no way NYT

There’s Nothing Woke About a Tofu Burger
—Pamela Paul

finally read this about her: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rules-according-to-pamela-paul

brilliant example of just letting someone explain how much they suck in their own words

i used to listen to the book review podcast which i always thought she did a nice job hosting, i was disappointed to find out that she is completely insane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI-8hst0bho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxcI4iaWHGk

Max Read wrote a characteristically funny editor’s note about her column. https://maxread.substack.com/p/editing-the-new-york-times

Who Wins the Language Wars?

—Nicholas Kristoff

*sigh*

If only Cindy Williams had gotten that part in Language Wars.

Ever since reading this piece on copaganda in the Times, it always jumps out. The latest: yesterday's The Morning, while discussing Tyre Nichols, kept referring to paramilitary units as "well-intentioned".

christ

What Liberals Can Learn From Ron DeSantis

fucking hell. might as well make this a Pamela Paul thread

I hope it has something to do with manliness.

"prison is appropriate for some people"

A Yale economics professor has some ideas for how to deal with the burdens of Japan’s rapidly aging society. The “only solution,” he said, is mass suicide of the elderly, including ritual disembowelment. https://t.co/krlL3Ytd2e

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 12, 2023

"what did he mean?"

It's just metaphorical ritual suicide

We’ll be using that solution in the USA in a decade don’t you worry

Apparently this professor has become a cult figure among disgruntled Japanese youth who believe their futures have been impacted by the society’s aging demographics. They put his face on t shirts and things.

kudos to threadstarter for this important public service

I preferred quiddities and agonies of the ruling class

different topics imho, that one is "oh noes how will rich people cope", this one is more abt documenting their truly disturbing rightward shift

"their" being the NYT ofc

soon Bret Stephens will be the liberal columnist of the bunch

We’ll be using that solution in the USA in a decade don’t you worry

Some would suggest that American Covid response policy looks an awful lot like this even without trying

I preferred quiddities and agonies of the ruling class

― treeship., Sunday, February 12, 2023 4:31 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

different topics imho, that one is "oh noes how will rich people cope", this one is more abt documenting their truly disturbing rightward shift

― sleeve, Sunday, February 12, 2023 4:39 PM (one hour ago)

I like the quid-ag thread a lot too and will continue to post things there, but for better or worse I actually read those articles! and sleeve otm about the political bent

my sole regret wrt this thread is that I capitalized NYT, breaking from the past no-way thread convention :(

torn between the point of reporting on people like that Japanese Yale loon; like, guy hangs around with the person who runs 4chan, is clearly some edgelord discourse idiot, and doesn't deserve to be given attention by anyone, particularly the NYT and Yale. Yet maybe ignoring him isn't a good idea? Dunno.

There are ways to pay attention to him that don't involve writing articles about him

I thought this was an interesting article tbh. The “4chan edgelord” audience he panders to is a real thing, in Japan as well as the West. It’s worth keeping tabs on them.

also worth keeping tabs on ivy league/chicago-accredited economists, all of whom are latent genocidaires

and people who *wish* they were accredited so, like mcardle, yglesias and brett stephens's ex-wife

Yes, exactly.

that one is "oh noes how will rich people cope", this one is more abt documenting their truly disturbing rightward shift

Okay I get why ilxors respond to the content in the Times in these ways, and I have no serious counterargument.

That said, both of these characterizations fill me with cognitive dissonance though, and for different reasons.

First, my experience of salaries in print journalism was decidedly grim. My first journalism job paid $6 an hour. My second journalism job paid $16,000 a year. My third journalism job paid... $8 an hour. My third journalism job paid $12 an hour. My fourth journalism job paid $20,000 a year, which felt like a fortune. In 1996.

Referring to NYT staffers - or even its editorial columnists - as "the ruling class" is comprehensible only due to a perverse quirk of the economics of cultural production.

Basically, for most of my life, the ONLY people who could survive in NYC-based print-media industries (newspaper journalism, magazine journalism, and of course book publishing) were subsidized by wealthy parents.

