NY Times Gets A Clue

“Times panel proposes steps to build credibility” the headline says. Somehow I’m not feeling encouraged…but I’m willing to listen. I'll give it the old college try...really I will.

So talk to me…

“In order to build readers' confidence, an internal committee at The New York Times has recommended taking a variety of steps, including having senior editors write more regularly about the workings of the paper, tracking errors in a systematic way and responding more assertively to the paper's critics.

The committee also recommended that the paper "increase our coverage of religion in America" and "cover the country in a fuller way," with more reporting from rural areas and of a broader array of cultural and lifestyle issues. The 16-page report is to be made available today on the Times company's Web site, www.nytco.com.

The committee, which was charged last fall by Bill Keller, the executive editor, with examining how the paper could increase readers' trust, said there was "an immense amount that we can do to improve our journalism."

As examples, the report cited limiting anonymous sources, reducing factual errors and making a clearer distinction between news and opinion. It also said The Times should make the paper's operations and decisions more transparent to readers through methods like making transcripts of interviews available on its Web site.

The report also said The Times should make it easier for readers to send e-mail to reporters and editors. "The Times makes it harder than any other major American newspaper for readers to reach a responsible human being," the report said."

OK, I have to try to respond in a positive manner because I think that they are on to something here...I have a few suggestions to further their goals...

What did they say??? Something about trying to "increase our coverage of religion in America" and "cover the country in a fuller way," with more reporting from rural areas and of a broader array of cultural and lifestyle issues.

You're damn right when you say that the NY Times could "cover the county in a fuller way."

How about writing about regular Americans that describe themselves as religious as something other than drooling, inbred, snake handling morons incapable of putting five words together in a sentence to describe the sound the tornado made as it ravaged the trailer park.

How about writing about and describing regular, every day citizens that don't live on the slimy, shitty, smelly skanky streets of New York City as something other than ignorant county bumpkins and rubes.

How about not bashing us in the head every day with "diveristy issues" worrying about the plight of multi-racial babies born to absent fathers and crack-head prostitute mothers?

How about not offending our sensibilities with issues like "gay marriage" and intimate descriptions of where "Citizen A" chooses to to place his body parts into the body cavities of "Citizen B."

How about leaving something to the imagination of all of us unenlightened, closed minded, middle Americans rather than spending hundreds of inches of newsprint trying to explain to us the nuanced advantages of accepting "alternative lifestyles" in all of their gory, perverted f**king details.

Oh, sorry Mr. & Mrs. NY Times Editor, but you have a problem doing all that?

Well I guess you can just keep on watching your readership plummet and try to find a real job in the real world like the rest of us have to do.

YOU GOT THAT, MR. & MRS. NY TIMES OWNERS AND EDITORS?