Ugh, I feel like a need a shower after trying to (twice) get through James Bennett’s 17,000 word “why I was right (and really great)” essay in the Economist. The fact that this clueless narcissist gets so much ink in the Economist is a cautionary tale about the state of our media itself.
This is not a post about Bennett’s claims but they are ridiculous. He doesn’t, in 17,000 words, cite any examples of other media outlets or newspaper around the world doing what he says the Times should do (other than the Atlantic which he mainly does to show how important he was) or actually cite facts or buttress his casual claims about the impact of “educating readers” with both sides (and the consequences of not doing so). I am sure the conservatives who hate the NYT will elide over the very poor journalistic standards in this piece (ironically calling for better journalism) and champion it. It is worth your disdain, for sure.
But, this self serving piece is worth suffering through if you, like me, are forever trying to figure out what is actually wrong with the NYT as it contains an insider’s perspective (he reported directly to Sulzberger and was the heir apparent to Baquet) and some interesting quotes from Dean Baquet and Sulzberger. Here’s one that illustrates what I mean
Like me, Baquet seemed taken aback by the criticism that Times readers shouldn’t hear what Cotton had to say. Cotton had a lot of influence with the White House, Baquet noted, and he could well be making his argument directly to the president, Donald Trump. Readers should know about it. Cotton was also a possible future contender for the White House himself, Baquet added. And, besides, Cotton was far from alone: lots of Americans agreed with him—most of them, according to some polls. “Are we truly so precious?” Baquet asked again, with a note of wonder and frustration.
So, Baquet apparently believes that Times readers need to be “informed” by the likes of Tom Cotton. Bennett, of course, does not address the elephant in the room. Is the Times read by conservatives? Doesn’t placing an argument in the Times give it credibility? Is any other paper doing what Bennett and Baquet think the Times should do? Why does the Times think its job is to “save” society rather to report the news and call out the truth?
Bennett also asserts, and implies that Baquet and Sulzberger agree, that Trump was elected because the Times did not talk to enough conservatives and so did not report on the fact that Trump could win and because of this its readers (?) were underinformed and Trump slipped through? He does not make mention of the Times role in reporting the Biden laptop piece (and instead justifies it).
It became one of Dean Baquet’s frequent mordant jokes that he missed the old advertising-based business model, because, compared with subscribers, advertisers felt so much less sense of ownership over the journalism. I recall his astonishment, fairly early in the Trump administration, after Times reporters conducted an interview with Trump. Subscribers were angry about the questions the Times had asked. It was as if they’d only be satisfied, Baquet said, if the reporters leaped across the desk and tried to wring the president’s neck. The Times was slow to break it to its readers that there was less to Trump’s ties to Russia than they were hoping, and more to Hunter Biden’s laptop, that Trump might be right that covid came from a Chinese lab, that masks were not always effective against the virus, that shutting down schools for many months was a bad idea.
In the end, I still don’t have a full picture about why the NYT has lost its way but I have some more insight. IMHO, the Times suffers from Delusions of Grandeur. They believe they are supposed to be the paper of record for those in power rather than a good newspaper that does excellent reporting for its subscribers.
Ironically, Bennett and the Times could examine the impact of the Cotton op-ed because — despite him getting fired — it ran. Of course, Bennett does not do this. If he were to do so, he would find that the only person who benefitted from the Cotton op-ed was Jame Bennett who is making a living off of it years later and Dean Baquet who can claim he is a VIP and more than a newspaper editor. It did not help enlighten the debate and move our democracy forward (as Bennett claims). It only served to legitimize the previously unthinkable ideal of bringing out troops to quell a mostly peaceful protest (despite Bennett’s claims that Cotton was focused on having troops to deal with “looters” who were largely made up by people like Cotton).
Someday, I think we need to organize NYT subscribers so we can get rid of these a-holes (who are living off and feeding their egos from the monthly subscriptions of millions of progressives).