PressEthic

As a kid I was always mystified by The New York Times. I would see it on the breakfast table every now and then and wonder, what is that? It’s format, its teeny letters, and very elitist look made it stand out from The Cape Cod Times or even the Boston Globe, the papers my parents regularly subscribed too.

But after almost 5 weeks of this class I am beginning to agree with Jay Rosen. The New York Times has lost its place at the top of the media ladder. As Rosen writes in his blog, Pressthink, “Just one man's opinion, but now is a good time to say it: The New York Times is not any longer--in my mind--the greatest newspaper in the land. Nor is it the base line for the public narrative that it once was. Some time in the least year or so I moved the Washington Post into that position…”

As for me, I haven’t quite hopped onto the Post bandwagon. I do read it regularly, but its format, its writers, still seem a little foreign to me. As for the Times I agree with Rosen that the paper just keeps discrediting itself. It‘s as if you can only be on top for so long, before self destruction is imminent. In this class we have looked at Jayson Blair and the scandal involving Wen Ho Lee. More recently Judith Miller is creating a lot of waves as she was just released from jail. The stories coming from the paper who have this “martyr of the 1st Amendment” on their payroll are pretty lackluster and many, including Rosen believe that The Times is turning into the Judith Miller Times. Another slew of stories concerned the libeling of the great Geraldo Rivera and the corrections having to do with op-eders Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, and their misinterpretation of events surrounding Michael Brown, namely that they wrongly stated that he was the roommate of the former FEMA head. Friedman, specifically took forever to make corrections on one of his August columns that dealt with the media recounts in Florida ballots in Election 2000. The introduction of Times Select isn’t helping either.

Strike Three, (or more like Strike 6 or 7?), you’re out. In some ways, The New York Times, may be so obsessed about being the paper of record that it has put the likes of good journalism aside. It needs it scoops to remain number one, or so they think, but by sacrificing good journalism shouldn’t be the way to do it. It is impossible to have a newspaper with zero flaws. People, namely reporters and editors make a newspaper, and people make mistakes. But this many is getting ridiculous. Maybe The Times needs to be in second place for awhile. Maybe they need a nice slice of humble pie to get back where they once were.