no way NYT

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.”

Ross Asshat.

god, to be a landowner in the west... these people aren't "working class" when their property is worth six figures. they are and represent split-minded people, who don't understand their own wealth. they've inherited everything they have and are too .. encumbered to put it kindly .. to build on it. some of these people of course have a taste for demagoguery. get enough of them together and you have a dangerous situation.

that being said, the headlights thing is legit. there's some discussion of it here: led lights suck

i've been paying more attention to led headlights. most are chill. i'm not sure how much of that is the led bulbs, or the coating of the headlight plastic, or both. every several cars though there is a particularly harsh light situation going on. on a road trip to moab recently i pulled off the highway to look at the stars. traffic was barely there with a car passing every minute or so. the very harsh headlights of one car from maybe a half a mile away cutting through the absolute dark left a strange pattern on my car, like the surface of a moonlit sea. i've noticed that those weird squiggly patterns around the light are faintly visible around the edges if you look directly at a harsh led headlight. my theory is that whatever it is that creates that effect is a big part of what makes bright led lights so viscerally unpleasant.

i will say that even though hardly anyone lives on like 80% of the united states of america, the land has historically been and is still, to this day, a major pillar of american imperial power. it is a very weird and fractured time to be living in that "land space" like it is everywhere else.

one trend i find really interesting lately is mountain bike trail systems. look at any town anywhere in the west and in the last five years they have developed or are starting to develop these large "open space" areas with mountain bike trails. a very interesting melding of some complicated and in some cases contradictory social forces and desires. overall a good thing i think - at least i benefit from it personally lol. a boon for tourism and property values. that funny thing of how land preservation and restoration feeds back into the market. what do all these mountain bikers do when they aren't mountain biking? pretty sure they're all white collar workers of one stripe or another. of course the white collar workers in rural towns trend hit the fan with covid. so once the towns are full of these kinds of people in their new developments and cheaply constructed (but high margin) condo developments, where do we get our lithium? the next valley over, just make sure to put up a solid fence between the highway and the mine. and don't pay attention to the dwindling rivers, they have no messages to bring that anyone in the new west wants to hear.

i think what i was trying to say at the end there and missed the mark with the lithium mine thing is that "back to the land" reflects an internal, spiritual crisis more than anything. americans never wanted to go back to the land, they wanted to possess it and squeeze it for resources because they've always been greedy more than anything. to go back to the land is to be subject to it, to live with it not just on top of it. that is the last thing anyone "settling" the west has ever wanted to do.

the mountain bike trail system thing is interesting to me because i think while most mountain bikers just want a rollercoaster thrill ride - which is relatable - there are seeds there for a more considerate and sympathetic view of the land that people are actually living on. simply through time spent on the land and observations made about it. and doing the kind of weird thing of trail maintenance and stewardship. i think it's a way to access a more rooted dimension while our essential resources are all distributed in a network. and if that network ever starts to fray and disconnect i think that's when "living on the land" starts to become more necessary. will knowledge of your local mountain bike trail system help in that scenario, when you can't order parts for your mountain bike anymore? will people recreate on the land when they actually have to start living on it? stay tuned, we may start to get more experience with these kinds of questions in our lifetimes!

well there is a thing about hunters, even racist asshole hunters, being big conservationists, stewards of the land etc because they actually are in touch with the natural world and depend on it for their recreation

I took an hour-long walk up and down the hills of Flathead Lake State Park this afternoon and now I am back home in a chair torn between "I need to do that more often" (because I am in poor physical condition) and "I am never doing that again as long as I live" (because I am in poor physical condition).

Vancouver, WA, is known as "Vantucky" to everyone in the area. I wrote a post immortalized in the "striking imagery" thread about sleeping in some bushes next to a highway onramp in Vancouver. it is, for lack of a more elegant term, a total shithole.

Our local mountain bikers are all big environmentalists. We have a big group here, a nonprofit that builds great trails on public or donated land. They're all very conservation-minded in addition to their cyclical insanity.

https://bsky.app/profile/grahamlampa.com/post/3mchlde6cjc27

just enraging. reads like a parody

Abolish ICE? It’s a Slogan Some Democratic Critics of ICE Would Abolish.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you

fuck this piece of shit paper forever and ever

you should see what the other shit New YOrk rag published today

jfc i foolishly actually clicked on the nyt article and it’s 100x worse than i imagined.

The regulars file into Ye Olde Pickle Factory in Nisswa, Minn., before 10 a.m. most days, taking their seats at the bar. Chili pepper lights hang from the ceiling, and neon beer signs glow against wood-paneled walls. A television flickers on. “The Price Is Right” is about to start.

They have been doing this since the mid-1980s, gathering in this small, dim room, waiting for someone on the game show to spin exactly $1 on the big wheel. When that happens, everyone receives a token for a free drink. Lately, they had been in a lull. No one had hit the dollar in weeks — until Wednesday.

Yes yes, let us take seriously the policy perspectives of people who have been getting wasted starting at 10am for the past 40 years.

It’s like even in the case that you’re an oblivious ghoul and this reporting supports your perspective, how can they have such little self-awareness to at least avoid self-parody

reading that excerpt in david attenborough's voice

xp there’s a lesson in that piece, just not the one the NYT thinks

_Why It’s Hard to Run Venezuela_

if it were easy it would be a while different story

Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT challenged me to a debate on foreign policy. We recorded a 90-minute segment for his show, Interesting Times, on 1/15/26. But I defeated him so decisively that he refuses to air the footage. What an absolute coward. pic.twitter.com/ak9LTq2nI8

— Seth Harp (@sethharpesq) February 5, 2026

unsurprising. Douthat is a total coward.

In MAGA America, NYT says no way to YOU

"we are going to pivot away from this story"

i cannot find the words for the way this sentence makes me feel

I will be using this phrasing with my boss from now on.

Yeah boss I am working through the edit and it looks like I'm not going to be able to make it work. Pivoting away now.

Listen Penelope I know it's been a great six years and it has no, it really has, but it looks like I'm not going to be able to make it work. I've been really pummeled by a lot of... stuff.. and I'm going to pivot away from this relationship now. Thanks for the time you put into it

this seems cool and obviously ross d. sucks but jfc can we get over 'debating' and 'destroyed!' as a method of commentary