July 28, 2004
The Nigh Times
This is a few days old and by now most of you have already read it, but in case you missed it, the ombudsman of the New York Times wrote an article last weekend about his own paper's liberal bias. I know this isn't shocking news, but it is at the least an interesting read. This year I made the switch from my hometown Star-Telegram to a six-day delivery of the Times (a move I had avoided for some time, due in part to the Simpsons episode where Homer leaves Marge to live with two gay men and one morning exclaims "Why are you reading the New York Times? You don't live in New York!")
I'm all man in case you've heard otherwise.
A lot of what makes the Times so liberal is its treatment of social issues, as Okrent illustrates with his examination of the paper's gay marriage coverage. While I'm generally conservative, I'm rather progressive on many social issues, so I don't notice that sort of thing as often as, say, the frequent ridicule of our President.
Anyway, while most of the Times' political coverage is noticeably, sometimes laughably, liberal, I can get past that for the sake of the rest of the paper. The Times is the 800-pound gorilla of American print media, and its reporters enjoy unparalleled access because of that weight. The Arts section has no rival among newspapers, and maybe no rival among magazines either. The writing, in every section from Sports to World Business, is clever and disciplined and more engaging than any daily I have ever read. It even collapses into a small, pleasant trifold that I love to tuck through my briefcase handles in the morning. That doesn't make me a dandy, does it?
Yes, it does make you a dandy. Dandy.
I'm still fairly mortified that my parents continue to get the Startlegram and not the Times. They could afford to get both, and it could have been doing my little brother a world of good this whole time. As it turns out, instead of reading the Times and going to UT, he's been reading the 'Gram and now he's going to Texas State. Damn you, Star Telegram!
In all seriousness, it's embarrassing. I can't believe you've put up with the FW all this time, David - it's a truly awful newspaper, though it has seemingly been improving a bit lately. I remember the last issue I read actually had a couple of interesting pieces of culture coverage, not just "How to draw a turkey using your hand" type stuff.