Pravda with sushi? Liberal pabulum with Prada discounts? Well, not quite. But that’s arguably the outcome of the new strategy for the embattled New York Times“:
“As other newspapers cut back on international and national coverage, or cease operations, we believe there will be opportunities for The Times to fill that void,” [Janet L. Robinson, president and chief executive] said, for both readers and advertisers.
But before it can execute what the industry regards as a “last-man-standing” strategy, the company has to get there first.
Of course, I’m being more than a little snarky with the Pravda reference. We all know the Times sneaks in a report now and then that goes against their monolithic Olde Liberale grain. But the idea that the Times could be the “last man” is rather disturbing. What we would have is a media dominated by a bizarre sort of left-wing consumerism run by an expanding bureaucracy somewhere between La trahison des clercs and a bourgeois version of Djilas’ The New Class.
The consumerism is a key part because every time I return to New York (I am here now doing book promotion, speaking of consumerism) I am struck how much the onetime “newspaper of record” increasingly resembles the New York Magazine of the Eighties, a guide to local entertainment and, more importantly, sales – basically how to be trendy and spend your money, assuming you have any. In the current atmosphere, that feels like the new “soma.” As the inventor of the old “soma” – Aldous Huxley – put it in Brave New World: “…there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon…”
Walking around New York now, you can smell in the air the need for some kind of soma. Last night late I passed by the Sony Building. I used to go into its large atrium for espresso and free wifi. Not now. It was filled with homeless. Outside another line of sad homeless folks had formed behind a car where food was being distributed, right there in one of the tonier districts of Manhattan. No wonder the WSJ has a front page article “Saks Upends Luxury Market With Strategy to Slash Prices.” If my grandmother were alive, she would be in pig heaven.
But the problem for media… for information… is severe. We live in the era of that euphemism “troubled assets” and most media companies, left and right, new and old, are among them. Few companies are exempt, but you will excuse me if I find the NYT’s last man standing strategy slightly sinister. THe last man standing smacks of totalitarianism – or, at the least, it is anti-democratic. There is only one thing that comes from monolithic access to news: thought control. Under those circumstances, I do not wish them well… even if they keep me abreast of the best sushi bar.
[i]As the inventor of the old “soma” – Aldous Huxley – put it in 1984: “…there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon…”[/i]
Uh, it was Huxley’s [i]Brave New World[/i]. [i]1984[/i] was a less pleasant place.
There is a distinct tone of schadenfreude in the internet comments about the death of the print media. What the commenters fail to note, and in fact may be unaware of, is that the greatest safeguard against corruption, especially on the local level, was the old style newspaper reporter who relentlessly pursued a story wherever it took him. That’s gone. And the fact that it’s gone means full steam ahead for goniffs everywhere.
I agree with you, ricpic, and I personally don’t feel any schadenfreude about this. Well, maybe about the NYT, but certainly not about local papers that are going down right and left, destroyed to a great degree by Craig’s List, which has preempted local want ads.
I still have weekend delivery of the Times. Even my darling but slightly too liberal wife describes the paper as “disgusting” for the way they present themselves as champions of the poor and downtrodden on the editorial pages but shamelessly cater to the very very rich in the advertisements, society page, real estate, etc. The paper as a whole is clearly designed to help the opulent enjoy their opulence guilt free.
I used to worry about the demise of the newspaper for reasons similar to ricpic’s, but that’s really no longer the case, is it? These days, whatever is happening in the world, somewhere out there is a blogger covering it better than any newspaper.
When I read blogs, I’m better informed about specific events, but do not feel I have a handle on what’s going on in the world as a whole. Newspapers do not inform me very much about specific events, but they do leave me feeling that I have a grasp of the bigger picture. That’s the thing I’ll miss when newspapers go down. If a website, say pajamas media for instance, could manage to be a true online newspaper, something that gives me a real overview of what’s happening in the world, and coupled it with links to more in depth information if I want to look further, then the only possible reason to miss the print media is it’s nice to puruse the paper with my morning coffee.
