“It is also true that The New York Times is not a crusading newspaper. It is impressed with the responsibility of what it prints. It is conservative and independent, and so far as possible — consistent with honest journalism — attempts to aid and support those who are charged with the responsibility of government. There are many newspapers conducted along different lines, some of them vicious, ill-natured, and destructive of character and reputation, and for mere purposes of sensation they frequently terrorize well qualified and well meaning men to the point where they are discouraged from accepting invitations to give their ability, genius, and experience to the administration of public affairs.”
Those words were in a letter written in 1931 by Adolph Ochs, the publisher of The New York Times.
Can you imagine any publisher writing that today? Can you imagine a publisher who believes it’s his duty to “aid and support those who are charged with the responsibility of government”? That publisher would be labeled “unsophisticated,” blind to the “adversarial relationship,” indifferent to the need to “speak truth to power.” And, God knows, the man certainly doesn’t want to “make a difference.”
I was on The Times during the Vietnam War. I recall once going down to the newsroom, on the 3rd floor, to suggest a story on some problems at a military hospital. I was properly irate, as only someone with a fresh diploma could be. But Robert Alden, a legendary Times reporter, sat me down and quickly tempered my righteousness, recounting the history of military medicine, and the lives it had saved. He asked that I consider that background when suggesting my story. Can you imagine that today?
There have been many changes in journalism since World War II, but the most striking has come in the resumé of the journalist. Of course, there have always been college graduates in journalism. Even Ernie Pyle, the everyman reporter of World War II, had studied at Indiana. But what we’ve had in the last 50 years is a deluge of college graduates. They have brought some improvements. But they’ve also brought into journalism the culture, attitudes, and arrogance of the academic world.
A fabulous insight into modern journalism that most news consumers will identify with, and few media insiders will admit to.
I think the NY Times should adopt the Newscorp strategy. Hire lawyers and political hacks as journalists.
And way back in 1938 TIME magazine named ADOLPH HITLER as its MAN OF THE YEAR just typical of a liberal socialists rag
“…they’ve also brought into journalism the culture, attitudes, and arrogance of the academic world.”
Or, more precisely, the culture, attitudes and arrogance of humanities professors, who for a couple of generations now have been absorbed with capital T Theory at the expense of real facts and the rational inferences that can be drawn from them. Professional news organizations would do well to not hire college graduates until they have had some time to reacquaint themselves with reality in serious (i.e. non-academic) jobs. Having been out of school for some time myself, I can only shake my head at the kind of nonsense I used to swallow, and I can see its dire effects in the Globe and Mail and on the CBC on those now very rare occasions when I bother to glance at either.
Yes, Hitler made Man of the Year in 1938; Stalin got it in 1939 and 1942. FDR got it 3 times. I won it last year. Someone should analyze the list to see whether it reflects public sentiment or only that of Henry Luce et al. Full list is here: http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa050400a.htm
The NYTs is like a piece of farm equipment THE MANURE SPREADER
Seems like Ochs was reacting to the Hurst empire.
“I won it last year.”
No you didn’t! I did!!! Lyin’ bastard….
Yeah Spurwing, but unlike the farm version its got turbo boost AND a nitrous injection system to fling more poo farther and faster.
i think of the Internet as a big umbrella. Keeps the poo off.
Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones and its crown jewel, the WSJ, and the infusion of money that will flow into them ought to have the NYT’s sweating bullets. Murdoch has stated that he wants to make the WSJ into a paper of more international status. Good-bye NYT’s, your lefty crap has competition in overeas markets which means that the Other America gets heard finally.
Murdoch killed CNN’s ratings when FOX hit cable. Let’s hope he can shrink the NYT’s into the purveyor of fish wrap that it deserves to be. It had the advantage as the only leisure weekend read, the WSJ is gaining as one.
penny, that’s fine news.
Initially, that’s what Canada’s National Post did when it was started by Conrad Black: it’s given the formerly conservative, ever-more-to-the-left, pro-gay agenda Globe and Mail a run for its money.
Unfortunately, the NP’s now owned by the Liberal-supporting Aspers. Yes, the paper’s still a huge improvement on the Toronto Star and the G & M, and it’s got some fine columnists (e.g., Jonas, Frum, Fulford, Gunter, Kay and Kay; no Steyn any more though, a HUGE deficit). But’s it’s lost the conservative edge it had in its hey day (only about ten years ago).
The NYT were the paper that carried the first piece about “Curveball”. Curveball being the taxi driver who said he was a scientist who was the source of all that hooey that Powell tried to peddle at the UN as justification for the invasion of Iraq.
Helping a government PR man launch a bogus propaganda campaign to lead your country into war doesn’t strike me as either very liberal or counter establishment.