71 Comments

1. Ron Radosh:

Ron Radosh: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am

Roger,
As an author who has published two well received and reviewed Encounter books (Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left; and Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left) I have two thoughts on your decision.
First, I understand your logic and argument. In the case of the book my wife and I co-authored about Hollywood and the Communists, the NYTBR published a rather vicious and obviously biased left-wing review. The headline (which the author of the review was not responsible for) was something like “The Blacklist: The View from the Right.” The reviewer, ironically a man affiliated with the Manhattan Institute, wrote that his 30 year old book was a nuanced centrist book; Victor Navasky’s “Naming Names” was a left-wing book on the topic, and ours was a “right-wing” book, hence to be dismissed.
The rest of the review went on to argue that we got everything wrong, and the author did not even attempt to let readers know what our argument and evidence was. In contrast, David Oshinksy- a centrist and smart Pulitzer Prize winning historian, gave it a rave major review in The Los Angeles Times, and understood perfectly what was new and different about our book, as wel as the arguments we offered. We foolishly did not take the opportunity to answer thne negative review in the letters page. I did,however,complain to the editor of the Review, who told me he stood by the review which he considered fair.
It is obvious, in this case, that the NYTBR review actually hurt the sales of the book. It nevertheless did well- it got positive reviews almost everywhere else and in virtually the entire print media, which did not ignore it. As expected, the only other negative reivew which was arugably even worse than that in the Times, was in the very liberal Washington Post book review. I should add that my first Encounter book, Commies, also got a well placed and very negative and hostile review in the Review’s pages.
My second thought is that you ignore the front page major review of Fred Siegel’s book about Rudy Giuliani, “Prince of the City.” It was somewhat critical, but the respect given it as well as the major placement obviously helped alert NYTBR readers to the existence of Encounter Books, as a publishing arm that has to be taken seriously. It also undoubtedly had to help with New York City readers in particular learning of Siegel’s book, and deciding to purchase it.
So I am ambivalent about whether or not you have made the correct decision. Also, isn’t there a chance that the Review will nevertheless learn about and decide to review an Encounter book, even if you don’t send it to them automatically? And what if one of Encounter’s authors does want you to at least try to get the Times to review it?
I await your thoughts.
Best,
Ron

Jun 23, 2008 - 7:49 am 2. Anita Hope:

Apparently the NYT reviewers are non-educated, non-readers and more than likly just plain lazy when it comes to doing their “homework”. Their neglect is what is causing readers to turn to the internet and maybe PJM could develope with other’s on the net, a “New Book’s Review Blogging Central” that you could read and also turn on for a Pod Cast. Take out an ad in the NYT announcing the new Review and really hit them with a result in further circulation reduction as many subscribers only look at that section anyway.

Jun 23, 2008 - 7:56 am 3. Richard:

A list of Encounter’s NYT Best Sellers that did not receive NYT reviews would be interesting.

Jun 23, 2008 - 7:58 am 4. David Thomson:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The New York Times deserves to be marginalized. It is becoming less relevant by the day. I can’t wait until we can legitimately assert: “Who gives a damn about the New York Times? Most people buy a copy merely to clean up doggie excrement.” The First Amendment gives one the right to utter their views. There is no corresponding obligation to pay attention.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:09 am 5. RE:

Yes, thank you Roger! I do hope that there are more who follow your lead.

The New York Times has become a rather detestable organization. Honorable people and organizations should seriously consider diassociating themselves from the NYT’s bias, bigotry, and negative agenda.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:18 am 6. Michael Ledeen:

You are so right, Roger (as usual). I’ve been telling my publishers for years that it’s not worth the postage. Unless you’re a hard-core masochist.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:19 am 7. Son Of The Godfather:

The NYT biased?… After the recent publication of info about CIA interrogators (among a history of similar “stories”), try “treasonous”.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:22 am 8. Micheal Alishnakova:

The NYTimes is a great study in recursive wishful thinking. I imagine that the editors hope and perhaps even believe that the unwashed masses will once again return, like lost sheep, to the fold of the paper which is now the silliest excuse for information and news that still remains in print.

I heard someone refer to the Times as a “slow motion car crash.”
You don’t want to watch it, but you can’t look away. To see the icon of American journalism implode is both fascinating and horrifying – after all, how inept can the editors be? Yet they hit new benchmarks on a weekly basis.