While I mostly agree with ricpic as well, there are a few old style reporters left. One of them is Charlie LeDuff at the Detroit News, wonderfully profiled by Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard several months ago. He left the cushy confines of the NYT to return home and document the continued decline of a once-great city, as thankless and distasteful (to his elitist East Coast media peers, anyway) as that is. While I hardly read the local paper anymore, it’s good to know that a guy like him is there to shine a light on our criminally inept city (and state) government, one that is a perfect example of how Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ was a monumental failure – and one that President Obama wants to rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
Newspapers dying… let’s get real.
They are dead as well as the great soup shop at 72nd and Broadway, across from the subway, called “Soma Soup.”
I regret that more than the last gasps of any darn newspaper.
I don’t think most new media outlets can survive without non-tax deductible donations. This has usually been the case regarding “controversial” journals of opinion. Also, there is something peculiar about advertisers who demand that all ads placed on websites must generate immediate sales. They don’t require so-called mainstream TV and radio stations to perform likewise. Long-term brand building is normally taken for granted.
I don’t think we have to worry about the NY Times Roger. I’m certain Obama and Congress will bail them out when they get to the point where they can’t go on any longer. Who’s gonna stop it?
Good to hear that New York is returning to its default state of being a crappy place. Can we expect some porn theatres to start opening again soon on Times Square? It’d be nice to see people peeing in the streets again too. It sure didn’t take the libs long to tear down everything that Guiliani built up.
After 4 years most of America will resemble the big apple. By the way, will Soma be distributed free via a government program?
“…will Soma be distributed free via a government program?”
It’s already pre-mixed into the Kool-Aid, as far as I can tell. It’s what made Stephanapoulos cry tears of blissful joy on Inauguration Day. After all, what Obama has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.
“…that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.”
The target audience of the Times seems to be 60s liberals. If you’re not in that group. you’ll probably find it pretty frustrating, and now that the Internet is available, why bother with it? If they survive, at some point they’re going to have to start reaching out to other people because 60s liberals won’t live forever. It will be interesting to see how it evolves once that happens.
I don’t think we can wish them well even if we wanted to.
The problem with the nytimes is sheer, brazen mendacity. They are willing to lie, and lie, and lie some more in order to make their bias look like fact. The trick isn’t to tell big lies all the time, but take what should be reported more or less objectively and spin, and keep spinning until you’re in another realm. When you’re in that realm, you can justify giving one candidate op-ed space, denying his main opponent that same space, and call yourself the paper of record as opposed to piece of s**t run by 12 year olds.
This sort of thing has been going on for years, well before 2000. But Adam Clymer should have been the “shot heard round the world” if there ever was one: Bush was exactly right about him.
I’ll miss the nytimes: I enjoyed A.M. Rosenthal’s editing, Amanda Hesser’s columns, even parts of Travel and whatever various names they gave for their style section. I enjoyed some of the features in Magazine before that became a version of NPR, if NPR were run by Stalin. I’ve been reading the WSJ for years now, avoiding the nytimes almost entirely.
On my next trip to New York, I’m bringing a bag of dirt to throw on the NYT building.
Can we expect some porn theatres to start opening again soon on Times Square?
God, I hope so! Effin Disney Store!
“Last man standing” would work IF the business model had the potential to be profitable with only one newspaper. I know I’ve ranted this before, but when we can offer a million page views for less cost than the times can give 10, they’re doomed.
Old newspapers are wandering off which is probably justifiable. I mean, in the long run, its better this way. We humans seem prone to think that if its ‘The Newspaper” (of whatever stripe) its true. We know now that the old Gray Lady and all her old gray friends were biased toward one thing or another (or at least some of their reporters/editors were and are).
Once we move away from those perceived bastions of non-biased thought, perhaps people will become more discerning. If someone visits Pajamas Media, or Daily KOS or *insert most political blogs here* the bias may become more easy and obvious to see. Of course, its a risky proposal… Blogs can turn into echo chambers where people convince themselves that McCain is gonna win the election, that most of the country hates Bush, that Bush lied about *oh insert pretty much anything here* or that Obama isn’t really an American.
As the fourth wall disintegrates, leaving us to do all the reporting ourselves… we’ll have to decide if we’re going to report the news as we wish it to be, or as it is. Right now, the only advantage I’ve seen to the blogosphere… is that the bias is more obvious than the old outhouse standby.
“As the fourth wall disintegrates, leaving us to do all the reporting ourselves… we’ll have to decide if we’re going to report the news as we wish it to be, or as it is. Right now, the only advantage I’ve seen to the blogosphere… is that the bias is more obvious than the old outhouse standby.”
