The New York Times Betrayed Us All

There are certain commentaries that need to be written, but are difficult to write because they are so sad. That's the way I feel about the mess the New York Times has created, and is in. When I first studied journalism a half-century ago (no, I'm not kidding) the great, gray New York Times was the pinnacle of total and unbiased reporting. Its editorial pages were Roosevelt-liberal and pure opinion, but you could count on its general news stories to be as near the truth as humans could report. They carefully separated factual reporting from opinion, and you could count on it.

Other newspapers came close through the years: the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post. Others gained national respect in specialized fields like the Christian Science Monitor and the Wall Street Journal. Weekly news magazines took the national spotlight for a while. But for many decades the quality standard for great news reporting was the New York Times. Their reputation for separating news from opinion began to slip about 10 years ago, and then ... just recently ... the New York Times brass admitted they had a reporter (Jayson Blair is his name) who wrote and had published numbers of inaccurate so-called news stories, and many stories that were pure fiction. The editors did not correct that reporter, apparently for a reason. Not only did they not correct him, or fire him, they promoted him. So now the total integrity of the New York Times, and all its reporters, stands in question. The question has to be raised: can you now believe what you read in the news columns of the New York Times.

But even more devastating than the damage to the New York Times, if this standard by which great American journalism was measured has now collapsed, what does that do to ALL journalism? It is sad but true: the great, gray New York Times betrayed us.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.