We’re Michael Bender and Maya King, reporters for The New York Times covering the 2024 presidential election. Ask us Anything.
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Hello, ElPlywood. Thanks for participating, and I appreciate your passion! I'll try to answer the first few here as best as I can. 1 Why do you...

“I think what you’re reacting to is that, at the moment, Biden is an unpopular president seeking a second term while Trump is a popular figure inside his party who is winning primary races. I wouldn’t necessarily compare the two.”

Credit to @JoshuaHolland

  •  mozz   ( @mozz@mbin.grits.dev ) OP
    11•8 months ago

    I won’t necessarily disagree wrt the small readership – but The New York Times is notable because it is at this point the only big outlet which is both still doing actual journalism (as in researching big stories from scratch and determining the truth of them from primary sources) and also making a profit at it. There are lots of examples of each one in isolation (although, tragically, less and less of the first one year by year), but they are the only one left that is doing both.

    If they’re starting to turn over to the “truth doesn’t matter gimme that bag” side (which it seems like to some degree they are), then it’s a significant loss.

    •  Hypx   ( @Hypx@fedia.io ) 
      8•8 months ago

      I haven’t read anything from the NYT that would constitute “actual journalism” in what seems like many years now. It’s not much different than the NY Post, just with less bombast.

      •  BraveSirZaphod   ( @BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social ) 
        4•8 months ago

        This is just exposing that you don’t actually read the New York Times.

        Here’s an article on the plight of Gazans in Rafah in the face of a potential Israeli invasion.

        Here’s an overview on the gang situation in Haiti as the government is functionally collapsing.

        And here’s an article discussing the increasingly common practice of restaurants charging significant cancellation fees.

        Meanwhile, the NY Post has such great stories as:

        • Kate Middleton officially hits rock bottom
        • Rudy Giuliani’s ex engaged to Palm Beach energy exec after six months of dating in ‘whirlwind romance’ (Exclusive!)
        • Unions want full control of schools and our kids — we can’t let Albany allow it
        • Activists lobbying to ‘morally’ allow trans kids to change their bodies are only doing more harm
        •  Hypx   ( @Hypx@fedia.io ) 
          4•8 months ago

          The formal news section of the NY Post is not that different than the NY Times. It’s just not the focus of the NYP. And the NYT isn’t reporting anything beyond the most basic of news events. It’s pretty much the same thing as reading the AP. I can’t remember the last time they got a real scoop or any inside sources on anything.

      •  mozz   ( @mozz@mbin.grits.dev ) OP
        2•8 months ago

        So most of my assertion that the Times is the only profitable one comes from this article.

        But places like the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times now face similar crises: How does a newspaper make money in 2024? People looking to answer that question invariably turn toward the New York Times. At the end of last year, as scores of journalists were getting their pink slips, the paper announced that it had passed ten million total subscribers.

        “There is like one place you can work right now with any kind of job security and it is The New York Times and that’s only because they have a shitload of recipes on a nicely coded little cooking app that you can subscribe to and also because your parents are hooked on Wordle.”

        NYT not the only big outlet doing “actual journalism” — not sure about WSJ’s profitability quarter to quarter, but I don’t think they are actively sinking.

        The Facebook Files story is not exactly the victory for journalism you’re saying though… my immediately takeaway from that is that the journalistic impact of the (surely accurate) information in it will probably be exceeded by the propaganda impact of adding weight to the “Twitter Files” mythology by simply running the story and calling it that. Maybe I am wrong in that but that’s my immediate takeaway.

        So doomsaying stories about how all their readers are dying notwithstanding, I guess I should admit that WSJ is consistently making money (even during recent quarters when NewsCorp has dipped into the red overall). My own internal compass categorizes them not quite in the journalism category because they have such a right-wing-friendly perspective but I’ll admit that’s 100% based on ideology. They are journalism I guess, yes; it’s not like they print lies or made up stuff or anything.