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Donald Trump has said that he wants to be a" dictator on day 1," wants to close ABC and CBS News, jail political opponents, and use the military against any protests. He calls his political opponents "vermin."

Is that what you regard as free speech?

His former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and former Chief of Staff have both said he is a fascist. Trump praised Hitler's generals.

Donald Trump is also making it clear that he intends to try to overthrow the results of the election through violence. The only thing that would make him hesitate is if he is soundly defeated, if the American people make it clear that they will never accept a dictator.

Your one single vote is almost the entirety of your power to keep this country free. What your single vote for Jill Stein will accomplish is to subtract from the effort of those of us who have been fighting to preserve this republic.

People who get to be dictators on day one decide when that day ends. But it's clear that his day one is the last day of everything we call America.

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I have been saying the same thing pretty much since it became clear that Trump was running again. The Times consistently denigrated every accomplishment of the Biden administration; pulled out all the stops and stampeded the Dems into dumping him; routinely normalized Trump's behavior; and castigated Harris for not kissing Nepo Baby Dash Sulzberger's ring. The ONLY reason I still subscribe is to read the indispensable Paul Krugman.

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I cancelled my sub a few years ago after decades. One can find favorite columnists elsewhere. However, I kept a $5/month "Games" sub for about a year, finding it nearly unbearable to lose the Crossword Puzzle (and Wordle). BUT I dumped that too after their editorial policy became public and their rigidity incontrovertible. I heard the other day that they ran 196 articles about Biden's poor debate performance (it was on one of my alternative YouTube new sources - can't remember which - so it might have been 136 - EITHER WAY - atrocious). Also dumped WaPo and all network channels plus cable and they will never get me back, any of them.

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Paul should be leaving, don't you think?

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I wish he would but I can't imagine he will.

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Paul Krugman writes for the LA Times. He's also turned into a complete Elitist. Suggest you look up the "intervention" on him by Jose Vega.

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author

Krugman writes for the New York Times

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My question for NYT: How could you so strongly endorse Kamala Harris for President in your editorial page and have that endorsement make NO DIFFERENCE in how you cover Trump on a daily basis?

Was the endorsement some kind of psychological cover move designed to enable you to continue to deny political reality every other day?

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I feel as though I should post my whole exchange with Michael Gold after I sent him an email calling him and them out for that puff piece on the McDonald’s stunt. The article was devoid of any of the relevant information showing that it was the same sham as that FAUX News town hall with the Republican Club women. He completely dodged any of the facts I mentioned, as well as my points regarding the culpability of the headline writers, editors, Kahn, and Sulzberger.

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Thank heavens for substack!

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I agree with everything but this: “It is also not, despite the insistence of some on social media, because the institution is somehow rooting for Trump.”

They may not actively be rooting for Trump the way Fox or Musk is, but by not doing their jobs properly they are indeed supporting him. And that in my mind is (go ahead say false equivalency!) virtually the same.

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And nothing you or other press critics write, Dan, will cause any meaningful course correction by the NYT editors as a whole. But there are occasions where a tRump-based dispatch by a Times reporter is censored or sanitized by a news editor, but later "revised" after a tsunami of online Times readers let fire. I'm speaking of the "Arnie Palmer male organ" remarks of a few days ago, where the reporter - Michael Gold? - actually included verbatim tRump's vulgar and inappropriate comments, but suffered spiking by his editor, Several hours later, the story did include tRump's organ-size comments.

A small victory, but the overall tenor of journalistic practice by the Times remains frozen in time, by order of management, and that's the way it will remain indefinitely.

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Expect Nate Cohn, Kahn/Salzbuger's favorite marketing stooge at the NYTs, to continue running his curated "polling" horror story right down to the wire at which point Harris v Trump will be a tie or maybe Trump will be proclaimed up by a point. Cohn will continue to manipulate the daily results by including Trump biased polls and ignoring polls that show Kamala up by 3-5 points.........

While terrifying Liberals, Cohn and his polling staff are covering their bottoms by publishing articles explaining that polls can frequently be wrong, sometimes beyond the margin of error. WOW! Who knew???.......

Please, please, ignore the daily polls. Pollsters simply can't reach too many of the voting groups that will decide the election. Cohn is just fabricating results to sell newspapers.....

Meanwhile, the Times adheres to it's "centrist" political view, regardless of the threat from Trump. The paper has so lost its soul, my recommendation to the Times would be....

Stop trying to publish the news and change your moniker to "All the recipes and word games fit to print". The paper would have a better shot at the truth.

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Completely (and sadly) agree.

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100% agree. I am a subscriber to the NYTimes and have been consistently appalled at how it treats Demented Traitor/Convicted Rapist and Felon Trump as just another Republican nominee for president. The editors are failing their duty at a crucial moment for our nation and should be ashamed of themselves.

It reminds me of a line in the early chapters of the novel The Godfather (during Connie's wedding party) where Michael Corleone tries to tell his girlfriend Kay Adams about his father's business (organized crime) and in response Kay at first views Vito Corleone as merely "a slightly unethical businessman."

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Yes!!!

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The space between truth and lies is "truthyness". The New York Times, all the useless half truths fit to print.

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The NY what?

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Let’s not forget the NYT’s skeptical, thin or altogether absent coverage of the Holocaust— despite clear reporting from the field. Or look at their cheerful, early coverage of Russia under Stalin. Its editors and publisher has always stepped aside when the going got rough, under the guise that it was simply being “neutral.” That’s why I think it’s hilarious that it is perceived as a liberal news source.

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Good peace, Dan, as usual. You should add to your list the failure of the New York Times to recognize in a headline "Donald Trump Admits He Lost 2020 Election."

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