Good move for Encounter Books. I suspect many others will follow as he Times continues to narrows its vision of a world that no longer listens to it its proclamations nor respects its intellect.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:24 am 9. Marty:

Congratulations! So many conservative commenters and bloggers have written about their personal exorcisms (including my brother, who held on for years longer than I did). But publishers have a bigger stake, and I’m sure this decision was not easy to make. Thankfully, the fact that you’ve made it will make it easier for others to follow.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:25 am 10. ZEITGEIST:

[...] ENCOUNTER BOOKS SAYS goodbye to The New York Times. [...]

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:46 am 11. John Ettorre:

Right. The NYT is becoming less relevant and marginalized. That’s why all you jilted right-wing yahoos are talking endlessly about it. Your books don’t get too much attention there because they tend to be of marginal interest to intelligent people. Write better books with better ideas, and they’ll get better and more frequently reviewed by serious outlets. It’s really that simple.

Jun 23, 2008 - 8:56 am 12. David Clemens:

Although the NYT’s circulation happily diminishes, it is still part of the information trinity in academia. How often do I hear colleagues say, “Did you see in the Times this morning . . . ?” The Times, The New Yorker and NPR supply their daily talking points and their comprehensive world view.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:08 am 13. newton:

So, John Ettorre: Leftist ideas = better ideas?

Go to another dog with that bone!

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:10 am 14. Errol Phillips:

Mr. Ettorre is a first class sch–k !

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:18 am 15. ChrisGreen:

John, the NYT IS becoming less relevant and marginalized. This is partly due to the popularity of online media. However, the circulation of the NYT seems to be falling faster that other print papers (like the WSJ) that are not experiencing nearly the same degree of drop-off.

Furthermore, a lot of people were talking about the Berlin Wall when it fell down too. However, that didn’t make the pile of rubble that was left relevant in anything but a historical sense.

If you want to make this conversation interesting, you should try to argue that the uncharacteristically fast fall in circulation in recent years of the NYT has nothing to do with its left wing bias, or that such an obvious left wing bias does not exists. You shouldn’t be trying to argue that the relevancy of the NTY is just a strong today as it was 10 years ago.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:22 am 16. Pat:

Thanks for giving us the leftist perspective, John: smug, arrogant, condescending, and completely out of touch with reality. Keep telling yourself that nothing is wrong at the NYT, and perhaps you’ll be able to ignore the plummeting circulation, collapsing stock prices, defecting advertisers, and simmering rebellion among the enraged stockholders until the final implosion occurs.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:26 am 17. Brian:

I always wondered why publishers not positively disposed toward the NY Times nevertheless advertise for it whenever they get a best seller. Why not replace “NY Times Bestseller” on the cover of a 2nd printing with “Amazon Best Seller”?

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:27 am 18. bubarooni:

‘Write better books with better ideas’

ha! that’s not what you want john. what you really meant to type was:

‘Write books I agree with.’

you might not like the idea, but the Times is going downhill and fast. slanted reporting and book reviewing are debatable metrics i suppose, you can (and probably will) attribute it to competition from the internet, cable news, etc. the decline in their subscription base is not debatable though.

just keep moving the chairs around john. the water will be at your feet in no time. i imagine that’s when you’ll realize she is sinking.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:28 am 19. fred:

A few years back I sent an e-mail to Mr. Sulzberger, Jr, telling him much the contents of the NY Times had improved — that is ever since I began getting the NY Sun delivered inside. There are a few fragmentary reasons I continue to subscribe, but the A Section is not one of them.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:33 am 20. Nahanni:

Those birds circling the NYT building are not doves.

They are buzzards.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:34 am 21. tim maguire:

I’ve noticed for some time that when conservative books get reviewed in the Times, the reviewer is always a left-winger whose snide asides reveal a blatant ignorance about and hostility to conservative thought.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:39 am 22. LaMonte:

I stopped reading the New York Times when they dropped the chess column and some other bits to make room for certain ‘alternative lifestyles’ news. I have not missed it because there are other news sources and nowadays one can independently locate articles by super writers such as Gina Kolata [good science plus writing clarity].
And Amazon.com does enough recommending and has useful user reviews…

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:41 am 23. mike d:

Huzzah!

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:06 am 24. bour3:

Right. The NYT is becoming less relevant and marginalized. That’s why all you jilted right-wing yahoos are talking endlessly about it.

