All The Non-News That's Not Fit to Print

 Last night, I ended one of the very longest relationships in my life: I unsubscribed from the NY Times.  My family will gasp while progressives will wonder why it took me so long.  The short answer to that: recipes and identity.  I will explain why it took a while and then I will explain why and why now.

Lately, I have been mostly using my NYT subscription to check out new recipes and find old ones that worked well for me.  

More importantly, the NYT has been a part of my life since I was a little kid.  My parents, as New Yorkers, subscribed wherever they lived, and getting the paper each morning and especially the mammoth Sunday paper was just a part of our lives. When we moved away from my parents, their visits to us, especially in Lubbock, involved quests for the NYT.  It simply must reading.  I read the news, the op-eds, the minimal sports, entertainment, and mostly skipped the business stuff.  When my mother died recently, my family was quite intent on getting her obituary in the NYT, where you can also found marriage announcements and my uncle's obituary as well.  My sister Ellen had several letters to the editor published there, and, yes, just one time, I got quoted there.  I am pretty sure my family was thrilled more by that than any other media appearance. 

Why drop my subscription and why be so loud about it?  Because this paper, the newspaper of record, with the credo "All the News That's Fit to Print" has thoroughly betrayed itself.  My displeasure started with so much false equivalence that I made a meme about it, treating in 2016 Hillary Clinton's flaws as equivalent to Trump's.  I got into the habit of ranting on twitter when I saw a tweeted headline that was problematic.

Worse, the imbalance in much of the coverage. They didn't pursue his obvious and thorough corruption pre-presidency because it was too easy?  Instead, it was all about her emails.  And then it was the trend for its reporters to hold onto key bits of news for their books years after the news was relevant--so not all the news that was fit to print made it into print in the paper until it was promoting Maggie Haberman's book or my freshman year roomie's (Peter Baker) book.  But I kept on subscribing.

Then the paper became obsessed with trans people, repeatedly amping up a moral panic about what be happening to those kids who transition too soon.  Given how vulnerable the trans folks are, especially the kids, one might think that caution would be in order.  Instead, it was really punching down.  Why?  Damned if I know, but it certainly was not "fit to print," at least at the volume and tilt of the stories.  

I stopped reading its op-ed page as they ended up using not just "conservatives" but truly awful people to put out disinformation.  Yes, the NYT became a vector of disinformation, which I am pretty sure is the opposite of its mission.  

Its coverage of the current presidential race is maddening where it has been essentially pro-Trump, so focused on Biden's flaws and not spending that much page space on Trump's criminality.  It is replay of 2016 but with personal animus: the publisher is miffed that Biden didn't do an interview with the NYT.

The paper has embraced the era of bad faith.  The exemplar that finally got me to drop the paper was an op-ed written by a guy trying to discourage people to vote despite the fact that, yes, the shithead votes.  On the Fourth of July?  On that day, how about focusing on an imperial Supreme Court that is gutting not just the Constitution, but the entire revolutionary project?  The end of the rule of law?  How about that?  Nope, instead, they encourage folks not to vote in the most pivotal election in American history.  [I was talking with a smart pal last night, and she helped me realize that the Civil War might have ended the Union if the South had seceded, but it would not have ended American democracy.  This election?  The whole enchilada is at stake]

I have been arguing lately that the paper is pro-Trump despite its long dated reputation as a liberal paper, and the idea of not voting cinches it.  Who is that message for? Biden voters.  So, I am done.  As many folks online pointed out, I can get recipes elsewhere.  And, no, this is not a matter of me retreating into a left wing bubble, as I will not be reading left-wing outlets more.  I will just try to get my news from as many non-disinformation sources as possible.  The NY Times?  Until it revises its current approach, it is dead to me.

Surprised, Troubled, Enchanted and Humbled

I found the question at the press conference by the New York Times reporter to be quite, well, surprising, troubling, enchanting and humbling. That is, it is surprising and troubling that the NYT is asking college entrance exam questions at a televised press conference. Where is Peter Baker, ace reporter for the NYT and formerly of the Washington Post, and even more formerly of the Oberlin Review (and my roommate my first year at Oberlin), when we need him? The question deepened my enchantment with Obama becaues he was able to respond quite well to this bizarre question. I can only imagine that the previous president might have cackled a bit, answered one or two parts inadequately and then moved on. And I am humbled by how smart our new President is. He will not always be right, and I will find much with which to disagree, but as a professor, I probably over-value intelligence, so President Obama impresses my socks off.

Thanks to this question, I have been given a gift--a gag I can run with for days and months when I run short of other ideas. So, here is my STEH take of my first 100 days and 6.5 years or so in Canada:

• Upon moving to Canada, I was most surprised that while one can get a liter of milk in a plastic or cardboard carton or jug, you cannot get the gallon equivalent in anything but a plastic bag.

• I am most troubled that Canadians are often satisfied with comparing themselves and their systems to the U.S. rather than considering other, better alternatives. The most glaring example is that Canadians tend to be critical of their health care system, but do not imagine significant changes because they assert that their system is better than the U.S. Instead, I would suggest that they ought to compare their public health care system to the most functional public health care systems in Europe and elsewhere.
  

• I am enchanted by the passionate curiosity Canadians have about the world around them, despite the aforementioned acceptance of the US as the comparison category. In my classes, on the streets, and everywhere else, people here want to know more about the entire world. In West Texas, the media always had to ask--what does this mean for the folks here? In Montreal and in Canada, they don't have to do that.
  

• I am humbled by the ability of most of the Montrealers with whom I interact to converse in two or more languages with such a facility that conversations move back and forth among the various languages from sentence to sentence.
  

Of course, the reporter could have used different passive verbs: enraged, puzzled, confused, seduced, alarmed, depressed, energized, constrained, coerced, etc.