JJ wonders what makes a paper great. Judgement. If something is really important, report it. I mention Berger above so you can compare Berger vs Plame. Who in their right mind cares about a bunch of spin doctor journos turning on spin doctors about a front door CIA whose husband just loves to yak and hide behind her skirt while firing bullets? Get real. Sandy Berger steals documents, that is a Story. Why, Why, Why? It has to be a doozy because he risked all………….ALL. So why did the media protect him with The Silence? Compare. That’s what makes a great paper.

Some of us love America and the military. The surest way I know of NOT being a great American paper, is to publish Abu Ghraib pictures, day after day, after day after day, after day….. They think it is cute and really exposing the evil administration. Torture again today, yippee!! No, they expose that they do not either understand the rest of us or do not care. We take it to heart that a paper would rather promote a political agenda than give American military a fair shake. When they write and promote things like flushing Korans at Gitmo, we think they have to be writing for some other reader………overseas. Judgement.

It was something like 53 negative columns in the NYT on Bush since Katrina.

Maybe that was in the “different” NY Times.

JJ mentions Miller saga. What does the NYTs say and how can they say it to be believable? Impossible when they are agenda driven.

#1. They launched more CIA bullets than anyone. Even if you put Miller in the pro-war group, does anyone believe that the NYT is pro-war? Pro-Bush? Pro-Republican?
#2. They helped launch Wilson. Average wingnut out here recognized Wilson on his first day out and labeled it Campaign #000,000. Could not have recognized Wilson if it had been Campaign #20.
#3. Media wants special shields while they speak their truth to power. EXCEPT when that shield is on the opposite side from their agenda. How long did it take Time to fold? How long did it take all of the Media to talk, talk, talk, and talk?
#4. Fine example of Media’s agenda vs Miller. Sandy Berger. It is one of those things that will live forever. Why? Average idiot knows that a Berger does not do what he did, for the reason given. Now if you don’t believe the Nat papers are political bullets, go back and look at the Headers and descriptions used……..anything was used to keep from printing the words “Democrat or Sandy Berger”. All those resources but they still never even attempted to find out the WHY and WHAT. This was a real story and their national readers deserved at least as much attention to this as to their ridiculous AWOL or anti-American Abu Ghraib coverage.

Do I believe for one minute that the NYT, Time or WaPo is covering for Rove or Libbey? If they are, someone really needs to buy each of them a role of duct tape because I have never seem so much “ratting”. This stuff goes on in Wa every day………they know it……..but they don’t seem to realize it yet, that ……..we all know it.

They are trying to sell their product under false advertising. They would be better off to just admit it since their secret has been “outed”. You do not vote Democratic and write any pro-Republican. You can’t even sell it as wearing their “professional” suits, because just thumbing through news vs editorials, you can still count. If it is unfavorable to Pubs, the name, subject, etc is labeled with a Pub such and such. If it is unfavorable to Dems, the word Democrat will be eliminated from the article and just the facts, mam.

I don’t agree that great papers must be great locally. In fact, I think national newspapers such as the NYT, WaPo and WSJ should leave local reporting to local papers. Sports, too (remember Tom Lehrer’s song “Fight Fiercely Harvard”? That’s the NYT). Besides, both of New York’s tabloids do a much better job; why not read ‘em all?

To your question: I believe that the appropriate metrics of “greatness” for a national newspaper are breadth of scope; depth of resources; and an editorial mission to document what Jay calls the “public narrative.”

A broad scope, or perspective, is vital because a national paper should be relevant, interesting and informative to readers outside its footprint. A parochial point of view will inevitably cost a paper readers, and rightly so. Every story is local to someone, but the national papers add value by placing the story into its larger context. That’s in the DNA of the NYT, WaPo and WSJ. On the other hand, USA Today doesn’t generally provide much context, which is one reason it isn’t really a national paper.

Depth of resources speaks to the paper’s ability to effectively cover every material aspect of every major story. “Flooding the zone” is a mind-numbing way to put it, but in fact a national paper is promising its readers coverage in full, whatever that takes. All three national papers do this well, although the Times seems to have the deepest bench. I think it’s great that the LAT wants to compete at the national level, but it isn’t clear whether ownership can or will devote sufficient resources.

Finally, a paper with national pretensions should be a reliable resource, both in real time and archivally, for the complete and accurate presentation of the nation’s ongoing story. This is a difficult mission, because it requires the paper to scrupulously, and consciously, adhere to the highest standards of fairness. Editors must be fanatical about maintaining a wall between reportage and commentary and must insist that this standard be a fundamental value for everyone in the newsroom. Tomorrow’s scholars will look back to today’s newspapers for facts and insight about terrorism, Iraq, the Supreme Court, and many other issues and events. A paper that whose coverage is not both full and fair is unworthy of being part of the national record.

Of the three, The New York Times stands alone in having compromised – or at least altered – its editorial mission. Credulous reporting and tendentious editing have become common in every section of the paper (except Metro, go figure). Coverage of antiwar rallies, probing Roberts’ kids’ adoptions, citation of obviously biased anonymous sources; you don’t need me to recite the list. I don’t believe that this results from laziness or incompetence, since virtually everyone at the Times is both talented and hard working. It can only come, I believe, from a conscious decision by ownership to use the paper as a force for social change.

There is ample precedent for a “crusading” newspaper, and if that is Times’ mission, so be it. In most countries papers wear their politics like fans wear team jerseys and the US need be no different. But even a reliable bias degrades the reliability of the paper as a record. Does the Independent provide a reliable record of, say, the conflict in the middle east? I wouldn’t consider it either full or fair, and I hope that future scholars will agree. But the Washington Post? On the whole I think they play it pretty straight on the news pages, as does the WSJ.

Ultimately, The New York Times needs to decide, at the highest levels, whether it wants to record history or make it. It can’t do both.

Ron

PS – Sorry for the long post.

And it is still “great” because it shapes the news coverage of all the little wannabe commi-papers.

Yet the “great” NY Times remains on an expressway to irrelevance because of bloggers, web media, poor business sense, intellectual arrogance, Craigslist.com, and young people who don’t need a literary laxative to poop.