Ha Ha Ha Ha x 1,000,0000

Yes. The NYT is becoming less relevant and marginalized. It is. That is a solid demonstrable fact. It is
exactly why we’re talking about it, whether we’re jilted or not, right-wing or not, yahoos or not, it’s why we’re talking about it. You absurd wing-oriented, partisan and partisan only, unable-to construct-a-reasoned unemotional response, ad hominem hurling, snappy leftist loon. Bless your heart. It’s like observing a dinosaur in its death throws. Even their crosswords, the single reason to have maintained a subscription, are resembling something out TV guide.

They’re reliably biased and therefore of little use in an age of magnificent options. Darwin explained all this already so there’s little point in going over it all again.

You can add to that straight-up treason. I’m actually surprised how frequently the poor dying thing is linked to. It shows that people still care, still wish it not to be so.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:08 am 25. John Ettorre:

Chris (since you appear to be by far the most lucid of the commenters reacting to my ding), I’d be the last person in the world to argue against the growing popularity of online media, but obviously that includes NYTimes.com, which is now read by literally tens of millions of people all around the world, which dwarfs the print circulation. The WSJ still keeps most of its stuff behind a paid wall, and thus hasn’t suffered the same drop-off in print circulation that most papers have. But come on, how can you begin to have this argument about their relevance by simply pretending that the digital version, read by millions, doesn’t exist? That’s not a serious argument, is it? As for the book reviews, I hate to tell you folks this, but your charge of a leftward bias is weakest in this section, since the editor, Sam Tanenhaus, is at least a center-right guy, if not a full-blown conservative. So it’s not conservatives I have a problem with, just ignorant ones. And their ranks at times appear to be legion.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:11 am 26. pdxpunk:

The New York Times? Hell, haven’t bothered with that rag since 1988.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:18 am 27. GM Roper:

Dear Eeyore, I noticed that you spelled your name Ettorre. Are you trying to hide your name for some reason besides the nonsense of your statement “The NYT is becoming less relevant and marginalized. That’s why all you jilted right-wing yahoos are talking endlessly about it?” I notice also that Mr. Kimball made no similar claim regarding yahoos. I can only think that you are of the opinion that you and the Pooh ought to do a western. Yaaaaa Hoooooo!

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:25 am 28. Pat:

“But come on, how can you begin to have this argument about their relevance by simply pretending that the digital version, read by millions, doesn’t exist?”

Of course it exists. Whether it’s profitable is another question entirely. Or do you think it’s sufficient for the NYT to be read by a lot of people while it hemorrhages money? The stockholders don’t think so.

But if you really believe what you’re saying, John, then I encourage you to invest your savings in NYT stock. It’s getting more affordable every day!

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:29 am 29. Dan Friedman:

A good first step. Next, do what I did: cancel your subscription.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:29 am 30. John Ettorre:

The stockholders don’t matter a bit, because a single owning family holds a majority of the voting rights and operates this crucial institution as a public trust, and has for over a century. The company is making plenty of money overall, enough to have just built a gleaming headquarters. It just isn’t making enough to satisfy soulless capitalist sharks. But as we just stipulated, their opinion doesn’t really matter in this case.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:36 am 31. annie:

Oh no! What about the subculture of the puzzle? We don’t want to print out the puzzle. We want it right there where it’s supposed to be, once the paper is properly folded.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:37 am 32. Jeanie:

I had the same thought Richard did. I don’t follow publishing and am not familiar with Encounter Books. The list would be helpful.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:44 am 33. Pat:

Wow. Is that the official position of the NYT Corporation? “The stockholders don’t matter a bit”?

So this company is perfectly happy to take the investors’ money, after which it says, “Screw you! We’re going to do whatever we want, even if it flushes the value of your stock down the toilet and drives the business into bankruptcy. But thanks for your money, sucker!”

And you call us soulless capitalist sharks.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:47 am 34. John Ettorre:

Obviously, I don’t speak for the company. But just as obviously (I hope), anyone who invests in a company under these ground rules, which are clearly known beforehand, should know going in that maximizing the last dollar of revenue, however it’s accomplished, is not the major goal for this company, and that an investment in NYT Co. is thus undertaken for some other reason.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:53 am 35. Pat:

Exactly, John. The NYT is not a profitable business and does not try to be. In truth, it’s a nonprofit organization devoted to disseminating leftist propaganda, and the “investments” of people who buy stock are actually donations. The “investors” should not expect to get any of it back, ever, because the NYT is spending the money on “gleaming headquarters” for its shrinking staff.

