Irony.

The image that comes to mind when I think of the Gray Lady as it approaches the end, is of Punch Sulzberger as the pilot of a tattered Huey straining to rise from the roof of the Times building, while frantic figures of Tom Friedman, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, and Maureen Dowd cling to the aircraft, and pistol whip the lesser stringers and contributors and faceless fact-checkers weeping and gnashing their teeth below.

Wait. That can’t be right.

There haven’t been any fact-checkers at the NYT for decades.