no way NYT

torn between the point of reporting on people like that Japanese Yale loon; like, guy hangs around with the person who runs 4chan, is clearly some edgelord discourse idiot, and doesn't deserve to be given attention by anyone, particularly the NYT and Yale. Yet maybe ignoring him isn't a good idea? Dunno.

There are ways to pay attention to him that don't involve writing articles about him

I thought this was an interesting article tbh. The “4chan edgelord” audience he panders to is a real thing, in Japan as well as the West. It’s worth keeping tabs on them.

also worth keeping tabs on ivy league/chicago-accredited economists, all of whom are latent genocidaires

and people who *wish* they were accredited so, like mcardle, yglesias and brett stephens's ex-wife

Yes, exactly.

that one is "oh noes how will rich people cope", this one is more abt documenting their truly disturbing rightward shift

Okay I get why ilxors respond to the content in the Times in these ways, and I have no serious counterargument.

That said, both of these characterizations fill me with cognitive dissonance though, and for different reasons.

First, my experience of salaries in print journalism was decidedly grim. My first journalism job paid $6 an hour. My second journalism job paid $16,000 a year. My third journalism job paid... $8 an hour. My third journalism job paid $12 an hour. My fourth journalism job paid $20,000 a year, which felt like a fortune. In 1996.

Referring to NYT staffers - or even its editorial columnists - as "the ruling class" is comprehensible only due to a perverse quirk of the economics of cultural production.

Basically, for most of my life, the ONLY people who could survive in NYC-based print-media industries (newspaper journalism, magazine journalism, and of course book publishing) were subsidized by wealthy parents.

Journalism - on its own - is not now, nor has it ever been, a path to riches. No one is getting wealthy from print journalism any more (and almost no one did so in prior decades either).

Truthbomb: if you are someone with one or more degrees in English, yes, you can work as an editorial assistant at Alfred A. Knopf (or the New Yorker, or whatever). But only if you have no student debt and your parents pay your rent. This has been true for half a century; it should not be news.

Now about the "disturbing rightward shift," please remember that approximately half the nation believes anyone involved in mainstream media - including and especially print media like NYT/WaPo - is essentially communist. Conservative media is clear on this point: the NYT is basically communist.

This disconnect is vexing. Ilxorz and lefties in general believe the NYT is center-right at best, and not to be trusted. Most of the conservasphere believes the NYT is hard left, left of Che Guevara, left of Lenin, left of Bernie, and not to be trusted.

Can both of these descriptions be true? I dunno. In the meantime I still feel like the NYT has a pretty good crossword puzzle app so I feel like sticking with it.

the way I feel about the Times is this:

it’s the paper I’ve been yelling at since i was a teenager, i don’t want to find a new paper to yell at. it has decent reporting on occasion, and the best online recipe depository.

i still think it sucks.

The ruling class experiencing quiddities and agonies are not NY Times staffers - it's the rich people being profiled in the lifestyle/real estate/etc sections.

Now about the "disturbing rightward shift," please remember that approximately half the nation believes anyone involved in mainstream media - including and especially print media like NYT/WaPo - is essentially communist. Conservative media is clear on this point: the NYT is basically communist.

This disconnect is vexing. Ilxorz and lefties in general believe the NYT is center-right at best, and not to be trusted. Most of the conservasphere believes the NYT is hard left, left of Che Guevara, left of Lenin, left of Bernie, and not to be trusted.

Can both of these descriptions be true? I dunno.

Why would the right's attitude be taken into account at all? They also think Joe Biden is a Stalinist baby blood-drinking pedophile or at least a Stalinist doing the bidding of baby blood-drinking pedophiles.

All major news media is center-right (at best) - they're capitalist enterprises who in the end have to protect their bottom line. This means 'printing the controversy,' an overwhelming focus on crime at every level, following the lead of American imperialism in anything outside our borders, dehumanizing anyone or anything that makes the upper-middle class anxious (the homeless, BLM activists, etc.), protecting fellow capitalist enterprises (ie advertisers).

The shift in the Times has been embracing deep reactionary takes on social issues - which is not new ground but a shift from the last couple of decades.