The Soviet Union built a lot of “gleaming headquarters”, too, in an attempt to hide its mounting insolvency. How did that work out?

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:07 am 36. Tantor:

I realize the New York Times is biased and conservative ideas are trashed by its partisan writers, but still I hate to see the big papers die, even the Times.

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:07 am 37. B. Taylor:

John Ettorre = disgruntled liberal, NYT shareholder…and still in denial at abysmal NYT ad rates and circulation.

Still has 8-track in car…

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:12 am 38. Soulless Capitalist Shark:

Now, that is a novel argument. “We’re a business, but we’re choosing not to make money.” Good luck finding enough altruistic investors to keep the stock price up. I’ll remember the “public trust” line the next time a business chooses to ignore the bottom line.

I have subscribed, and then cancelled our subscription, recently. The Times does do in depth reporting well. Unfortunately, it’s more and more frequently found in the pieces covering the lifestyles of the urban wealthy.

I read daily. I have fond memories of the New York Times of 25 years ago. Nowadays, however, the bias is all too obvious. The Book Review really hasn’t been helpful at all in deciding which new books are interesting. The Wall Street Journal’s book reviews are much more useful. The reason the Journal can keep so much of its content behind a wall is, its content is more than worth the money. The New York Times’ content isn’t.

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:19 am 39. Jimbo Jimofsky:

When is someone going to tell the Washington Legal Foundation to stop wasting its donors money buying ads on the NYTs op-ed page?

A) Who do they think they are persuading?
B) Why are they subsidizing the left-wing noise machine to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?

Hello?????

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:24 am 40. John Ettorre:

Why do they place those ads there? Pretty simple–because they want people who run the world and who are otherwise influential in the arts, business, government, academia, etc., to see and read them. And those people remain core NYT readers. Which of course brings us nicely back to the point. All of the right’s bitching and moaning doesn’t change that central fact.

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:47 am 41. Pat:

If ads in the NYT are so effective, why did the paper’s ad revenues fall 11.9% in May?

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:55 am 42. Fred E.:

Why is John Ettoree, who is as certain of the strength and continued relevancy of the NYT as he is of the irrelevance and pedestrian nature of “right-wing yahoos”; bothering to condescend to us on these pages? Shouldn’t he be scouring his copy of today’s NYT for the latest information of vital interest to the “people who run the world”? If he’s finished, surely a second read would prove profitable (perhaps the ads?), since he appears adamant in his belief that the Times is simply indispensable.

John Ettorre shouldn’t bother casting his pearls before the likes of these swine. Allow us to wallow, John Ettorre, in our own yahoo-ness and simple minded beliefs. We’ll let you have the NYT all to yourself. Deal?

Jun 23, 2008 - 12:28 pm 43. anonymous:

It’s bemusing to see a man who wears a bow-tie uttering the word “metrosexual.”

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:00 pm 44. jum1801:

I keep on file a copy of my letter to the New York Times’ Public Editor, published Jan. 16, 2005, @ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406E1D91538F935A25752C0A9639C8B63

I keep it for what I (forgive my immodesty) believe is my prescience in playing a modern-day Cassandra for the Sulzberger clan:

” You say, ‘If you haven’t been seeing tons of corrections on the page it may be for the best of reasons: judging by the shrinking volume of complaints I receive from readers, columnists’ errors have become much less frequent.’

Surely you don’t really believe this. Perhaps it is merely wishful thinking on your part, and not outright delusion. I suspect that your complaining public, having regularly found the most obvious and outrageous bias, have simply abandoned complaints as futile.

Does no one at The Times grasp the sea change that now swirls around it?”

I like to bring it out with every Times’ quarterly financial statement, just for the smile.

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:09 pm 45. Martya:

I was raised on the NYT and even subscribed by mail for many years after we left the NYC area. It always had a left wing bent (guarantee, if it had anuthing to do with the losers in the Spanish Civil War, the NYT had it on the front page, centered on the lower edge). My local paper prints the puzzle so there is no real reason to buy/read the NYT.
However, I was at the Philadelphia Airport on a Sunday recently without reading material and thought I’d pick up a Times, for old times sake. Price tag was FIVE DOLLARS! I handed it back to the kid behind the counter and found something else.
What’s the Sunday Times cost in NTC these days?

