That's a pleasant revelation

From A. G. Sulzberger on the Battles Within and Against the New York Times by David Remnick.  The subheading is The paper’s publisher discusses bias in reporting, the Times’ financial comeback, and criticisms of its coverage of Trump, trans issues, and the war in Ukraine.  I came across an allusion to the interview, specifically this part of it.  Bold is Remnick and plain is Sulzberger

As you were at the Providence Journal.

You were probably writing one story a day to three stories a week somewhere. What were your days like? Every day, you were out in the communities you were covering. You were being confronted with the full diversity of this country and of the human experience. On the same day, you would talk to rich and poor, you’d talk to a mother who just had lost a son to murder, and a mother whose son was just arrested for murder, right?

Are you saying that’s changed? That reporters are just sitting in rooms in front of a screen? I don’t think that’s the case.

Of course it’s the case! It’s the least talked-about and most insidious result of the collapse of the business model that historically supported quality journalism. The work of reporting is expensive. As traditional media faded, and particularly local media faded, and as digital media filled that vacuum, we saw a full inversion of how reporters’ days were spent. The new model is you have to write three to five stories a day. And, if you have to write three to five stories a day, there is no time to get out into the world. You’re spending your time writing, you’re typing, typing, which means that you are drawing on your own experience and the experience of the people immediately around you. So, literally, many journalists in this country have gone from spending their days out in the field, surrounded by life, to spending their days in an office with people who are in the same profession, working for the same institution, living in the same city, graduating from the same type of university.

It is an argument I have been making for many years, that as a result of the business model imposed by external circumstances (principally arising from changes in the technological landscape especially those related to the internet, smart phones and social media), modern mainstream media are largely constrained to the role of rewriting press releases.  They can do that well or poorly (most do it poorly because they essentially accept all the premises of the advocacy based press releases) but that is the only model they can afford.

Therefore, people wanting independent reporting that is based on the real world and which comes from reporters who are anything other than journalism majors based in large cities and strong advocates of the Democratic Party are bound to be disappointed.  That is not what is available and the business model won't support it.

While confirming that particular element, I ended up reading the whole piece which reflects well on A.G. Sulzberger and poorly on The New Yorker interviewer, David Remnick.  Remnick wants Sulzberger to accept Remnick's predicates and to affirm that the New York Times ought to be on the right side of history and support the Democratic Party and the world view of the clerisy.  Sulzberger is arguing for a Classical Liberal model where journalists seek the truth.  Anathema to Remnick.

The poverty of Remnick's knowledge and imagination is captured in that above second question.

Are you saying that’s changed? That reporters are just sitting in rooms in front of a screen? I don’t think that’s the case.

How can Remnick not know that that is the case?  He is a journalist in New York City, the heart of national journalism.  Granted that The New Yorker is a slightly different beast than a daily newspaper but the level of professional ignorance is startling.  

Here is another example of Remnick trying to gotcha Sulzberger into having to declare that the New York Times should get with the program, support democracy and oppose Trump and Republicans.  

So is the Times pro-democracy?

Of course. The Times serves the cause of the truth. An informed public, we believe, is the most important ingredient in a healthy democracy. We believe a common fact base is the most important ingredient in a democracy. Independent journalism—I don’t believe it’s nihilistic or amoral or valueless. If you look up the classic tenets of liberal democracy, it’s about rule of law, equality, and human rights. You would never see a story in the New York Times—or The New Yorker, for that matter—that argued against those things. You know, “Some say that everyone should have to obey the laws; others say that only the poor should.” Similarly with equality, right? You couldn’t imagine an argument against women having the right to vote. So it isn’t valueless. The challenge comes not in the top-line question. It comes in the questions that cascade underneath it. 

And I take heart in Sulzberger's response.  Though not his observational skills.  I am a Classical Liberal and I always assess institutions on a laundry list of important foundational beliefs and values which certainly include Rule of Law, Equality (before the Law), and Human Rights.  I would of course add a series of equally important elements such Property Rights, Due Process, Natural Rights (being more specific and referencing Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Petition, etc.) and so on.  I am glad Sulzberger seems committed to that world view even if his news organization, in practice, often seems opposed.

Indeed, I doubt that you could read virtually any mainstream media headline article which does not in important ways argue against Rule of Law, Equality Before the Law, Natural Rights, Due Process, etc.  The journalists who write those articles do not believe in those things and it shows up in the assumptions backing their articles.  

Remnick wastes a few more questions trying to get Sulzberger to commit that the New York Times ought to be an advocate for the Democratic Party and the bien pensant views of urban based journalists who know little of the real world.  Sulzberger makes the traditional and defendable case:

The key isn’t being a blank slate. It’s not that you don’t have a theory going into any story. It’s a willingness to put the facts above any individual agenda. Think about this moment and how polarized this country is. How many institutions in American life do you believe are truly putting the facts above any agenda? Who has an independent posture and the desire to arm the public with the information it needs to reckon with all the giant existential challenges we face?

Astonishingly, after Sulzberger keeps sidestepping the shamefully obvious partisan advocacy, Remnick follows up with:

And yet the public distrusts us. The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal—our ratings are a misery.

And Sulzberger then ends up conceding the point he has been refuting.

We’ve seen a few things drive that. Let’s be absolutely clear: the former President of the United States, the current leader of one of America’s two political parties, has now spent the better part of seven years telling the public not just to distrust us but that we are the enemies of the American people, that our work is fake, manufactured. The term “enemies of the people” has roots in Stalin’s Soviet Union and in Hitler’s Germany.

"Our ratings are low because the former president kept pointing out that our reporting was not trustworthy" is an absolutely horrible attempt at a refutation after all the mainstream went full in on baseless attacks.  Remember Russia Collusion which the New York Times mainlined?  And especially after Covid-19, when all the mainstream media, including the New York Times, abandoned any sort of commitment to Rule of Law, Equality (before the Law), and Human Rights.  The fact that the former president was pointing out that the mainstream media wore no clothes of trust had nothing to do with the president and everything to do with the fact that the mainstream media were repeatedly and institutionally untrustworthy on important matters.  They were aligned with political power and against the principles of the nation and against the rights and interests of our citizens.  

Then for the publisher of the New York Times to succumb to tar brushing with Stalin and succumbing to Godwin's Law?  Astonishing.  

Once again Remnick reveals just how complete is the echo-chamber of big city journalists by raising the Tom Cotton editorial.  If you don't recall, Senator Cotton, in response to the rioting and lawlessness besetting major cities in the George Floyd riots, argued that governments ought to be sending in law enforcement and enforcing the peace and enforcing the law.  Most major city governments and certainly the clerisy disagreed and felt like it was a betrayal by the New York Times to advance the argument being made by most Americans "Just enforce the damn law!"  

Sulzberger tap dances.  Publishing the editorial was entirely consistent with his earlier articulated principles but given the rabid response of the clerisy, he resorts to a sort of "mistakes were made" attitude without repudiating the editorial itself.

And in fact the interview sort of peters out from there onwards.  Remnick trying to get Sulzberger to pledge allegiance to the neuroses of the clerisy and Sulzberger trying to dodge the repeated bullets and bring the focus back to the great traditions of Classical Liberal based reporting where the truth is not socially constructed and is important.  

What author or editor was it who said "Never be boring"?  I can't find it at the moment but it is an admirable instruction.  Remnick is boring in his small, narrow, musty world view and his desire for authoritarian power.  

Sulzberger comes across as someone at least nominally committed to Classical Liberal values, and that I celebrate.  We need all the allies we can get.  But woof!  There are few environments less hospitable to Classical Liberal values than the mainstream media.  He has a difficult challenge.