https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/05/11/were-mad-were-glad-get-used-to-it/feed/PJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 08:28:14 -0400<![CDATA[What makes a typical New York Times story so awful? Well might you ask. Connoisseurs of cant have devoted many hours to the question. Some have proposed detailed criteria, noting that a peculiar union of smugness and political correctness accompanies most characteristic specimens of the genre. Other critics point out that such typologies tend to be hopelessly ad hoc, that the Times is awful in so many ways simultaneously that to focus on smugness and political correctness is to ignore the contributions of many other aspects of journalistic and rhetorical failure, not to mention intellectual shallowness and blatant political animus. The best we can do, these critics say, is to acknowledge, as St. Augustine did with respect to the mystery of time (or Justice Potter Stewart did with respect to pornography), that we &#8220;know it when we see it&#8221; but are&#8211;such are the limitations of human intelligence (to say nothing of the human stomach)&#8211;utterly unable to provide anything like an accurate and comprehensive definition of the phenomenon.]]>Sun, 11 May 2008 05:37:01 -0400<![CDATA[Roger Kimball]]>https://pjmedia.com/roger-kimball/2008/05/11/were-mad-were-glad-get-used-to-it-n114807