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:28 pm 46. mwl:

John Ettore, either you’re one of the slickest trolls I’ve ever seen, or you have truly overindulged in that bright red Kool-Aid. You can believe what you like, but in the end the NYT’s plummeting numbers (circulation and advertising revenues) don’t lie.

The “people who run the world”? Perhaps you should have been a comedian.

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:47 pm 47. ChrisGreen:

Neither Mr. Ettore nor any other person on this site has tried to argue that the NYT isn’t biased toward the left.

The question seems to be, is the NYT falling apart and if so, why. There are plenty of commenter’s in this thread that have said outright that they abandoned the NYT because of it’s left wing bias. I haven’t heard from anybody that said they abandoned the paper subscription and started reading it online instead. Furthermore, it seems very unlikely to me that stock prices would go down while overall readership remained constant. You would first have to argue that the NYT is being horribly mis-managed for that to make sense.

Therefore, it seems to me that political bias is at least partly responsible for the decline in readership (and increase in financial difficulties) of the NYT.

Jun 23, 2008 - 1:50 pm 48. bubarooni:

‘but obviously that includes NYTimes.com’

i don’t know john:

http://www.naa.org/blog/digitaledge/1/2008/06/Nielsen-Drudge-Report-Leads-Top-30-in-Sessions-per-Person-More-Newspapers-Join-List.cfm

that has them at a paltry no. 14. about as impressive as the rest of their operations.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:01 pm 49. Rick:

NYT.com draws 21M unique readers every month. Washingtonpost.com is #2 at about 9.5M. The WSJ has about 4M unique monthlies. There is no more influential publication in the world than the NYTimes.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:16 pm 50. Honing your Critical Thinking Skills | The Anchoress:

[...] also tells The NY Times Book Review folks what’s what. by TheAnchoress @ 4:21 pm. Filed under Critical Thinking, Philosophy, Why [...]

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:25 pm 51. tom65:

When you publish crap that makes even Regnery blush, I think rejection is probably a way of life. I’m quite sure the Times won’t miss you.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:29 pm 52. upchuckie_cheezits:

Gosh, those nasty leftists won’t invite us to their prom at the New York Times. Well, who needs the kool kids anyway.

We’ll have our own party with all our friends and it will be way better and so much more fun. We’ll drink Kool-Aid, and square-dance, and worship our graven images of Reagan.

If I’m lucky I may get a Bill Clinton from Pam {haha, I wish}.

Then I’ll go home and masturbate to fantasies of bombing Iran.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:29 pm 53. Almost Ali:

I think it’s a mistake. The NYT is still the place to go for chick-lit, gay-lit, and hors-hit.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:33 pm 54. Richard Miniter:

I have had two New York Times top. 10 bestsellers–and neither one was reviewed by the Times. So I hear you.

But I think the Times is driven less by animus than ignorance.

The Times’ editors simply don’t read conservative publications (the way conservatives might read the New York Review of Books or the Village Voice or the Times). So they don’t recognize the names of even well-published, serious writers on the right. Sadly, the names they do recognize are hyper-right partisans without serious points to make. And they, rightly, do not want to review anything in that category.

The other problem: The NYT editors cannot make distinctions. We are all Rush Limbaugh to them. Now Rush is fine and fun, but I wouldn’t turn to him for a well-sourced, nuanced critique of the CIA. He doesn’t have the time to do all of that reporting and it isn’t his job. Meanwhile, center-right investigators who have done the real work get treated as if they are just opinion-mongers, and B-list opinion-mongers at that. The biggest reaction I get from liberal readers is… surprise. They were expecting invective and got information.

Rather than stop sending the NYT books, Encounter might be better served by reaching out to the editors. Take ‘em to lunch. Educate them. Show them that there are smart, careful people –who are also good writers–on the right. You know, the ones Encounter publishes.

This works with the New Criterion. I have been reading the New Criterion for almost 20 years. Sometimes I would lend it to a liberal. They’d read the article I recommended by Ozick on Henry James and say “wow.” Then, they would read more and find a conservative tilt. “It’s so smart… how can it be conservative?” That’s the bias. But the good news is that the barrier is permeable.

Sulking doesn’t accomplish much. Outreach might.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:46 pm 55. Dave:

John Ettore, socialist tool, demonstrates his abysmal ignorance of capitalism and business economics with his statement: “The company is making plenty of money overall, enough to have just built a gleaming headquarters. It just isn’t making enough to satisfy soulless capitalist sharks.”