Well said, Ratatosk. We’re moving into an interesting period indeed. Just heard today that the dead tree edition of Newsweek is about to go under and that Time is going monthly. Don’t know if those reports are accurate, but they could be. They certainly don’t surprise. Now we have to figure out what to do next and how to doit.
I quite reading the local paper back in the early 90′s (the Sacramento Bee). The liberal bias was so annoying I felt like I was giving money to my enemies by buying it. What was amazing was that i never got behind on news and my outlook on life improved immensely. I think a lot of people are fooling themselves when they read a newspaper and feel more informed. Romance novels or comic books are just as good an investment of time.
“Can we expect some porn theatres to start opening again soon on Times Square?”
“God, I hope so! Effin Disney Store!”
Me three. While I abhorred the Square’s descent into Needle Park territory, I do rather long for the days when it had a whiff of Runyon about it.
“THe last man standing smacks of totalitarianism – or, at the least, it is anti-democratic” both totalitarianism and anti-democratic fit the NYTimes like a free economic stimulus Pelosi/Obama condom.
So far, from what I can see, blogs are doing a better job of local news, too. The local activist group has finally gone to blogs after finding the cub reporters far more interested in taking the local city press release for the news than any attempt to actually talk to people and learn what is going on.
The reality is that the delivery mode of dead-tree-media is no longer workable on any level.
The debate is between broadcast (radio & TV), narrowcast ( internet like PJM ) or ‘netcast’ ( Drudge and other accumulators).
I’d bet on the middle, but that is just a random bet.
More hysteria.
Can you say it in French?
When the day came that the entrenched media made the conscious decision to stop going after facts (and stopped allowing the chips to fall where they may), they strangled the truth, in order to pave the way for “forced conclusions”.
Having done so, the oxygen they stole went elsewhere. The NYTimes will not be the last man standing, Roger, as much as they perhaps could be the entrenched media’s Gettysburg.
They created an information civil war, and the blogosphere has issued an information emancipation proclamation.
The NYTimes as the entrenched media’s Jefferson Davis, has fought to keep our information stream a slave to their plantation mentality and to have truth held in bondage to be whipped and beaten into submission. Brer Rabbit blogs sneak out enough truth into the fields to keep it from dying of a broken spirit.
I shed not one tear at their demise. May the shame they should feel for their felonious assault on the truth follow them into the ground. When they stole the truth, they turned their backs on honor, integrity and the trust bestowed upon them.
Let history show for all time, they were on the wrong side of an information civil war that they started, on the day they stole the truth for leftism.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the Times. I’m sure many terrorist groups will gladly contribute to keep the unofficial declassifier of military secrets open. And of course the democrats will surely pass a bill to give them money. Why would they want to see their biggest campaign advantage disappear?
Yes, traditional media is doing poorly because people now expect to get their media for free, and there is no model as yet for how to do that profitably. On the other hand, one advantage traditional media has is THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that “new media” can do anything that remotely approaches the difficult, expensive, labor-intensive work of GATHERING and reporting the news. Roger does not and never has run a source of news. He runs a portal where people link to REAL news stories and then comment on them. An op-ed page on steroids. While there may be other sites that I don’t know about, as of now, the only Internet-only NEWS source that I know of is Talking Points Memo.
I think “Pravda cum Prada” pretty well sums up the Times. Congratulations on that formulation! In place of the “All the News…” box, I also like: “Currently fashionable notions of the affluent and anxious.”
Bad as it is, I’d still take a New York Times over the Los Angeles Times anyday. Once you take out the Food, Calender and Classifieds, ignore the proliferating “Opinion masquerading as news” pieces (all baying for higher taxes, insisting the budget cannot be cut etc), and the page one color picture, there’s barely a latte’s worth of print left. Even Jason Blair’s fiction and those “flood the zone” howlers about the Augusta golf course was better than this.
I spent eight (Regan) years “inside the Beltway.” Anyone who felt they were “informed” by reading the Times or WaPo was fooling themselves. It’s not that the big stories that I had a little inside view of were “wrong”. It is that they were clearly slanted or shocking superficial and without context in the press in 99% of the cases. (I can’t think of the 1% exception, but I’m trying to be fair and balanced.)
