Before you comment check out the titles of articles on the main page here (no subscription needed)
I’ve noticed that there is a tendency among many Kossacks to harbor strong opinions against The New York Times as demonstrated both in some diaries with numerous recommendations and the comments to these diaries. The criticisms fall into two basic categories. One is attacking them for publishing guest OpEds by far-right essayists and the second is that they have an overall anti-progressive and pro-right bias. While they employ a few columnists who express right leaning opinions, they also publish essays which are from guest columnists Many are well known and others, like Yegor Firsov, a medic in the Ukrainian military in eastern and a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2014 to 2016 will be new to readers. He wrote “Ukraine’s Russian ‘Liberators’ Are Seeing That We Live Better Than They Do” published today.
I’ve read comments from Kossacks who assume in error that some of these represent the editorial opinion of the paper.
It should be noted that the paper has an editorial board and opinions from that group are clearly labeled. They write expressing the paper’s opinion. Today the board endorsed three primary candidates running in New York, Dan Goldman, Jerrold Nadler and Sean Maloney.
Some Kossacks express the opinion that some guest essays belong on right-wing websites rather than being given more credibility by being published by the Times. (See below for more about this.)
It has just been announced that the NYT just created created what they are calling the “right-wing media beat” to cover what is driving the political decisions of many Americans who are exposed to right-wing media..
Here’s an excerpt about what the new reporter, Ken Bensinger, will be doing:
That digging (in previous reporting) was terrific preparation for Ken’s new beat, filled as it is with people who reject mainstream narratives and question the institutions that hold up our democracy. Understanding the way information is developed, circulated and absorbed on the right is vital at this precarious moment, and requires a healthy measure of patience, empathy and understanding along with investigative chops, skepticism and toughness.
Here’s the NYT press release (I don’t think you need a subscription to read it).
This has prompted a reaction from the very right-wing media that some Kossacks want right-wing essayists to be published on instead of in the NY Times.
For example the very title of the Breitbart story says a great deal about what they think of this:
Excerpt:
The statement provides an exhaustive list of topics and stories Bensinger has covered — from campaign finance, to “political disinformation,” to the Oath Keepers’ finances. Curiously absent, however, is any mention of Bensinger being the lead reporter on the uncritical Buzzfeed story that injected the infamous Steele Dossier into the public conversation in 2017, with the headline: “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia.”
The Dossier was eventually revealed to be full of false information, after it was used as the basis for the “Russia collusion” investigation that consumed the majority of former President Donald Trump’s term, ultimately proving to be a hoax.
While many Kossacks see The New York Times as a mouthpiece for the right wing Fox News has an opposite viewpoint:
Excerpt:
Media commentator and Fox News contributor Joe Concha said the new position was no surprise at a newspaper known for its liberal bent; for instance, while separate from the news division, the New York Times editorial board hasn't endorsed a Republican for the White House since 1956.
"This is how ‘journalism’ works these days: There are whole outlets with people who somehow refer to themselves as media reporters who are actually activists dedicated to watching and reading what they deem right-wing media and opining about what they disagree with," Concha told Fox News Digital. "They know their audience and are simply catering to it."
The Times' media coverage has long shown a heavy emphasis on the right. According to a search of its website, 577 Times articles – including more than 200 opinion pieces – contain the term "right-wing media", while just 48 have the term "left-wing media," a ratio of more than 12 to 1. Many of the "left-wing media" references were simply from quoting figures like former President Trump deriding outlets they viewed as having liberal bias, rather than the Times reporting critically on them.
I’ve read comments to articles trashing The New York Times here where Kossacks wrote about cancelling their subscription and trashing it in colorful terms. Kossacks with a long memory even bring up the Judith Miller case of her inaccurate Iraq War reporting as proving how bad the paper is.
I do question why The New York Times publishes some guest OpEds which I think present outrageous opinions like one on Sunday (There Is No Happy Ending to America’s Trump Problem) by a fairly obscure writer named Damon Linker and then don’t even have a comments section like they do for most of their OpEds. On Monday they published another guest OpEd by National Review Editor Rich Lowry (Can You Tell Me What Would Happen if the F.B.I. Were Investigating a Democrat?) which I also found to be a load of right-wing crap, but that one allowed 2334 comments, many critical of what he wrote, before that comment section was closed.
While the NYT has, in my opinion, some of the best columnists to be found in any one place in the media. The Rubert Murdoch New York Post must have taken pleasure in July when they published “NY Times columnists admit to being ‘wrong’ in series of mea culpas” but as far as I know they never published a similar article about their own columnists.
The New York Times is far more than a newspaper which publishes opinion. It has excellent investigative reporters consistently breaks major news stories most recently this one.
Aside from politics and international news The New York Times exhaustively covers science, arts, culture, medicine and health, business, tech, food, style, books and other subjects.
What do you say Kossacks? Where do you fall? Do you love to hate The New York Times, do you love to love it, or are you somewhere in the middle? Please take the poll and comment.
Read More