Journalism - on its own - is not now, nor has it ever been, a path to riches. No one is getting wealthy from print journalism any more (and almost no one did so in prior decades either).

Truthbomb: if you are someone with one or more degrees in English, yes, you can work as an editorial assistant at Alfred A. Knopf (or the New Yorker, or whatever). But only if you have no student debt and your parents pay your rent. This has been true for half a century; it should not be news.

Now about the "disturbing rightward shift," please remember that approximately half the nation believes anyone involved in mainstream media - including and especially print media like NYT/WaPo - is essentially communist. Conservative media is clear on this point: the NYT is basically communist.

This disconnect is vexing. Ilxorz and lefties in general believe the NYT is center-right at best, and not to be trusted. Most of the conservasphere believes the NYT is hard left, left of Che Guevara, left of Lenin, left of Bernie, and not to be trusted.

Can both of these descriptions be true? I dunno. In the meantime I still feel like the NYT has a pretty good crossword puzzle app so I feel like sticking with it.

the way I feel about the Times is this:

it’s the paper I’ve been yelling at since i was a teenager, i don’t want to find a new paper to yell at. it has decent reporting on occasion, and the best online recipe depository.

i still think it sucks.

The ruling class experiencing quiddities and agonies are not NY Times staffers - it's the rich people being profiled in the lifestyle/real estate/etc sections.

Now about the "disturbing rightward shift," please remember that approximately half the nation believes anyone involved in mainstream media - including and especially print media like NYT/WaPo - is essentially communist. Conservative media is clear on this point: the NYT is basically communist.

This disconnect is vexing. Ilxorz and lefties in general believe the NYT is center-right at best, and not to be trusted. Most of the conservasphere believes the NYT is hard left, left of Che Guevara, left of Lenin, left of Bernie, and not to be trusted.

Can both of these descriptions be true? I dunno.

Why would the right's attitude be taken into account at all? They also think Joe Biden is a Stalinist baby blood-drinking pedophile or at least a Stalinist doing the bidding of baby blood-drinking pedophiles.

All major news media is center-right (at best) - they're capitalist enterprises who in the end have to protect their bottom line. This means 'printing the controversy,' an overwhelming focus on crime at every level, following the lead of American imperialism in anything outside our borders, dehumanizing anyone or anything that makes the upper-middle class anxious (the homeless, BLM activists, etc.), protecting fellow capitalist enterprises (ie advertisers).

The shift in the Times has been embracing deep reactionary takes on social issues - which is not new ground but a shift from the last couple of decades.

Referring to NYT staffers - or even its editorial columnists - as "the ruling class" is comprehensible only due to a perverse quirk of the economics of cultural production.

oh, i think there's a vast difference between NYT staffers and editorial columnists. it's a perverse quirk that the latter are accorded such attention, but, nevertheless, they are. (i was going to say 'fading quirk' but iirc the WaPo just fired a bunch of journalists while hiring a bunch of NRO/AEI columnists)

might be fading away now, but it's long been common knowledge that WSJ reporters can be relied upon even while the WSJ editorial page is fucking bonkers

i would first suggest that literally no one deserves a regular NYT opinion column -- no one has anything interesting to say twice a week for decades on end. but apart from that, who's left? a guy who just recently grasped climate change after a visit to greenland. a woman who thinks liberals should learn things from ron desantis. a guy who quit, to run for political office in a jurisdiction he didn't live, then came back. maureen fucking dowd. these people are all terrible, and obviously so. but they are voices that matter in the 'discourse' and the 'sunday morning shows'. and if they didn't suck so badly, perhaps those things would be slightly better

that all sounds right to me

wait which one of those is jamelle bouie

(to be clear i fully agree with you that there should not be such a thing as a regular NYT opinion columnist, and that nobody's 20th best opinion of the year is worth a damn)

jamelle bouie is grebt, and i suspect that as black man extremely well-versed in the last 300+ years of american history, he has almost endless things to write about twice a week

i have no idea what pamela paul will offer us on a weekly basis? ideally it won't be about the tragedy of taking her stupid friends to a sandwich place that offers soppressata, but i guess we'll see

This disconnect is vexing. Ilxorz and lefties in general believe the NYT is center-right at best, and not to be trusted. Most of the conservasphere believes the NYT is hard left, left of Che Guevara, left of Lenin, left of Bernie, and not to be trusted.

