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> News media keeps making this mistake - "if we go centrist enough the right-wing will join us!" It never works. There are right-wingers who read the NYT for R
by skissane 2y ago
> News media keeps making this mistake - "if we go centrist enough the right-wing will join us!" It never works.
There are right-wingers who read the NYT for Ross Douthat.
> Even Fox News is losing viewers to further-right outlets.
Fox News is rather low-brow, and further right stuff like OANN is even more low-brow. Not the kind of thing who attracts the more intellectual right-winger who reads First Things, Commentary (in its current neoconservative incarnation, not decades ago when it was still left-leaning), The American Conservative, Compact (which isn't purely conservative, more a strange medley where you'll find a Marxist on one page and a Catholic theocrat on the next), even National Review. But they might read NYT for Douthat.
WaPo has Jennifer Rubin, but she seems much less conservative nowadays that Douthat does. Rubin's current output seems to be mainly targeted at liberals who are looking for a conservative who agrees with them.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> There are right-wingers who read the NYT for Ross Douthat. Sure. Shades of Tobias in Arrested Development, though; “there are dozens of us!”
- skissane 2y agoI wonder how much NYT is paying Douthat? I doubt he's struggling. And they've been doing so for about 15 years now. NYT wouldn't be paying him if they didn't think he was attracting readers.
- NoGravitas 2y agoUnless they derive some other benefit from paying him; insurance against attacks from conservative politicians might be worth paying a few right-wing columnists.