Per Francis Wilkinson, executive editor of The Week:
If conservatives were to look up from hammering nails in the Time’ coffin, they might notice that there is a growing web-based journalism infrastructure preparing to supplant their bête noir. It’s an infrastructure that is not only more liberal than the Times but also less inhibited by the paper’s habits of deference to power and concern for open debate and fair play. Having evolved in the era of Bush and Cheney, WMD and torture, much of the new establishment considers the contemporary GOP irredeemable. And unlike the Times, it refuses to treat conservative charges of liberal press bias as anything but a canard.
The more damage the Times sustains, the faster this new infrastructure rises to replace it.
This “new infrastructure” includes, Wilkinson writes, TPM, HuffPo, EmptyWheel, and Andrew Sullivan.
Conservatives should root for the Times because the Times is a on balance a conservative newspaper. They root against it because "New York" means "Jew" to their core consituency.
#1 Posted by Bloix, CJR on Thu 28 May 2009 at 04:06 PM
Bloix,
As a Jew and a former Liberal turned Conservative Republican, I've seen more support for Jews and israel on the Right (even at Grover Norquist's meeting) then anytime on the Left.
Next time you check out a Code Pink protest, see how many pro-pali signs are up; And how well is President Obama treating the soverign Leader of Israel, netanyahu?
Don't stereotype Bloix, it shows how smart I was to leave a bunch of closed minded poeple -- namely the Left.
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As far as the NYT is concerned, when the report straight down the middle on what Conservatives and republicans are doing and why? Also, niot treating Americans who have different opinions then those who live on the Upper West Side, then Conservatives and Republicans will actually invest in the NYT's survival.
If the NYT is smart, fir Frank Rich and hire Ann Althouse. She calls BS on every politico. Frank Rich repeats "Four Legs Good (GOP), Two Legs better (Dem)," canard.
#2 Posted by JSF, CJR on Sat 30 May 2009 at 01:01 AM
Bloix proves again that stereotypical abuse is the resort of someone who is uninformed. I'm guessing he doesn't know many actual critics of The New York Times, let alone 'anti-semites'. If he did, he would comprehend that The Times is hard to get to the Left of on the cultural issues - identity politics and related issues such as race preferences in law, abortion rights, etc. - that define legitimate differences of opinion in American politics. (Liberals pay lip service to open debate, but I find them unable to define any disagreement with themselves that is of good will - it's always due to 'hate' or 'greed' or something, a classic case of projection by people swollen with self-absorption and self-righteousness.) The Times' sleazy performance in the Duke-lacrosse rape accusation was unfortunately a symbol of its approach to racial politics. The paper has front-paged accusations that the murder of Dr. Tiller was inspired by Bill O'Reilly and the anti-abortion movement - sketchy, but fair. But on the other hand, The Times' editors would resign before giving analogous treatment to the murder of Private Long around the same time. (Private Who? I can hear compassionate, aware, tolerant liberals wondering.) The Times' front-paged a thinly-sourced story alleging an extramarital affair on the part of Sen. McCain, but had to have John Edwards peccadillos shoved in its face by the National Enquirer.
Sulzberger has been living on the reputation built by his ancestors. (Is anyone else bemused by the fact that The Times ran a story noting that John Podhoretz succeeded at some distance to the editorship of Commentary, once edited by his father? This, in a paper whose Publisher position is closed to anyone not in the Ochs-Sulzberger family.) His obsession with trivia such as same-sex marriage and other modernist brainstorms, as well as the examples above, has brought a formidable news institution into progressive marginalization. Nobody to the right of a Democratic Party activists is forced to take The Times seriously anymore, and its 'journalism' on social issues is not to be trusted. Only ideologues such as Bloix think The Times is a 'rather conservative' paper - actual 'conservatives' would not know whether to laugh or cry at such a tin-eared understanding of the American political scene.
#3 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 8 Jun 2009 at 01:12 PM