Can both of these descriptions be true? I dunno. In the meantime I still feel like the NYT has a pretty good crossword puzzle app so I feel like sticking with it.

trust fund kids have their own class politics. they resent the bourgeoisie (their parents) and feel guilty that they are part of it. so there is an incentive to evade directly dealing with uncomfortable questions of class. this accounts for the dissonance i think.

Not sure I understand how that is supposed to square the circle but OK I guess.

My final question is the extent to which the New York Times is actually influencing anything or anyone. That is, how many minds are getting changed because people type things and the NYT prints them or "prints" them?

I am skeptical. I don't think there are very many people being swayed to or from their preexisting attitudes because of something appearing in legacy print media. Maybe I'm wrong about this. As noted, I have been in the bubble since birth (child of journalists, journalism major, former journalist, etc.). But I have cultivated a humility about the influence of the field because I have been awake for the last quarter-century and see that it's only a tiny minority of weirdos who read anything any more, let alone something so dinosaurian as a printed newspaper.

Me? I have been read the Washington Post and New York Times all my life, but (a) I know I am an outlier and (b) Doing so hasn't put very many ideas in my head that weren't already there.

People who read, like, and believe newspapers do so because newspapers reflect a worldview they already hold, and which they probably inherited from their parents.

People who ignore, hate, and disparage newspapers do so because that course of actions reflects a worldview they already hold, and which they probably inherited from their parents.

What are you going on about?

so has the NYT always been center right? or did it execute a turnabout a few years ago? surely it was seen as much worse than center-right by the counter culture left in the late 1960s…

one difference from 10 years ago is that is not teetering on the edge of financial collapse: it is now a totemic product that the members of bourgie center left (such as me) use to signal their allegiance, their class, etc etc…and is calling it "center right" as a pejorative an ILX thing or is it widespread throughout the left internet?

so has the NYT always been center right? or did it execute a turnabout a few years ago? surely it was seen as much worse than center-right by the counter culture left in the late 1960s…

I'm pretty sure the Times came in for a kicking in Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent, which I read 30 years ago. And it definitely features prominently in Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media?, which came out in 2003. Calling it a "liberal" paper basically amounts to the broader public adopting a Nixon-era attack line.

Oh, it's just a viral marketing campaign

https://twitter.com/KimStimFilms/status/1625183907833430033

Shocking but this Yale prof says the quite part out loud suggesting mass suicide for old folks in Japan! This is the premise of Chie Hayakawa's moving, & unforgettable PLAN 75- a Cannes winner is set in a chilling, sci-fi tinged near future. Opens Spring!https://t.co/022TIc8heF

— KimStim (@KimStimFilms) February 13, 2023

The glasses are bothering me tbh

Yeah sorry, you can’t Gramsci your way out of this one, treeship— by any objective measure, the Times has been a center-right paper for my entire life, at least, and I am nearing 40. unperson otm.

Where Beards Grow, Strong Feelings Follow

Whether on Prince William, JD Vance or Jacob Elordi, facial hair gets people talking.

And how!

Bret Stephens

Brian Thompson, Not Luigi Mangione, Is the Real Working-Class Hero

(already posted elsewhere, but for posterity)

Pamela Paul

Historians Condemn Israel’s ‘Scholasticide.’ The Question Is Why.

A question a child might ask...

I clicked through and one of her reasons for objecting to the AHA's resolution is:

First, the resolution runs counter to the historian’s defining commitment to ground arguments in evidence. It says Israel has “effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system” without noting that, according to Israel, Hamas — which goes unmentioned — shelters its fighters in schools.

