Wolf vs. Gray Lady

“The New York Times, as we know it, has been disappearing for some time,” Newser‘s Michael Wolf wrote last Friday morning. “It may — diminishing as though by half-lives — have degraded to the point where, in any practical sense, it has long since ceased to be the leading voice in either journalism or the establishment.

“This is partly of its own doing: Almost all of its strategies to deal with the changes in the newspaper business — its national strategy, its online strategy, its regional strategy (buying the Boston Globe), its international strategy (buying the International Herald Tribune) — have bitten it in the ass. Nor have its strategies to deal with the changes in news itself been so successful — the featurizing and softnews-ifying of the front page has made the must-read Times a not-so-important read.

“But mostly the problem is that the New York Times is a newspaper. Once there was the New York Times, which, while in the form of a newspaper, represented something so much more significant–it was a daily bible. But now it is just a newspaper — no better, no worse. And there is nothing that it can do to escape the problems and the fate of all other newspapers. Technological obsolescence doesn’t discriminate. (The Times’ game efforts to compete in this world have only meant that it’s seen a faster undermining of its main revenue source — the newspaper).

“The last of the Times Mohicans — that band of journalism devotees (something more and more like railroad hobbyists), retro-Jewish liberals, and those remaining establishment types who depend on the Times to write about them — with their belief that the Times is unique and necessary, continue to hope against hope for a white knight solution.

“They will supply the whimper.”

14 thoughts on “Wolf vs. Gray Lady”

I’m a Baptist from Alabama. And I read the New York Times every chance I get mainly because I like to, you know, be informed of what’s going on in the world. If you read the New York Times every day and the Economist every week, you’re going to be better informed than 99.9% of the policymakers out there. When you read a story about the same incident from the New York Times and say CNN or Fox, there is no comparison. The depth and intelligence of the Times’ coverage always makes it feel like the other guys have first graders doing their reporting..

I’m getting sick of the Times-bashing from the blogosphere. Not you of course Jeff; you’ve always shown real respect for the paper.

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I can’t take the NYT seriously when they keep filing articles about domestic abuse issues, successful working females, and feminist issues, under the “STYLE/FASHION” category. WTF.

good riddance to the NYT!

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Wolff is such an abject clown overall that even when he’s right, he’s wrong. Looks to me that he’ still fuming over the fact that the Times didn’t cream all over his Murdoch book. Next.

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I’m an atheist from Alabama, and I want to know what “retro-Jewish” means.

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I’m a Jew from New York and I, too, would like to know.

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“… the featurizing and softnews-ifying of the front page has made the must-read Times a not-so-important read.”

In other writings, Wolf has struck me as a bit of tool and a fool, but he’s right about the Times, especially that sentence about softnews-ifying.

It’s discouraging that Murdoch has been doing exactly the same thing to the WSJ since he got his claws in it. He decided the hardcore business coverage is too nerdy and wants to downplay it. Instead he wants to compete head to head with the NYT in exactly this area — soft news — exactly the area that is turning both the must-read NYT and WSJ into not-so-important reads.

Both the NYT and WSJ are turning into US Today.

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Well, I’m a Jew from Philly, and I think what Wolf is referring to re ‘retro Jewish liberals’ is older Jewish liberals who grew up during the civil rights/women’s rights/gay rights/ Vietnam War era, and whose politics were shaped by all that. These are the folks who read Frank Rich religiously, wouldn’t vote for a Republican even under pain of death, and think Barack is the shit.

I’m one of ‘em, and I think Wolf’s sneering comment is both stupid and offensive.

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lbeale, I was just being a smartass. Wolf should have written “retro Jewish liberals,” but by putting in the unnecessary, incorrect hyphen, he changes the meaning he intended.

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I can’t take the NYT seriously when they keep filing articles about domestic abuse issues, successful working females, and feminist issues, under the “STYLE/FASHION” category. WTF.

good riddance to the NYT!

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And this the week that Paul Krugman graces the cover of Newsweek as the Christ and Cassandra of the economic collapse. (And I say that as someone who, though skeptical, buys Krugman’s critiques.) If anything, the NYTimes is enjoying a resurgence of public respect – Krugman IS the NYtimes right now. Certainly casts aspersions on Wolf’s motives and mindset.

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Who reads the Times? They don’t even have any celebrity gossip.

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p.s. Who the fuck is Michael Wolf?

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