The death of the New York Times
Posted: June 19, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com This is a newspaper obituary. It's the epitaph for a
journalistic institution. It's the last rites for the Old York Times. You
think it's premature? You think I'm overstating the damage the Jayson Blair
scandal has wrought on "the newspaper of record"? You think I am just scoring
cheap
points against the Old Media? Let me tell you what prominent members of the
establishment press are saying about the fall of the house Sulzberger built.
Newspaper executives across the nation sounded off in a recent issue of Editor &
Publisher, the trade journal of the Old Media, on the fallout of the
resignations of Howell Raines as editor and Gerald Boyd as managing editor in
the wake
of revelations about fraud perpetrated by reporter Jayson Blair. "These guys
did not go down because of the Jayson Blair affair, they went down because the
Jayson Blair affair exposed a lot of other things," said Douglas C. Clifton,
editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He called the exit of the top two
editors at the Times "unprecedented" and "a cataclysmic event" in the newspaper
world. Does he exaggerate? "The whole incident has been a body-blow to the
industry," said Peter Bhatia, executive editor of the Oregonian in Portland and
president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Robert Rivard, editor of
the San Antonio Express-News, said the resignations were "a tragedy for everyone
in the newspaper world. This touches all of us – it is a crisis." Do they
exaggerate? William Winter, president and executive director of the American
Press Institute, compared the development to the death of a president. "In our
journalistic house, the Times is the foundation," he said. "And it has really
been shaken." This is oh, so funny to some of us. The hand-wringing and gnashing
of teeth is hysterical. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Never again will the
New York Times be held up as the model of responsible journalism. Its day has
passed. There's a general panic in the Old Media as it sees its power waning.
There's an equal sense of panic among the political elite who depended on the
Old Media to keep it in power. That's why Al Gore is not running for president.
Instead, he's attempting to build a new media empire that will give his ideas
– if you want to call them that – political currency. He knows it's a lost
cause. He knows competition is destroying his political edge. He knows talk
radio, cable news and the Internet have changed the dynamics – forever. So,
instead of running a campaign, he's trying to rebuild that foundation, which has
been destroyed. If you think I'm overstating the case, listen to the questions
raised by Editor & Publisher: "Are newspaper standards going to pot? What is
the root of the current epidemic of ethical errors? How much does competing with
the new Internet and cable news outlets have to do with it? And what can be
done to save face, change policies and root out possible wrongdoers?" Yes,
newspaper standards are going to pot. The root of the current epidemic of
ethical
errors is bad ethics. Competition with the Internet and cable news simply
allows the problems to be seen more clearly. Jayson Blair was hardly the first
ethical lapse at the New York Times. But its impact is being felt far and wide
because of the new competition – because people have choices now about where
they get their news. What can be done? Just what you're doing. Seek out the
alternatives – the responsible, independent and fearless alternatives. And
don't
look back.

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