New York Times - What is going on there?

[scentopine]

I can't take it anymore! Is there any media enterprise left in America that isn't afraid to dig down and report the real story? On the one hand we have Limberger Hannity and Beck et al and filling in the vacuum left by "mainstream" media cowards. On the other we have the "elite" Times who is afraid to get their hands dirty. Let the Times fail. They have out lived their usefulness. In its place maybe something more useful can bloom. Its the right prescription for Wall Street and Detroit, its the right prescription for the complicit media barons who look the other way. First superficial reporting on Iraq, now Wall Street bankers. The mainstream media is disassembling the country one brick at a time! Where is the outrage? If you are a long time print subscriber please think about doing the same. We need change.

(I first posted this under they Moyers/Greenwald video discussing journalism, forgetting that there is a media section that would be a better place for something like this).

Dear New York Times -

I am canceling my print subscription in Austin, Texas. I am saddened in part because my carrier has been outstanding in consistently delivering excellent service. The Times editors on the other hand, not so much.

This is a time of unprecedented corruption and fraud causing worldwide ruin. Along with our misadventures in Iraq, it is the story of a generation. But, there on the front page of the Sunday print edition - not a single story about our gilded class of robber barons on Wall Street. Just as the Times served assisted the Bush administration in its Iraq lies and fabrications, the Times finds itself again aiding and abetting the criminals who pillaged our treasury. So where is the story? In a snaky puff piece about executive salaries in the "business" section? And instead, what is on the front page? A business story about malls and water slides- what the???? Over and over corporate white collar crime gets treated as business as usual in the “Business“ section.

You recently devoted a major portion of your op-ed section to the insufferable ruminations of an unapologetic and defiant Wall Street banker whose company is at the center of our current disaster. Crocodile tears are still streaming. In many respects this piece serves to illustrate exactly why the Times will ultimately fail. It is not a viable entity delivering news and information that people need to make informed choices and decisions in their life. As you have reduced the physical size of your print format , you have also devoted less space to reader comments. It’s as if we don’t matter.

Published comments and opinions are too often from industry or political insiders defending or agreeing with an editorial position. The Times has doubled down on elitist contributors - crafting an artificial ecosystem for nurturing propaganda. Meanwhile, Brooks and Dowd offer little of substance in your shrinking universe of opinion. Dowd almost redeemed herself in a scathing piece about Judith Miller. It showed her as a woman with enviable intellectual and writing skills. Since then, however, the contributions pale in the face of excellent, informative writing found in hundreds of blogs. At best Dowd could find some corner in the weekly review section and her op-ed space should be turned over to the best of the aforementioned blog contributors.

Your "Mea Culpa" over the Iraq reporting gave me hope that the Times would start taking on the establishment. Like an unwitting investor in a Wall Street ponzi scheme - I have been fooled by the Times ownership, expecting big returns for my $50 a month investment. As a twenty-five year professional with two straight-A kids, I just can't continue to support an entity that is operating in a passive aggressive way against the values we teach our children - truth, integrity and justice. For raw reporting and core journalistic integrity, the passion for excellence just isn't at the top of the Times. I simply can't continue to support your editorial enterprise.

signed...

[ladym55]

1. In the meantime, NY Times Corp is threatening to shut the Boston Globe

The Globe is a shadow of its former self, but closing it would leave Boston with only the right-wing tabloid, the Boston Herald.

What is going on?