Certainly the undermining of the paid ad and paid subscription models by the “everything is free” Internet is largely to blame for the demise of all things in print. But, the sociology changed too. Go back to “Bowling Alone” in 1995 http://tinyurl.com/2j3b6y .. the beginning of the end was in sight.
By the way, the Pink Elephant in the room that no one is talking about is Television. Tivo?, PVR? .. I have three boxes running all the time (my wife has one dedicated to HGTV). Netflix too. Watch ads? Poof! Never! I scoff on your Neilsen Ratings. When the first auto or Pharma executive seriously questions the value of TV advertising, the end will come fast.
As far as entertainment goes, I do worry about breakup of the broadcast paradigm of paid-for-by-advertisers.
There actually has been a lot of good scripted TV these last few years, which is expensive to produce.
Hulu is a godsend, but their programming is paid for by networks. I’m afraid all that will be left is YouTube very-short-form amateur horsehit.
I believe even YouTube is iffy on turning a profit for Google.
As the NYT sinks they will continue to cling to Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize.
Markus, it must be very comforting to be so easily able to cling to a world view completely unencumbered by facts.
Charlie,
Meh, Markus does make some valid points. A ot of what the blogosphere reports on is commentary, critique etc of existing pieces in one form of traditional news or another. Certainly there is some completely original content ala MJT and others, but there will be a challenge in getting information if this new media is the main source of news.
Some of that may be mitigated with the ‘iReporter’ concept ala CNN, where locals report local incidents. However, that means that quality, bias etc may vary wildly from report to report. Right now the blogs are filling a useful niche as a response to traditional media. I’m not sure that anyone has put forth a business model yet, though that would support the blogs completely replacing traditional media and providing anywhere near the sort of coverage we have today (bias or not). There is a log way to go, and depending on how the economy behaves, there simply may not be the capital to support an entity like PJ Media maintaining a staff of writers, investigative journalists etc. If there’s difficulty in paying bloggers for simply writing, where is the money to support full time reporters around the world?
And if you think that we’re all gonna report for free from the goodness of our heart… I’ll call you a hippie
I’m one who happily ended my subscription to this looney newspaper once it became apparent it was in bed with Obama during his presidential campaign. The paper and Obama have lost any shred of credibility and fair play.
Every time I hear a conservative talking head speak of “The left-leaning liberal media” the only example any of them give is the New York Times.
If The Times faced bankruptcy conservatives would have to bail it out otherwise they would have no examples of liberal media to bash.
Ratatosk, it’s not that there isn’t a potential point under there, it’s that the assertion as fact that there’s no evidence “new media” can do original reporting just isn’t true. I’ve got a piece assigned on a local issue that may be nationally of interest, should be out shortly; our Joe W. has been doing reporting as original, and at least as unbiased, as the network news. The trick is that the old media isn’t dead yet; it wasn’t until the dinosaurs died off that the mammals took over.
Every time I hear a conservative talking head speak of “The left-leaning liberal media” the only example any of them give is the New York Times/Washington Post/LA Times/Boston Globe/Seattle PI/Seattle Times/Sacramento Bee/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Baltimore Sun/Denver Post/Detroit Free Press/Minneapolis Star Tribune/Time/Newsweek/CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC/MSNBC.
If the Times/Post/LA Times/Globe/PI/Seattle Times/Bee/Journal-Constitution/Sun/Denver Post/Free Press/Star Tribune/Time/Newsweek/CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC/MSNBC faced bankruptcy conservatives would have to bail it out otherwise they would have no examples of liberal media to bash.
Fixed that for ya.
So heartily agree with the comments posted above.
The NYT, (and I’m sure they’d be shocked, to hear this) is absurdly provincial, suffocatingly narrow, and convinced of its upright moral vanity which it flaunts in every story.
Its presumption that all right thinking (Times view) people agree with them is disgusting and reflective of a bubble mentality mired in secular humanistic cliches which can be summed up as “do as I say, not what I do.
It is the third testament for secular humanists who can expiate their guilts or feel better about themselves by subbing secular “spirituality” for any spirituality outside of themselves ie. helping “the thems” of the world, through not even their own efforts, but government’s efforts, and claim credit for their thoughts, if not deeds because their Mommies told them how smart, wonderful and world saving they are!