The New York Times

The New York Times (All the Lickin' to Fit the BootAll the News That's Fit to Print™), depending on who you ask, is either a ragsheet run by commies, an establishment ragsheet that is everything wrong with major American news outlets, or a winner of over a hundred Pulitzer Prizes.[2] The Times is best known for its crossword puzzle and for Paul Krugman, both of which send secret messages (through clues and op-ed columns, respectively) that only liberals can understand properly.

You gotta spin it to win it
Media
Stop the presses!
We want pictures
of Spider-Man!
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Extra! Extra!
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v - t - e
“”New rallying cry on the right: "Even the liberal New York Times agrees that climate change is debatable."
—Bruce Bartlett[1]

If someone is scanning the Times in public, you can be sure they're either a deceitful liberal, or a good conservative checking out what liberals are up to. Someone who laughs while reading the Times is a liberal, as no conservative would ever find the un-American, Muslim-loving articles humorous!

The Times also is widely read at many universities and environmental organizations. When visiting these locations, make sure to keep low by hiding your Wall Street Journal inside the front pages of the Times.

In reality

While the crazies over at the Media Research Center have accused the Times of having a liberal bias,[3] there have been several instances where the paper has blatantly supported neoconservative policies. For instance, in the wake of Iran-Contra, one editor acknowledged that the Times frequently adhered to the Reagan administration strategy of heavily reporting on human rights abuses in Nicaragua by the leftist Sandinista government as a means to support the right-wing Contras. At the same time, the newspaper usually ignored worse cases by other Central American governments supported by the Reagan administration.[4] More recently, Clark Hoyt, public editor for the Times, steadfastly refused to issue corrections for a discredited story involving the ACORN pimp hoax.[5]

It may be more reasonable to say that if the paper of today has any actual bias, it trends toward American exceptionalism and preserving the establishment status quo, rather than toward any broad political ideology. After all, the same newspaper which once published The Pentagon Papers now sidelines the release of leaked Afghan War documents in favor of personal attacks on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.[6] The Times' coverage of the leaks was strikingly suspect when compared with other media outlets; the paper chose to focus on doing its best to make sure the US didn't look bad, and refused to admit the documents showed that government officials had ever lied about anything.[7] Following the same lines, it also led the charge on not calling waterboarding torture when it was being done by the US,[8] while at the same time not caring to be pedantic when it came to the same abuses done by others.[9] It finally made a rule change in 2014.[10]

Liberal indeed.

Media Bias/Fact Check lists the New York Times as left-center.[11]

Ironically for a paper constantly accused of left-wing bias, the Times started out life as a Republican paper, and during the New York Draft Riots of 1863 an attack on their office was averted by staff, including the paper's founder Henry Jarvis Raymond, manning Gatling guns mounted on the roof.[12]

The New York Times has also published articles that are sympathetic to astrology and other pseudosciences.[13][14][15][16] (Most of these are in the Woo Style section.) In fact, they have a whole column dedicated to this deceit.[17] To be fair, they also publish pieces from pseudoscience critics.[18][19]

Iraq War coverage

The most notable controversy the paper has faced was that centering on its coverage leading up to the Iraq War.[20] Especially troublesome were stories backing the American government's position on WMD's in Iraq, authored prominently by reporter Judith MillerFile:Wikipedia's W.svg.[21] Miller's articles, which more or less echoed the claims of Bush administration officials, were then cited by those very same officials as justifications for war. Truthiness in motion, you could say.

Not to be outdone, fellow Times journalist Thomas Friedman backed the war effort to the extreme, repeatedly asserting (contrary to the reality on the ground) that all was well, and that we were likely to see the end of the conflict somewhere within the next Friedman Unit. So widely criticized was the Times coverage on Iraq, they even had to print a half-hearted apology when all was said and done.[22]

Despite all of the above, the New York Times does manage to produce some high quality journalism.

gollark: * below
gollark: It seems like you can't really buy PSUs before 450W or so.
gollark: See, mine is always plugged in so tht=ad asdoenstt bihapen.
gollark: Well, I suspend-to-RAM overnight.
gollark: That's why I made EVERYTHING square and not rounded/circular.

See also

Columnists we have articles on

References
  1. https://twitter.com/BruceBartlett/status/858410045373075459
  2. Wikipedia pageFile:Wikipedia's W.svg, as it keeps increasing every year
  3. For example, the MRC operates a website critical of the newspaper, TimesWatch.org.
  4. Questionnaire for the New York Times on Its Central America Coverage, Extra!: January/February 1988.
  5. NYT and the ACORN Hoax
  6. The Times channels the Nixon administration
  7. NYT vs. the world: WikiLeaks coverage
  8. "From the 1930s to 1999 the New York Times described waterboarding as torture 81% of the time; from 2002 to 08, 1.4%" - Yep
  9. NYT and “torture”: Searching for a justification
  10. The NYT is calling CIA torture "torture" now that it's too late to do anything about it
  11. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/
  12. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0801.html
  13. https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/06/the-new-york-times-coverage-of-wellness-concepts-like-detox-is-a-case-study-in-pseudoscience-creep.html
  14. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/style/kiernan-shipka-sabrina-netflix.html
  15. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/t-magazine/food/isabella-capece-galeota-cafe-maisie-juice-recipe.html
  16. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/style/what-are-adaptogens.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/fashion
  17. https://www.nytimes.com/column/my-detox
  18. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/12/22/what-is-the-appeal-of-astrology/the-trap-of-confirmation-bias?module=inline
  19. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/nyregion/11mercury.html
  20. How Chalabi and the White House held the front page
  21. The Great WMD Hunt, Extra!: July/August 2003.
  22. NYT "Apology"
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