Is the New York Times Pro-Trump?

Politics & Elections
601

Paul Krugman has a substack – free subscription. The posts (2 or 3 per week) are longer than his columns were and more “out there.” No need to hold back on length or tone down his attitude. Today’s is especially good.

Like many observers, I expected severe buyers’ regret fairly early in the second Trump administration. After all, many Americans who voted for Trump did so because they believed he would bring down grocery prices. He was never going to be able to deliver on that promise and stopped talking about the subject as soon as the election was over; sooner or later, voters were going to notice.

I did not, however, expect a MAGA civil war weeks before Trump had even taken office. But in retrospect I should have seen it coming.
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602

This is definitely my favorite post of his so far!

603

I love the photo of him on the substack-- lying on the sofa with a black and white cat on his lap. It contradicts broadens the longtime mental picture one has of The Official Paul Krugman sitting bolt upright at his NYTimes desk in a coat and tie (bowtie, of course).

604

Haha! Yeah, excellent shot.

605

He makes a good point.

…immigration makes most native-born Americans, including most blue-collar workers, richer, although there are surely a few losers, including, yes, American-born engineers competing with H-1B hires. The South of the Border immigrants are not taking our jobs- they are coming here mostly to do jobs that Americans dont want or cant do. However, the H-1B hires are taking jobs away. (mind you, i am not saying they are bad)

606

Submitted without comment.

607

Submitted what? My computer doesnt want to go there.

608

It’s a photo of the Times’ article on Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, the main thrust of which is that he’s a snappy dresser, because obviously fashion sense is what you want to look at when deciding if an alcoholic rapist who was forced out of the military for being a white supremacist is qualified to run it.

609

Be fair. This is the MAIN NYTimes article about the hearing:

610

I will be fair to the New York Times when they stop glamorizing fascists.

611

Fascists have always been snappy dressers. It’s one of their calling cards. That, and all the evil.

612

I wonder if Hegseth’s suit is by Hugo Boss. Maybe he should get a hat to go with it?

613

This week, Times columnist Bret Stephens endorsed Trump’s fantasy of the US taking control of Greenland.

And Times columnist Ross Douthat agreed with Trump that the US should take over Canada.

Not to be outdone, Stephens demanded today that the US overthrow the government in Venezuela, by “force if necessary.”

These two have long pretended to be among the most cerebral and prudent commentators on the Right.

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Krugman explains why he left the Times:

Until 2017 or so Krugman was “Extremely happy” with his gig at the Times. “Then, step by step, all the things that made writing at the Times worthwhile for me were taken away.”

In September 2024 my newsletter was suddenly suspended by the Times. The only reason I was given was “a problem of cadence”: according to the Times, I was writing too often. I don’t know why this was considered a problem, since my newsletter was never intended to be published as part of the regular paper. Moreover, it had proved to be popular with a number of readers.

Also in 2024, the editing of my regular columns went from light touch to extremely intrusive. I went from one level of editing to three, with an immediate editor and his superior both weighing in on the column, and sometimes doing substantial rewrites before it went to copy. These rewrites almost invariably involved toning down, introducing unnecessary qualifiers, and, as I saw it, false equivalence.

616

Very enlightening. It’s rare to come across a candid description of how editors at the Times – or any major newspaper – are adjusting opinion columns. Honestly, I never would have thought that the Times was consistently watering down columns from one of their regular opinion writers. As Krugman says, opinion pieces should be controversial.

Here’s the Columbia Journalism Review on Krugman’s accusations (and the Times’s denial):

617

Thanks, and to @Chad_Sudan. I came to post this in this thread, too. This article shows how the NYTimes cracked down on him and answers the question posed in this topic in the screaming affirmative.

I’m LOVING Krugman’s smart, honest, insightful Substack articles. He’s telling it exactly like it is, and it’s scaring the pee out of me.

Aside: I love the picture that accompanies the Substack. Krugman as you’ve never seen him before…

618

Honestly that’s sort of how I imagined him. Wordcraft is an art, and Krugman is a mild mannered though extremely intelligent man. A once in a generation sort of guy.

He makes another point that dopers should have some fondness for:

On a somewhat different issue, it became clear to me that the management I was dealing with didn’t understand the difference between having an opinion and having an informed, factually sourced opinion. When the newsletter was canceled, I tried to point out that I was almost the only regular opinion writer doing policy. Their response was to point to other writers who often expressed views about policy, economic and otherwise. I tried in vain to explain that there’s a difference between having opinions about economics and knowing how to read C.B.O. analyses and recent research papers. It all fell on deaf ears.

Having opinions is pretty easy: being a columnist leans heavily on wordcraft. Well substantiated opinions take things to another level. We do some of that here, at our best. But expert-level analysis combined with strong wordcraft is rare - it requires a broad skillset. Bloomberg should offer Krugman a column as they have for fellow substack writers Noah Smith and Matthew Yglesias. Whether Krugman should take them up on such an offer is less clear to me. I do predict that Krugman will pen for the Atlantic Magazine at some point moving forwards, but I don’t know whether that will be more than occasional.

One thing I liked about the Times in their pre-internet days were their news analysis articles. It is disappointing that management apparently doesn’t grasp the relevance of informed professional analysis. I shouldn’t be surprised though: if they did, they would have lined up a conservative economist such as Tyler Cowen or Alex Tabarrok many years back.

ETA: From the Columbia Journalism Review article.

CJR emailed half a dozen Times columnists to ask if they had noticed any difference in the way their columns were edited last year. The three who responded—Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, and Tom Friedman—all said they hadn’t noticed any change in editing.

This is hilarious and I believe all 3 of these columnists, masters of superficial opinion and gesticulating wordcraft. They have a long past and future at the Times. There is a place for such writers, but none are especially serious, though 2 pose as such.

ETA2: Kevin Drum emphasizes the columnist-ego factor in Krugman’s separation, but I think there’s a meaningful difference in a shift from 1 layer editing to 3 layer editing.

619

I don’t know where else to put this, but Ross Asshat Douthat is providing a platform for Steve Fucking White Supremacist Conman Felonious Bannon at the New York Times. If it weren’t for the puzzles, this would be the end of my subscription.

620

An anthropologist at Northwestern U wrote an op-ed for the LA Times stating that RFK Jr. is grossly unqualified to be HHS Secretary.

The paper edited the op-ed without his knowledge and changed the title to give it a pro-Trump spin.