In 2006, the NYT lost $570 million on revenues of $3.3 billion, a LOSS of 17%. In 2007, after draconian layoffs and plant selloffs/consolidations, the NYT made $108 million on revenues of $3.2 billion, a puny profit of only 3%, as ad revenues declined another 5%. This is a business with serious problems. They could earn more money investing in CDs than they make selling papers.

Mr. Etorre also claims: “The stockholders don’t matter a bit.” Oh, really? In the NYT 2007 Annual Report, “To Our Shareholders”, they devote 4 pages explaining their crappy results, and their desperate attempts to make money online while the print biz continues its freefall. I challenge Mr. Etorre to read the NYT annual report and then repeat his claims that stockholders and profits don’t matter. Be careful, tho, the annual report is filled with capitalist words, and not one mention of socialism.

P.S. Business magazines are full of case histories reporting magnificent new edifices to founders like Sulzberger, just as the company enters a downward spiral. I doubt Mr. E has ever opened the pages of a biz magazine.

Jun 23, 2008 - 2:51 pm 56. Kevin R.C. O'Brien:

Here’s the NYT stock chart for the last five years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NYT#chart1:symbol=nyt;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

Two-thirds of the company’s market capitalization has been pissed away in that time, and the rate of decline is accelerating. At this rate, which seems inevitable if present management remains in place, the firm should be delisted sometime in 2011 or 12.

Contrary to Mr Ettorre’s assertions, stockholders do matter. (Never had to make a payroll, have ya, kid?) For a public company, stockholders are the owners and the vital source of capital for expansion and (in a downturn) operations, and they seldom do it out of ideological affinity. I would expect that even Mr Ettore would not be happy to hear that his pension fund invested in NYT in 2004, and two-thirds of his retirement savings have been erased by Sulzberger’s ineptitude.

Again, the management has neither a plan, nor the skills, to stabilize the decline, let alone earn that value back. It’s gone and the rest of it is going, too. If your pension fund is in NYT you will not be able to buy a paper in retirement, unless it’s a few days old and wrapped around a herring which is also a few days old. And the paper then will not be the NYT, because it will have ceased operations when Pinch ran it out of capital.

Analysts, by the way, expect the Times to lose another $3 per share of shareholder value in the next twelve months. Since the shares are only at $15, that’s another 20%; that loss of capitalization means that layoffs and so forth (this week, at IHT) will continue. It’s unfortunate because along with the Times’s senior management and its fabulating reporters, a lot of tech people, press workers, delivery men and so forth will lose their jobs, and they’ll probably find their jobs harder to replace than the hacks. The writers will all get jobs shuffling paper in the Obama Administration’s final solution to the health care problem. Competence is never tested when you’re applying to the government.

As far as the Times’s glitzy new HQ building is concerned, read this.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/firms-buy-ritzy-headquarters-buildings/story.aspx?guid=%7BDCDFFA03%2DEA1D%2D4044%2D8836%2DCBAA9133764B%7D&siteid=yhoof

“Operated as a public trust,” my foot. No, operated as a very, very badly run for-profit enterprise.

Jun 23, 2008 - 3:05 pm 57. jg:

You got the right answer, Roger.

I used to read the NYT and the Wall Street Journal in order to get both sides. Long story short, WSJ is worth the price to normal people; NYT isn’t.

Lefty bias is lefty bias. Denial is denial. Weird is weird. Treason is treason.

And shrinking is shrinking. The Sulzbergers patronize us with their silly rationale. Everybody knows what is going to happen here.

“Public trust”, indeed.

Jun 23, 2008 - 3:24 pm 58. Edward:

sweet jesus you are such bunch of whiny bitches.

Jun 23, 2008 - 3:38 pm 59. Pat:

Thanks for that illuminating comment, Edward. Please stop by again when you have more brilliant insights to contribute.

Jun 23, 2008 - 7:20 pm 60. Former Belgian:

The NYT: It’s really pitiful. Because in between all the spun headlines, blatant editorializing in news stories, pathetically predictable opinion writing, propaganda for whatever happens to be the latest “alternative lifestyle du jour”, and occasional Jayson Blair fraud, there is still some really good writing to be found. It is almost painful to still see what this paper once was, and could still be, if it weren’t for the “vision of the anointed” Pinch Sulzberger.

