Something good happened at the Times!

On the New York Times “Why Oh Why” front, the Times just appointed science reporter Carl Zimmer’s brother Ben as the language maven replacement for William Safire. Both Zimmers are excellent and highly competent reporters, exactly the kind of reporter that the Times is reputed to have but usually doesn’t.

What can we conclude from this, other than that the Times should hire more Zimmers? (I’m sure that there’s a good economics writer named Zimmer somewhere.)

The lesson is that the Times is willing to publish good reporting as long as the topic written about does not have critical day-to-day, life-and-death importance for our lives. So for topics the Sulzbergers regard as peripheral and fluffy, we get good stuff. But when the chips are down and the rubber hits the road, on war and peace or unemployment and depression, other considerations intervene, and the Times becomes the propaganda organ of an unexpressed neo-con, neoliberal, non-partisan, “centrist” agenda.

The media have chosen sides, and it’s not our side. We have to recognize this before we can deal with it. Even if all of the Democrats and liberals magically wised up about this overnight, I still doubt that we’d be able to overcome the systematic media opposition. But they haven’t wised up; they’re still hoping and praying that their holy fathers, Czar Sulzberger and Czar Graham (or maybe Czarina Weymouth) will hear their pleas.

Fortunately for the Czars, their Cossacks are loyal and up to the job. Expect more of the same.

(Part of an intermittent series, “Reasons to Quit”)

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

The Raven Says:

March 12, 2010 at 5:49 pm

“The lesson is that the Times is willing to publish good reporting as long as the topic written about does not have critical day-to-day, life-and-death importance for our lives.”

Substitute “govern well” for “do good writing” and you get the policies of the Obama administration.

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”–C. S. Lewis, *Screwtape*

Croak!

burritoboy Says:

March 12, 2010 at 7:19 pm

Again, what was that nonsense that the Enlightenment was peddling about a free press while it was simultaneously promoting capitalism? Oh yeah, they actually had no idea what they were talking about.

Also see the illuminating example of Alfred Hugenberg.

John Emerson Says:

March 12, 2010 at 7:54 pm

I’m reading about the press during the period around 1830 in France. It was very interesting. Most newspapers were fly by night operations, usually or always partisan but often suddenly switching loyalties for cash. Journalism and literature were undifferentiated, and all or almost all of the authors of the era wrote journalism, and many supported themselves by it. But journalism and literature were basically disreputable, and few or none of the authors made enough money to raise a family.

Between us and the freedom of the press is a battle to the death” said someone in Stendhal. That was a good era of press freedom.

March 12, 2010 at 9:07 pm

John,

But we must also look at how the press was transformed in the later nineteenth century. The newspaper owners moved from sleazy status to Beaverbrook being Lord Privy Seal in WWII (as well as holding four ministerial level posts, being a member of Parliament and getting a Baronetcy).