Referring to NYT staffers - or even its editorial columnists - as "the ruling class" is comprehensible only due to a perverse quirk of the economics of cultural production.

oh, i think there's a vast difference between NYT staffers and editorial columnists. it's a perverse quirk that the latter are accorded such attention, but, nevertheless, they are. (i was going to say 'fading quirk' but iirc the WaPo just fired a bunch of journalists while hiring a bunch of NRO/AEI columnists)

might be fading away now, but it's long been common knowledge that WSJ reporters can be relied upon even while the WSJ editorial page is fucking bonkers

i would first suggest that literally no one deserves a regular NYT opinion column -- no one has anything interesting to say twice a week for decades on end. but apart from that, who's left? a guy who just recently grasped climate change after a visit to greenland. a woman who thinks liberals should learn things from ron desantis. a guy who quit, to run for political office in a jurisdiction he didn't live, then came back. maureen fucking dowd. these people are all terrible, and obviously so. but they are voices that matter in the 'discourse' and the 'sunday morning shows'. and if they didn't suck so badly, perhaps those things would be slightly better

that all sounds right to me

wait which one of those is jamelle bouie

(to be clear i fully agree with you that there should not be such a thing as a regular NYT opinion columnist, and that nobody's 20th best opinion of the year is worth a damn)

jamelle bouie is grebt, and i suspect that as black man extremely well-versed in the last 300+ years of american history, he has almost endless things to write about twice a week

i have no idea what pamela paul will offer us on a weekly basis? ideally it won't be about the tragedy of taking her stupid friends to a sandwich place that offers soppressata, but i guess we'll see

This disconnect is vexing. Ilxorz and lefties in general believe the NYT is center-right at best, and not to be trusted. Most of the conservasphere believes the NYT is hard left, left of Che Guevara, left of Lenin, left of Bernie, and not to be trusted.

Can both of these descriptions be true? I dunno. In the meantime I still feel like the NYT has a pretty good crossword puzzle app so I feel like sticking with it.

trust fund kids have their own class politics. they resent the bourgeoisie (their parents) and feel guilty that they are part of it. so there is an incentive to evade directly dealing with uncomfortable questions of class. this accounts for the dissonance i think.

Not sure I understand how that is supposed to square the circle but OK I guess.

My final question is the extent to which the New York Times is actually influencing anything or anyone. That is, how many minds are getting changed because people type things and the NYT prints them or "prints" them?

I am skeptical. I don't think there are very many people being swayed to or from their preexisting attitudes because of something appearing in legacy print media. Maybe I'm wrong about this. As noted, I have been in the bubble since birth (child of journalists, journalism major, former journalist, etc.). But I have cultivated a humility about the influence of the field because I have been awake for the last quarter-century and see that it's only a tiny minority of weirdos who read anything any more, let alone something so dinosaurian as a printed newspaper.

Me? I have been read the Washington Post and New York Times all my life, but (a) I know I am an outlier and (b) Doing so hasn't put very many ideas in my head that weren't already there.

People who read, like, and believe newspapers do so because newspapers reflect a worldview they already hold, and which they probably inherited from their parents.

People who ignore, hate, and disparage newspapers do so because that course of actions reflects a worldview they already hold, and which they probably inherited from their parents.

What are you going on about?

so has the NYT always been center right? or did it execute a turnabout a few years ago? surely it was seen as much worse than center-right by the counter culture left in the late 1960s…

one difference from 10 years ago is that is not teetering on the edge of financial collapse: it is now a totemic product that the members of bourgie center left (such as me) use to signal their allegiance, their class, etc etc…and is calling it "center right" as a pejorative an ILX thing or is it widespread throughout the left internet?

so has the NYT always been center right? or did it execute a turnabout a few years ago? surely it was seen as much worse than center-right by the counter culture left in the late 1960s…

I'm pretty sure the Times came in for a kicking in Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent, which I read 30 years ago. And it definitely features prominently in Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media?, which came out in 2003. Calling it a "liberal" paper basically amounts to the broader public adopting a Nixon-era attack line.

Oh, it's just a viral marketing campaign

https://twitter.com/KimStimFilms/status/1625183907833430033

Shocking but this Yale prof says the quite part out loud suggesting mass suicide for old folks in Japan! This is the premise of Chie Hayakawa's moving, & unforgettable PLAN 75- a Cannes winner is set in a chilling, sci-fi tinged near future. Opens Spring!https://t.co/022TIc8heF

— KimStim (@KimStimFilms) February 13, 2023

The glasses are bothering me tbh

Yeah sorry, you can’t Gramsci your way out of this one, treeship— by any objective measure, the Times has been a center-right paper for my entire life, at least, and I am nearing 40. unperson otm.

