The NYT Is NOT Liberal - But It's Readers ARE

[NashVegas]

Witness the email I received this morning, promoting their 10 Most-Read stories of 2005:

Here are the 10 Most Read Articles on NYTimes.com from 2005.

1. Maureen Dowd: What's a Modern Girl to Do?
Published: October 30, 2005
Burning your bra or padding it. Demanding "Ms." or flaunting "Mrs." Splitting the check or letting him pay. Playing it straight or playing hard to get.

2. Maureen Dowd: United States of Shame
Published: September 3, 2005
W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives.

3. Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World
By KURT EICHENWALD, Published: December 19, 2005
A 13-year-old was drawn into performing sex acts for an online audience in a tale of the dark collateral effects of technology.

4. How Personal Is Too Personal for a Star Like Tom Cruise?
By SHARON WAXMAN, Published: June 2, 2005
Tom Cruise is puzzling associates and members of the public with his behavior while promoting the Paramount movie "War of the Worlds."

5. Officials Struggle to Reverse a Growing Sense of Anarchy
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL, JOSEPH B. TREASTER and MARIA NEWMAN, Published: September 1, 2005
Bodies floated in stagnant floodwaters, and food and water supplies dwindled for thousands of trapped, desperate residents who had not yet managed to find a way out.

6. Thomas L. Friedman: Osama and Katrina
Published: September 7, 2005
If President Bush goes back to his politics as usual, Katrina will have destroyed a city and a presidency.

7. Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street
By DAN BARRY, Published: September 8, 2005
It is remarkable that on a downtown street in a major U.S. city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable.

8. Editorial: Waiting for a Leader
Published: September 1, 2005
George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life Wednesday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom.

9. Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report
By DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL, Published: October 25, 2005
Notes of a previously undisclosed conversation between the vice president and his chief of staff appear to differ from I. Lewis Libby's federal grand jury testimony.

10. Paul Krugman: A Can't-Do Government
By PAUL KRUGMAN, Published: September 2, 2005
America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job.


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Dowd's "Modern Girl," Cruise and the 13 year-old kid aside, the rest are all articles that take aim at the Bush administration. This is reader's choice not editor's.

If you regularly read the NYT, when you hear a RWer call that paper a liberal rag, they're not attacking the paper, they're attacking the readers who keep it in business and trying to deprive them of a media outlet that occasionally publishes something of their interest, and has the respect of the industry.

[depakid]

1. I've pretty much given up on the Times- and rarely read it

Three strikes.

Not allowing Krugman (or anyone else) to call Bush a liar- while having no problem calling Al Gore a liar.

Judith Miller.

Covering up widespead illegal spying until after the election.

The NY Times is trying to beat the Post in a race to the bottom. Aside from some of their exposes, like the recent one on diabetes, they've lost all credibility. It's become a waste of time reading their drivel about national and foreign affairs.

Sad, but true.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I e-mailed the Times when they announced a study...

(I think after Jayson Blair?) and said they would be more accountable to readers, and run more stories from the "Heartland" and more religious stories. This conclusion, I said, was a slap at their readers -- and -- similar to what you have done -- advised them to look any day at their list of most e-mailed stories. Fundies in the Heartland will never read the NYT. Why not play to their strength?

There are many Times-haters here, and they have good cause, but IMO the Times still does some good reporting, and editorializing. This great paper deserves far better than its current leadership: Keller and Pinch Sulzberger.

[NashVegas]

3. Big Time

I saw a more recent study (that probably got posted on DU) that showed of all the major dailies, the Wall Street Journal - of all things - was the most slanted towards the left in its reporting. (Obviously not the editorial pages.)

I've always kinda-sorta figured that somewhere in the anti-NYT hype (from the right) the purpose was to hurt its business more than affect its slant. Now, I'm pretty sure of it.