I've quit banging my head trying to get John M. to see exactly this same thing, and gave it up as hopeless over a year ago.
He's also absolutely convinced that the New York Times is non-partisan.
Oh, I would never ever argue the Times is non-partisan. I've argued that any newspaper's given daily news production is some probably unholy mix of the frames reporters and publishers put on the news. My assumption is that we all bring frames to interpret events, political events are interpreted by political frames.
A good newspaper, and I do think the Times is better than a good one, it's a great one, also tries to do journalism right, to draw the frame from the reported information as much as possible, to work as hard as possible to get the story right rather than the ideology right.
I see this in the work of truly gifted reporters like John Burns of the Times. I sometimes disagree with frames he brings to his reporting, but I've yet to see him sloppy with the details of his reporting and with the care he takes with his word choice.
As for politics in the Times, you can see it flying all over. It does look as if under Bill Keller, there is less of a consistent Times voice and more of a diverse reportial voice. One can debate the merits of that pro and con.
Sorry for this long post, CB, and I know you weren't talking to me but you triggered this.
Just to get back to our customary stance vis a vis one another, I watched the press conference tonight and simply left about three quarters of the way through. Embarrassed. A terrible performance. Somebody dramatically underprepared the guy. You could do that with a Clinton; you can't do that with Bush. |