In Defense of J.K. Rowling

surprised it took her this long tbh

God, Pamela Paul really is the worst.

abysmal

Can't believe I bothered to read it but my summary is:

*Here's all the things trans people are angry at J.K. about, but see they're actually nbd because

*Here's three cherry picked quotes that make Rowling appear to be pro-trans, when considered out of topic

*Also here's one journalist who used to think she was transphobic and now doesn't

*Also she got death threats!!!

*Ergo she is not transphobic

yes, why would I not “take it” from this obviously very sane and trustworthy source pic.twitter.com/HbiDdrmC0S

— Jesse Fuchs (@jessefuchs) February 16, 2023

thanks Alfred.

I read more of EJ Rosetta's tweets and uhh anybody who thinks she went into her assignment ready to assassinate Rowling and was 'stunned by the lack of evidence' and changed her mind is a humongous dumb fuck.

lol Marc Joseph Stern called her out on it back then

This is not how either language or logic works

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) January 29, 2023

no one tell the Cistercian nuns about this

Also that writer considers “dyke” a slur, which is some…truly weird shit?!!

Like, the biggest lesbian event in the US is the SF Dyke March. Who does she think she’s fooling?

she called a guy who was 'mean' to her a pedophile because of his beard so

maybe she's Elon Musk's alt

love the fact that she took 12 weeks to do research for a listicle

An open letter from NYT contributors about the paper's embrace of transphobia: https://nytletter.com/. (As Slate pointed out this was published yesterday, and then the PP/JK thing came out today...)

Definitely worth reading the whole thing, but this stood out in light of the very confused posts about bias & influence upthread:

The natural destination of poor editorial judgment is the court of law. Last year, Arkansas’ attorney general filed an amicus brief in defense of Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, which would make it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment, for any medical provider to administer certain gender⁠-⁠affirming medical care to a minor (including puberty blockers) that diverges from their sex assigned at birth. The brief cited three different New York Times articles to justify its support of the law: Bazelon’s “The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” Azeen Ghorayshi’s “Doctors Debate Whether Trans Teens Need Therapy Before Hormones,” and Ross Douthat’s “How to Make Sense of the New L.G.B.T.Q. Culture War.” As recently as February 8th, 2023, attorney David Begley’s invited testimony to the Nebraska state legislature in support of a similar bill approvingly cited the Times’ reporting and relied on its reputation as the “paper of record” to justify criminalizing gender⁠-⁠affirming care.

I signed that— has thousands of signatures

ej rosetta is such a blatant grifter to the point that even some of the other transphobes have caught on (there's a lot of drama with her begging for paypal donations 'to protect lesbians' etc. and starting inscrutable beefs with other transphobes). it's almost certain there was no listicle assignment to begin with, let alone that she had three months to do it or that she was pro-trans before it

And then today, McWhorter’s newsletter defends Desantis. I often wonder whether the former is aware that all of the people whose boots he’s licking would like to see him dead, or whether he’s somehow convinced himself that he’s “one of the good ones.”

Having just read the column, he could've offered his non-controversial views without framing it around goddamn DeSantis, who will share the thing and go, "See?"

As someone who has read several of his essays and even one of his books, it pains me to conclude that John McWhorter may not be very bright.

For all I know, he is a brilliant linguist (I haven't seen any criticism of his work in that area), it's his forays into social/political punditry that don't reflect well on him.

His view on dying languages is appaling to me, especially in the Canadian context of FNIM trying to reclaim their cultural heritage, so even as a linguist he can be frustrating.

I think he’s smart enough to know how many sales you guarantee by titling your book Woke Racism.

He’s not a good linguist either.

He isn't that bad a linguist, really. Or at least he didn't use to be 20 years ago. His The Power of Babel is one of the books that first got me into the subject, and I think it's still a good introduction. Also his Great Courses on the history of the English language is solid. He has been such a massive disappointment over the last decade though.

American Teens Are Really Miserable. Why?

—Ross Douthat

Q: American Teens Are Really Miserable. Why?
A: Ross Douthat

I occasionally write comments on NYT op-eds because I can’t resist, this Douthat column made me write this:

“In a culture where most people have to work constantly (occasionally at multiple jobs) in order to afford basic necessities while one political ideology doubles down on fascism and the other doubles down on neoliberalism and hollow politics of representation, it’s no wonder that young people are depressed. There are no opportunities except meaningless drudgery available to many, and those jobs that might have some meaning are not well-remunerated. Add climate destabilization, attacks on women, racism, attacks on LGBTQ people, and a nihilistic political culture that operates at the whims of the wealthy and corporations? The question becomes: how are young people NOT depressed, living in this world that Reagan and each president following him have built.”

