THE NEW YORK TIMES

How do I hate thee, New York Times?  Let me count the ways...

You often hear people saying about The New York Times what they say about Saturday Night Live, the post office, baseball and the P.T.A.:  that it isn't as good as it used to be. Yet like these other institutions, it was never really as good as it used to be.

People talk about the newspaper's recent embarrassments as if this were some new development.  Yet its failings go back many a year.  Back in the mid-1960s, the student movement had its first demonstration in Washington, D.C.  What headline did the Grey Lady give to this (in hindsight) historic event? "Holiday From Exams"! Of course, trivializing the antiwar movement was safer than taking them seriously.

The Times got depressing in the 1980s, when the editors became ashamed of their "liberal" reputation and became obsessed with displaying ostensible balance.  I recall this line from a 1988 issue: "In countries that hated America eight years ago, American is chic today." Such a sentence reflects sheer condescending laziness.

The problem with "balance" is that the Times views it in one-way terms:  because they're already "liberal enough," all they have to do is air views to their right, never to their left.  Thus ten years ago we had the spectacle of Executive Editor Bill Keller going along with Judith Millers dubious reports supporting the Bush Jr. administration's arguments as they prepared public opinion for the invasion of Iraq. (The New Yorker did something similar, but that's another story.) Some people nicknamed Bill "Helen" Keller, but that's unfair to the real Helen Keller, an intelligent lady of high ideals.

And I can't drop this subject without mentioning one of the Times' most egregious acts. Back in the 1990s Gary Webb wrote a series of articles pointing out the links between the C.I.A.'s programs to support Nicaragua's contra terrorist campaign, and the crack epidemic of the 1980s.  The Grey Lady led a big charge by the press establishment attacking Webb, whose newspaper repudiated the articles and who eventually killed himself.  Class act, Times!  You'd rather do the Washington security establishment's dirty work than admit that you'd missed the whole story back when it might have made a big difference.

I do subscribe to the newspaper's crossword puzzles online.  That's the only part of The New York Times worth paying good money for!