Can't the nyt hire a more competent fascist propagandist? This is genuinely embarrassing to read.

Anyway the actual resolution is more worth your time: https://www.historiansforpeace.org/scholasticide-in-gaza/

what a joke

And....she's leaving the paper.
https://archive.ph/390sL

Gotta love this anonymous quote:

“It is a rarity inside the Times for someone to manage to make enemies on every desk they touch; Pamela is indeed a rarity,” one newsroom employee said. “She should have spent time making allies if she was going to be as divisive a figure as she was internally. But she didn’t put the time in there, or at least did not have the interest.”

'divisive'

well I guess we'll see if they can hire a more competent fascist lol

What about that Hillbilly Elegy guy? Is he available?

How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms

Marc Andreessen explains the newest faction of conservatism.
Jan. 17, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET

Ross Douthat

Hosted by Ross Douthat

https://athenaeumcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Athenaeum-Center-for-Thought-and-Culture-presents-The-Film-and-Culture-Series-with-Ross-Douthat-Episode-01-The-Decline-of-Cinema-Catholic-Events-Chicago.jpg

this guy's only 45? looks like an ugly big bro for the hillbilly elegy guy

wait til you see a pic of Andreessen

Looks like a guy who gets murked after talking to the Detective in a bar

He was using this photo next to his byline from 2010 to 2022, long after it was no longer accurate:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210801030006im_/https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/04/03/opinion/ross-douthat/ross-douthat-thumbLarge.png

Then he switched to this:
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/04/03/opinion/ross-douthat/ross-douthat-thumbLarge-v2.png

Douthat to me more more time

I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Douthat)

Douthat thing you do

I always pronounce it as “doubt that” and I think wow what a perfect name for a trolling opinion columnist! … I never read him.

he was formerly in "doubt that". I think he's currently portrayed as a cgi ape in a biopic film

ha yeah, sarahell, I sometimes think "Ross 'I very much' Douthat."

https://i.imgur.com/7lnVziE.png

nope

Frank Bruni, Bethany McLean and Nate Silver

Can the Trump-Musk Marriage Be Saved? 3 Writers on an Inevitably Combustible Relationship.

13 min read

Trump Moves Toward Pushing Openly Transgender People Out of Military

‘Gulf of America’? Here’s What Mexicans and Cubans Think.

Trump Argues That His Immunity Extends to Carroll’s Lawsuits

Trump Administration Halts H.I.V. Drug Distribution in Poor Countries

Homeland Security Begins Immigration Enforcement Operation in New York

The Only Marinara Sauce Recipe You’ll Ever Need

Is There Still a Rule Against Wearing Brown Shoes With Blue Pants?

What Happens When Condo Owners Don’t Pay Their Dues to the Building?

Opinion
Thomas L. Friedman
Trump Is Going Woke

The Only Marinara Sauce Recipe You’ll Ever Need

The sequel to The Loneliest Boy in the World

on my FB they had a NYT post that was one of those ask an expert things and the question was if it was okay for a man to stare at women on the street. i figure they are getting their new Trump fanbase going.

I was cracking up at that one when people were guessing it was one of their columnists, especially the bit where it ended the questioner's last marriage. David Brooks, maybe?

Like everything Andrea Long Chu writes, this piece on Pamela Paul is about three times too long, but it's still worth reading.

Yeah could've been shorter and zing-ier, but thoroughly otm regardless.

"Her prose has the clean, placeless scent of laundry detergent" lol

The Editorial Board

Trump’s Shameful Campaign Against Transgender Americans

Feb. 9, 2025, 6:00 a.m. ET

ha, I was coming here to write, it's not bad?

haha yeah I mean obvs I agree with the basic premise, but it's a bit rich from the nyt. and just in general it frames attacks on trans people as a political issue, eliding the role of the media.

also this part:

There are some issues — such as participation in sports and appropriate medical care for minors — that remain fiercely debated, even by those who broadly support trans rights. There should be room for those conversations.

is p telling and doesn't really square with some of the reasonable points it makes elsewhere

As I realized yesterday after hanging out briefly with two former schoolmates, few things make reasonable people lose their fucking marbles like the thought of their girls playing with trans girls. Not like this guy would've read a NYT editorial, but they're the biggest paper in the world: they have the data to swat away his objections. But then the paper has spent the last six years smearing trans people with just-askin'-questions articles.