Then I remember that this was also the paper of Walter Duranty (who deliberately kept shtumm about the man-made famines in the USSR) and whose biologically Jewish owners played down initial reports about the ongoing Shoah in order not to look like a “Jewish” newspaper.

Jun 23, 2008 - 7:27 pm 61. Avital Pilpel:

John Ettorre wrote:

>>>>you jilted right-wing yahoos… your books don’t get too much attention [in the NYT] because they tend to be of marginal interest to intelligent people.

Are you on the left because you think the left’s views are correct… or because you think all the “intelligent” people are on the left and all the “yahoos” are on the right, and want to feel you belong to the “correct” group?

A typical case of what Harold Rosenberg called the “herd of independent minds”.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:42 pm 62. josil:

If you think NYT book reviews are biased leftward, you should see what passes for book reviews in the Los Angeles Times or the San Diego Union-Tribune. Almost any review of a remotely political book in those papers is so tendentious as to be worthless. I don’t mind the bias so much as the blatant and shallow leftwing posturing.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:47 pm 63. Swede Wellington:

The Times will keep on churning out deluded elitist dogma from their gleaming cloister right up until the time the walls crumble down, just like Pravda. They may see hope in a liberal revival under an Obama administration, but 40 years of leftist propaganda masquerading as public education has dumbed down potential readership such that there won’t be enough Democrats left who can read. The Times will die with the boomers. Good riddance, foul lady.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:54 pm 64. Avital Pilpel:

>>>>>maximizing the last dollar of revenue, however it’s accomplished, is not the major goal for this company.

“Dad, I *Could* have gotten an ‘A’ instead of a ‘C’ if I *wanted* to, but you should have known that maximzing grades, however accomplished, is not a major goal of mine as a student”.

Jun 23, 2008 - 10:49 pm 65. chica:

geeeze….I do not inspect all the crap my infant leaves in his diaper, why should the NYTimes review everything your vanity publishing house leaves on its doorstep?

Just because you believe that your wingnut welfare system should bring you benefits in the real world doesn’t mean your ideas are correct, interesting or relevant.

Jun 23, 2008 - 11:21 pm 66. Chris:

“Its plummeting circulation and ad revenues are objective correlatives of its loss of influence. Fewer and fewer people get their news from The New York Times…”

Look, I’m on your side politically, and I have no great love for the New York Times. But it’s a bit of a stretch to say that it has lost influence simply because its print sales (and corresponding ad revenues) are down.

The thing called New York Times isn’t made out of paper. It’s a media organization. And its medium is now the web, which has provided it MORE readers than ever in its history. Not “fewer and fewer.” It just haven’t yet figured how to make tons of money from that. But that’s a monetization problem, not a journalism or publicity problem.

For better or worse (worse, in my opinion), the New York Times has more reach and impact than ever.

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:49 am 67. Chris:

Mr Ettorre

The WSJ does NOT keep it’s content behind a “paid wall” as you claim. Please get your facts straight. Their website is free.

They’re doing better financially because they are much less biased.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:20 am 68. Pat:

Chica, you’re embarrassing yourself. Perhaps you should have actually read Roger Kimball’s announcement before commenting. He points out that numerous books published by Encounter have appeared on the NYT’s bestseller list, so your sneers about a “vanity publishing house” and “wingnut welfare system” just draw attention to your ignorance.

Please explain to us why it makes sense for the NYT to refuse to review bestselling books. You might want to read Roger’s examples of the trivial and worthless books the NYT has chosen to review. Of course, that will require you to first (1) learn the actual facts and (2) think. Based on your comment, I’m not sure you’re up to the job.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:24 am 69. tom65:

Roger’s bold move to break away from the tyranny of a publication that’s simply not that into him has encouraged me to make a similar move:

I will no longer attempt to date Anne Hathaway. She never returned my calls anyway. Bitch.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:55 am 70. Arthur Glass:

‘They vomit their bile and call it a newspaper’ Also Sprach Friedrich Nietzsche.

Richard Weaver used tha aphorism as epigraph to the chapter ‘The Great Stereopticon’ in __Ideas Have Consequences__

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:22 am 71. John Ettorre:

I’ve found all this quite enlightening, even the comments with more bile quotient than intelligence. No time to comment today, but perhaps tomorrow. Meanwhile, do please continue to chat among yourselves, will you?

Jun 24, 2008 - 11:42 am

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