The Times is Broken

And so is news

It gives me no satisfaction to say this — indeed it fills me with trepidation for the nation — but The Times is broken.

I know some of you are thinking, “You only now realize this?” No, I’m only now saying it. I have been criticizing The Times for its willful credulity in the face of rising fascism and its bothsidesism, but also because it is the biggest and was the best we had and I wished it to be better. Now I come to wonder whether it can be.

The final straw is not just Politico’s report that Times Chairman and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger thinks he is entitled by birthright to interview the President of the United States — and, deprived of the privilege, allegedly and petulantly encouraged use of news columns to criticize Joe Biden. “It’s A.G.,” Politico quoted an unnamed journalist saying. “He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.” That is what we call a buried lede.

No, the final straw for me came with The Times’ response to Politico’s reporting from an unnamed spokesperson. Did the paper and its leadership use this as an opportunity for self-reflection, to finally ask what it might be doing wrong? No. The institution doubled down on entitlement and complaint, cloaking its hissy fit in condescension and the sacred…