In the past five weeks the New York Times has taken quite a one-two punch. First, its own ombudsman admitted what conservatives have tried and failed for decades for the Times to exclaim: that “of course it is” a liberal paper.
And on Monday, our 41st president, and a pretty moderate guy, just told Paula Zahn of CNN that he’s “given up on them“:
BUSH: It’s consistently liberal. It consistently opposes the president on almost everything editorial. Most of their editorial comment on the op-ed page is extraordinarily liberal.
The thing that troubles me is in my opinion their news columns are getting to show a certain bias. There is a new way you do it now — Reporter’s notebook. And then that gives you a little chance to be an advocate in the news column. Or Washington Whispers or something like that, and that relieves the reporter of objectivity, objective reporting.
And so, you know, I expect we’ll get a big argument about this, but I’m absolutely certain of it. I’ve given up on them.
ZAHN: Has the president given up on them?
BUSH: I don’t know. He might be like his mother; she won’t read it anymore.
Add to that the current President Bush’s admonishment to the press in general, and you’d think the Times might sit up take notice.
They might. But like most newspapers, they won’t, of course. Which is why John Podhoretz wrote yesterday that the media is “worried the bell is beginning to toll for them, and they’re right.”
As a prominent new media guy might say, heh.
Update: Talk about cliched headlines. As Jim Geraghty writes, “Day by day, the New York Times is becoming impossible to parody.”
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