Exactly! Later in the piece they drop this stat: "And they are 0.002 percent of college athletes" — which I would think would put "those conversations" in a different light, as would data on the number of minors receiving gender-affirming medical care if they bothered to share it

this subhead stuck out to me this morning:

Why Federal Courts May Be the Last Bulwark Against Trump

With a compliant Congress and mostly quiet streets, the president’s opponents are turning to the judicial branch with a flurry of legal actions. But can the courts keep up?

there were protests in 50 states last week. they even covered it a little: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/politics/trump-protests-50501-project-2025.html

Adverbs have been doing a lot of unglamorous grunt work lately.

still think the latest Ethicist columns are catering to a trumpier crowd since he took office:

Does My Wife Need to Know About My Porn Habit?

I Have Erectile Dysfunction. Do I Have to Disclose This Before Sex?

Can Accepting Money for Volunteering Be the Right Thing to Do?

What’s the Rule About Looking at Women in Public?

Can I Go to Church When I Don’t Believe?

Can I Ban Books From My Front-Yard Little Free Library?

Should a 13-Year-Old Be Pressured Into Having an Abortion?

as far as I am concerned, that shitbag Appiah gave up any sort of ethical high ground with the appalling answer to this question last year: (free link) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/magazine/donate-aide-church-homophobia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk4.pA8A.Fpl8grTanIX0&smid=url-share

There are other considerations. A church with backward views about homosexuality could also be making many positive contributions. It may even insist, like the official Roman Catholic Church — which has more than 50 million members in this country — that its members should treat people who have what their catechism calls ‘‘deep-seated homosexual tendencies’’ with ‘‘respect, compassion and sensitivity.’’ Pope Francis, whatever his frailties, has backed civil unions and condemned laws criminalizing gay sex.

Andrea Long Chu vs Pamela Paul is trolling me … I think both are awful. PamPa is worse, but … no.

Rob et al.

the number of minors receiving gender-affirming medical care

I am posting this link knowing that it might not be up much longer.

As with any pseudo moral panic it helps to have some information about just how prevalent it is, and some researchers did a science.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11211955/#:~:text=Gender%2Daffirming%20health%20care%20aims,for%20cisgender%20males%20with%20gynecomastia.

97% of these surgeries were cis males with gynecomastia.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click%20on%20image%20to%20zoom&p=PMC3&id=11211955_jamanetwopen-e2418814-g002.jpg

thanks YMP, I'd read somewhere that cis minors receive more gender-affirming care than trans minors do, but I didn't know those surgery percentages, geez

and fwiw the second link routed through my Canadian university library account, so hopefully that means it's at least being stored on servers outside the US...?

Maybe, but it doesn't hurt to print to PDF and save somewhere

97% of these surgeries were cis males with gynecomastia.

never thought about the surgery I had when I was 13 as "gender-affirming care," but I suppose it was!

i expect transphobes will simply make sure that treatment of gynecomastia in cis males is legally defined as something other than "gender-affirming"

I got operated for cryptorchidism when I was 12. Count me in.

Sadly this isn't a legal loophole. Most of the laws I'm aware of plus trump's EO very very explicitly ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth only rather than banning categories of treatments.

It's just the NYT and other so-called liberals who have to thread the needle of showing fake concern over hormones, puberty-blockers, and surgical procedures while avoiding expressing reactionary hatred of trans kids

For These 20-Somethings, Trump ‘Is Making It Sexy’ to Be Republican

4 min read

death penalty for anyone at any outlet writing this stuff

the bullying bubble is about to break!

Opinion
Thomas L. Friedman
Why Trump’s Bullying Is Going to Backfire
6 min read