There is a problem, though, that comes with that. The Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Journal—they’re not cheap to get, and they are considered by many, you’ll forgive me, “élite media.”
Can I push you on that?
Of course you can. But hang on. The concern is that there’s also a widening gulf in the realm of information. Just as there’s an income-inequality problem in this country that gets worse and worse, there’s an informational divide. I’m not saying that A. G. Sulzberger can be responsible for it and make it all better with a stroke, but there is that problem.
I disagree with the hypothesis. I think there is an information problem, but I think it’s about the collapse of local news. I think that that is an American tragedy, a dangerous and insidious force in American life.
Do you have any responsibility as an ascendant—
Responsibility? Let me get to that. At the peak of COVID, half of Americans were using the New York Times to get essential information about how to navigate the pandemic. On Election Day, we typically have more than a third of the country using the New York Times. We have fewer than ten million subscribers. “The Daily” reaches far more people than our front page and is free. The morning newsletter, which lands in six million mailboxes every morning, is free. Why am I saying this? Because I think there’s often sort of an imaginary person who wants to read these sources but is being boxed out of reading quality news because of the cost. I really don’t believe that is a real population in any significant number.
Some interesting insight in this. Including how the transition to a digital newscape has affected reporting and local media: …
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.
Some interesting insight in this. Including how the transition to a digital newscape has affected reporting and local media:
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.
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There is a problem, though, that comes with that. The Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Journal—they’re not cheap to get, and they are considered by many, you’ll forgive me, “élite media.”
Can I push you on that?
Of course you can. But hang on. The concern is that there’s also a widening gulf in the realm of information. Just as there’s an income-inequality problem in this country that gets worse and worse, there’s an informational divide. I’m not saying that A. G. Sulzberger can be responsible for it and make it all better with a stroke, but there is that problem.
I disagree with the hypothesis. I think there is an information problem, but I think it’s about the collapse of local news. I think that that is an American tragedy, a dangerous and insidious force in American life.
This, to me, is spot-on:
Some interesting insight in this. Including how the transition to a digital newscape has affected reporting and local media:
…