The New York Times is never getting any of my money.
That may not be enough of a boycott, as I am still playing their free word games.
Playing without subscribing means that I don't have access to the archives and I get cut off at odd moments with Spelling Bee, but there is no way I am going to subscribe.
(My understanding -- at least for how things used to be -- is that the real money for a paper is in ads, but a large subscriber base makes selling ads easier and more lucrative. I am seeing their ads, but on the games the ads all seem to be for subscribing.)
For now I am letting my need for brainteasers keep me returning to the page, but not subscribing, for which you are welcome to judge me. Otherwise, you may be thinking that this is a Friday post, when I write about my reading or media on various themes, whereas this seems more related to the previous post about boycotting.
It turns out this particular newspaper has played a recurring role in my reading.
The first book was definitely Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack.
It was the first related book, but I had already seen many examples on Twitter of how the Times -- despite being viewed as liberal -- gave special treatment to Donald Trump, apparently in the interest of maintaining access.
There is a pretty good parody account, https://x.com/dougjballoon?lang=en. It hasn't been quite as funny over the last three weeks, but I sympathize with that.
When reporters had important information, but saved it for their books rather than, you know, reporting news, it showed up as part of a pattern. I was thinking that was something about today's New York Times.
Then I read the book.
I read it in 2019, but it had been published in 1979 and was about the period just after the Civil War.
In it, Litwick quotes New York Times articles about the conflict between former masters and slaves.
I was so appalled by the writing that I put seven fairly lengthy quotes in my Goodreads review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/52557299
They weren't all from the Times, but I remember seeing the quotes from the Times and thinking "Oh, even then."
A few years later I got to reading No One Helped: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy by Marcia M. Gallo, as well as watching The Witness documentary, about the same murder.
The Times did an amazing job of ignoring some facts and distorting others to tell the story that they wanted to tell, even though it was false.
They made a huge impression with that story. They lied to do so, though they probably didn't think of it as lying and the brutal incompetence of the police helped.
In October I finished Buried By the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper by Laurel Leff.
In this case it appears that their motivation for downplaying the Holocaust was not wanting to appear too Jewish. I am not sure that's a good reason.
I want to say "finally", but I am afraid there will be more. So, most recently, I am reading about AIDS and how the Times buried coverage of that. That's coming up in multiple books.
A lack of knowledge can kill people.
I have a feeling that if I delved more into their coverage of Vietnam or COVID or various other issues going back to their founding in 1851, I would continue to find bias toward power and not enough commitment to truth and accuracy. That doesn't seem to change whether it is being led by A.M. Rosenthal or Arthur Sulzberger or Joseph Kahn.
There is a bigger issue that affects a lot of media and the possibility of getting good information. I do want to explore that more.
For now all I can really do is assert that my money will never go to the New York Times. Ever.
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-failure-of-press.html
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/10/aid-or-apathy.html
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/05/getting-to-two-things-about-grief.html
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