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NYTimes is no longer the "paper of record". It's dominated by opinion pieces. Both explicit and implicit. Go to NYTimes.com and count the links you see "above

NYTimes is no longer the "paper of record". It's dominated by opinion pieces. Both explicit and implicit. Go to NYTimes.com and count the links you see "above the fold". On my monitor there are 7 non-opinion links. But there are 11, yes eleven!, opinion-section articles. If you want to read "news" and not "opinions" these days it's impossible. Because flamebait opinions get all the clicks and generate all the revenue. I don't blame them for their choices. But I don't respect them either. :(

refurb 7y ago
I noticed that as well. Opinion pieces dominate “the news” and the headlines are clearly written to be inflammatory and clickbait. And this is the newspaper that that published the Pentagon Papers!
partialrecall 7y ago
If the NYTs is no longer America's newspaper of record (in fact it was the first newspaper that term was ever applied to, anywhere), I struggle to think of what is. The other newspaper commonly cited as a newspaper of record in America, the Washington Post, seems little better (or worse) than the NYTs. In any event, I don't think the term was ever used to indicate a lack of editorial bias. Certainly the NYTs has never qualified if that's the meaning of the term.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- partialrecall 7y ago
  [Response to a deleted (but fairly reasonable) comment asserting the NYTs is no longer the newspaper of record.] Was there ever one then? And if not, then what did the term ever mean? Before you answer, please consider the case of Walter Duranty and the NYTs covering up Soviet-lead genocide in Ukraine during the 1930s (the Holodomor, a term many Americans have never heard before.) It wasn't until 1990 that the NYTs came clean (https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-notebook-trenchcoats-then-and-now.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-not...), more than half a century too late. Were they the newspaper of record in the interim period?
  - forrestthewoods 7y ago
    I don't know enough about the history of journalism to give a satisfying answer. I consider "being the newspaper of record" to be an ideal. It is almost certain that anyone striving for the ideal will fail at times. Do I think the NYTimes ideals were lies when they written? No. I believe the organization tried as a whole. Even if individually or collectively they fell short at times. But I don't think that is their ideal at this moment in time. Their new ideal is one of activism. Which I personally find disappointing.
rdiddly 7y ago
They lost that title in 2003 as far as I'm concerned, by slavishly repeating WMD propaganda designed to get everybody behind going to war in Iraq. Back then, they were sycophantic adjuncts of the DoD; now, apparently they're your local university's Racial Studies department, but it hardly matters one way or the other. Just read it for entertainment like everything else in this giant circus of lies and counter-lies.
nebulous1 7y ago
It's possible they have too much opinion in the "above the fold" section you're talking about, but counting them by link seems misleading. I'm seeing about 2/3 of the space being news and 1/3 as opinion. The opinion pieces are more numerous because they are individually given less space.

refurb 7y ago

I noticed that as well. Opinion pieces dominate “the news” and the headlines are clearly written to be inflammatory and clickbait. And this is the newspaper that that published the Pentagon Papers!

partialrecall 7y ago

If the NYTs is no longer America's newspaper of record (in fact it was the first newspaper that term was ever applied to, anywhere), I struggle to think of what is. The other newspaper commonly cited as a newspaper of record in America, the Washington Post, seems little better (or worse) than the NYTs. In any event, I don't think the term was ever used to indicate a lack of editorial bias. Certainly the NYTs has never qualified if that's the meaning of the term.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
partialrecall 7y ago
[Response to a deleted (but fairly reasonable) comment asserting the NYTs is no longer the newspaper of record.] Was there ever one then? And if not, then what did the term ever mean? Before you answer, please consider the case of Walter Duranty and the NYTs covering up Soviet-lead genocide in Ukraine during the 1930s (the Holodomor, a term many Americans have never heard before.) It wasn't until 1990 that the NYTs came clean (https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-notebook-trenchcoats-then-and-now.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-not...), more than half a century too late. Were they the newspaper of record in the interim period?
- forrestthewoods 7y ago
  I don't know enough about the history of journalism to give a satisfying answer. I consider "being the newspaper of record" to be an ideal. It is almost certain that anyone striving for the ideal will fail at times. Do I think the NYTimes ideals were lies when they written? No. I believe the organization tried as a whole. Even if individually or collectively they fell short at times. But I don't think that is their ideal at this moment in time. Their new ideal is one of activism. Which I personally find disappointing.

rdiddly 7y ago

They lost that title in 2003 as far as I'm concerned, by slavishly repeating WMD propaganda designed to get everybody behind going to war in Iraq. Back then, they were sycophantic adjuncts of the DoD; now, apparently they're your local university's Racial Studies department, but it hardly matters one way or the other. Just read it for entertainment like everything else in this giant circus of lies and counter-lies.

nebulous1 7y ago

It's possible they have too much opinion in the "above the fold" section you're talking about, but counting them by link seems misleading. I'm seeing about 2/3 of the space being news and 1/3 as opinion. The opinion pieces are more numerous because they are individually given less space.