If you asked a hundred conservatives to name the de facto flagship publication of American liberalism, The New York Times probably would get more mentions than any other. Still, it hasn’t been hard to find lefties upset with the paper about matters such as its supposed longstanding hostility toward Bill and Hillary Clinton.
For example, this past summer Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo accused the Times of having “a decades' long history of being [led] around by rightwing opposition researchers into dead ends…especially when it comes to the Clintons,” and Esquire’s Charles Pierce opined that the paper’s “obsession with finding something—anything!—it could hang on the Clintons” started with its overblown reporting on Whitewater and “has continued through the coverage of the Benghazi nothingburger, the e-mail nothingburger, and now, the Clinton Foundation nothingburger.”
How the Times, especially its coverage of the e-mail story, may have made Hillary’s defeat more likely has been a post-election buzz topic on the left. Liberal strategist Jamison Foser, whose affiliations have included the Democratic National Committee and, currently, the Tom Steyer-led NextGen Climate, crystallized the lefty disgruntlement with the Times in a tweetstorm in response to a fellow liberal who argued that “we have to support the NYTimes right now more than ever.”
Excerpts from Foser’s tweetstorm (bolding added):
1. I understand this sentiment, but I do not share it…
2. NYT has done many big things badly for a long time, from Whitewater to [the] 2000 [election] to Iraq War to EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS…
3. Through it all, people on the left and center continue to support NYT. And through it all, the right beats the hell out of them.
4. As a consequence of this (and of other factors as well) NYT is incentivized to try to appease conservatives…
8. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABC/NBC/CBS/etc/etc have done big things badly for decades…
9. But for some reason, the center-to-left still identifies with them. That’s one reason they’re less responsive to us than to the Right.
10. But the institution of journalism is crucial, and one I value deeply. Indeed, that’s precisely why I’m so hard on NYT etc.
11. And so that requires promoting news organizations that do good work and *didn’t* give us Whitewater, Bush, Iraq, EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS…
15. Conservatives jump, NYT says “How high?” Liberals point out NYT overhypes Comey/email, NYT ignores. Then liberals say “Give NYT money!”…
21. Now, primary responsibility here is with
@NYTimes. But some of it lies with you. Yes you. You keep pretending the NYT is on your side.22. You keep apologizing for its failures and urging people to give
@NYTimes their money. So *of course* they take you for granted…24. And this is why the
@NYTimes does. not. give. a. shit. [sic] about progressive criticism. This is why it will continue to behave this way…28. I’ve focused on NYT here, but I’d encourage you to keep #8 in mind. Problem isn’t just NYT.
