It is a mournful irony that the once great gray dame is performing what is now an almost daily auto-da-fé, all the while thinking the cries and the flames of the macabre coda inspire awe on all sides at such transcendent, shining glory.
I saw somewhere in my travels this morning a headline bringing the joyful news that Mayor Bloomberg’s pals are encouraging him to buy the NYT. Ha! A sort of booby prize in lieu of his presidential run? What kind of friends are these?! Surely, the Mayor deserves better. Pinch and Bloomy — a match definitely NOT put together by the Spirit in the Sky! Though the vision of the Mayor trying to explain the basics of market economics to Pinch in the Comintern Board Room at The Times would be priceless.
Bright, Timesless days have been my joy since a distant date back somewhere in the early 1980′s. Word does filter back to me from the outer darkness of the occasional enormity from its dingy pages; but such word is mercifully faint and ephemeral. My personal allergic reaction aside, and despite all the unintentional hilarity being served up by The Times these days, its demise would be an ill omen for our democracy. We need to have lots of different view points shared in a forthright manner.
What I would wish for the Times, instead of a quick trip down the chute, would be a return of its integrity of yore. And here I don’t mean that they must be neutral, or neutered, or even necessarily have to agree with my august opinions. The Times needs to leave off incessantly trying to live up to the t-shirt parody of its motto: “All the news that fits our agenda.” Enough with remaking reality to fit the party-line script. All that is required is that The Times show respect and care with the truth and the facts of a story. They need to show us that they are again trustworthy, and that honesty is the rule of the house in their news reporting. It’s that simple. No more fiction writing in the news pages. Keep opinion where it belongs, on the Editorial pages, where Pinch & Co. should be free to tout their socialist valhalla to their hearts’ content. And we should be equally free to enjoy a good laugh with our morning tea. It’s called a free country.