For real though he’s a Jewish anti-Zionist who speaks very powerfully about the genocide.

i do not disagree with that at all

I'm a longtime Beinart stan as one of the only Jewish voices able to articulate full throated criticism of Israel that is still compassionate and incisive about the complexity and binds American Jews find themselves in trying to navigate these issues. He has also managed to do that without being completely ostracized by the liberal Washington establishment which is an underrated feat. That said I listened to him on a podcast recently after only ever reading him, and he sounded like any other annoying pundit. But I am trying really hard not to hold that against him, not everyone has a persona and voice for radio

David Brooks
I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

Should (or Could) Trump Be Added to Mount Rushmore?

Wtaf is this shit

The Great Read

Against Illegal Immigration, but Married to Someone Here Illegally

Chris Allred’s views were shaped by economic changes. Now, facing an immigration crackdown, where do he and his wife go from here?

9 min read

divorce court?

imagine being such a huge and confused asshole they make a whole Great Read about you

also like

How Insularity Defined the Last Stages of Biden’s Career

The effort by former President Biden’s inner circle to limit access to him helps explain why it took him over three weeks to drop his re-election bid.

6 min read

literally what is wrong with these people

I saw the headline this morning and thought, oh, is Jake Tapper a NYT correspondent now

Four long-serving arts critics are being reassigned, and new people are being hired.

The New York Times is revamping its lineup of arts and entertainment critics — replacing four of the paper’s TV, music and theater critics, who are being offered “new roles,” according to an internal memo obtained by Variety.

The quartet of Times critics — television critic Margaret Lyons, music critic Jon Pareles, theater critic Jesse Green and classical music critic Zach Woolfe — will “be taking on new roles, and we will be conducting a search for critics on their beats in the weeks to come,” New York Times culture editor Sia Michel wrote in a memo to staffers on Tuesday afternoon.

“We are in the midst of an extraordinary moment in American culture. New generations of artists and audiences are bypassing traditional institutions, smartphones have Balkanized fandoms even as they have made culture more widely accessible than ever, and arts institutions are facing challenges and looking for new opportunities,” Michel wrote.

“Our readers are hungry for trusted guides to help them make sense of this complicated landscape, not only through traditional reviews but also with essays, new story forms, videos and experimentation with other platforms,” she wrote in the memo. “Our mission is to be those guides,” she continued. “As we do so, I am making some changes in assignments in the department.”

Most of these writers had been on their beats for 10-15 years, but Pareles has been there for almost 40 years.

I do think that big institutions like the NY Times have an obligation to make room for younger voices, in arts criticism particularly

Huh. I am curious what "new roles" they are being reassigned to.

If they can replace opinion columnists that would be great. Could they reassign those douchehat opinion columnists to reviewing mattresses and moisturizers?

https://www.nytimes.com/1913/02/06/archives/put-dogs-brain-in-a-man-michigan-surgeons-perform-remarkable.html

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 5.—The brain of a dog was transferred to a man's skull at University Hospital here to-day. W A. Smith of Kalamazoo had been suffering from abscess on the brain, and in a last effort to save his life this remarkable operation was performed. Opening his skull, the surgeons removed the diseased part of his brain, and in 'ts place substituted the brain of a dog. Smith was resting comfortably to-night, and the surgeons say he has a good chance to recover. (Feb. 6, 1913)

& correction
https://www.nytimes.com/1913/02/08/archives/didnt-use-dogs-brain-physicians-say-only-dura-was-put-into-patients.html

Lol

The patient is reportedly a good boy

fish in a barrel, but

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat: Is 'Toxic Empathy' Pulling Christians to the Left?

we must protect christians from the scourge of empathy

Seriously can he be reassigned to opining about top-loading washing machines?

I got rage-click-baited into a quick scroll through the transcript of that interview — with an evangelical influencer I'd never heard of and who I thought was Karoline Leavitt at first glance (I know, all long-haired blond christo-fascists look the same to me) — and it is absolutely as dumb and terrible as you'd expect, probably more. The empathy shtick basically comes down to same old "we can love the sinner but must hate the sin" shit, nothing new at all, just in an Instagram package.

i bet it's another article by someone who doesn't know that empathy and sympathy switched meanings a few decades ago

i checked: it's an interview with "the new phyllis schlafly" who got her empathy idea from abigail shrier