Breaking up with a a media outlet that you have considered essential for years is a challenge. Sheer habit alone will keep you there, but sometime change is so needed, nothing can prevent it.
I had to break up with the New York Times.
The downhill slide at the NYT has become perpendicular. That became obvious last year, with the softball coverage of the Republican candidate so biased, it was dubbed “sane-washing.” Rather than print a quote, they would just summarize what they thought was was being said, or what they wanted you to hear. Because word salad does not read well in print.
That is not quality journalism. That’s sweeping facts under the rug.
My habit of reading the New York Times goes back to when it was easy to get the daily paper at my local bookstore, in Los Angeles. The Sunday Times was always a treat for it’s extensive Arts coverage and Book Review, it was not just a good paper but a great paper. Worth every hour spent reading it, and unless you were willing to spend multiple hours, you missed something good.
Giving up the NYT in 2024 was more than just foregoing the news coverage – some of which was good coverage of news I could not find an easy source for. I do my research – The Guardian, BBC, Al Jezeera, France 24. Information is out there, but no one place has everything I’m looking for; so I shop.
It was all the rest of it – the Cooking newsletters, the theater reviews, the museum coverage, the games – that I really enjoyed and accessed daily. My opening word for Wordle was “ADIEU” which is one that’s within the rules despite being French. It hits almost every vowel, and had seen me through a 50 day winning streak.
Then it became the moment to say adieu to the NYT.
The inexplicable shucking for the crazy man was just too much to stomach, and I cancelled all my NYT subscriptions. So long, farewell…and no regrets. Last week’s bizarre editorial from the NYT shows just how far this this once respected paper has fallen. Publishing information about a New York Democratic mayoral candidate’s college application – which had to be twisted hard into some interpretation of ‘this is dishonest’ – that had been gleaned from a social media influencer…oh my. Oh my.
It’s tough, knowing that there are still excellent people at the NYT, and that some of it’s reportage is outstanding. But Editorial? It’s like discovering someone you used to know isn’t just doing the thing that caused you to step away from the relationship, they have put posters in their windows and bumperstickers on their car.
I still read the Los Angeles Times, which seems to be more guilty of errors of omission than creeping authoritarianism. Also, a shadow of the paper it once was – but still a far better than the paper it had been with multiple intermittent owners. I wold love to see the LA Times come back to national and even international status. That requires money, and money means subscriptions. If everyone who want to see the LA Times really improve were willing to invest in a subscription, I’ll bet we would see just the kind of improvement we hope for. And write Letters to the Editor, lots of them. That is how a news outlet knows it has a connection with readers.
Think about making a commitment to support what you value – while it still exists. If we lose the LA Times and the SF Chronicle, then news only exists as the East Coast says is does.
As Joni Mitchell noted, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
Judith Martin-Straw
