Many known and unknown souls have been lost to dictators and their minions. In our country, established judiciary and legislative professionals are choosing to protect their careers over our freedoms, as if anyone is exempt from the insatiable ravishing of dictators. It is courageous to openly expose the tactics and actions that are anti-democratic ideals. Thank you to the many journalists including Ken and Will, for preceding the Sulzbergers and the Kimmels in the calls for alarm and action.
I read the NY Times every day, and although MSNBC speaks to my heart, the Times speaks to my brain. And if Mr. Sulzburger's article is long, that's because he buttresses his admonitions with facts. HIs august newspaper gives me material I need to have credible opinions, to vote wisely, and to hold beliefs I can defend. Donald Trump's henchmen spent four years preparing a diabolically clever blueprint to inform their dismemberment of our democracy. The NY Times has been speaking the truth for 175 years. My money is on the Times.
“All the news that’s fit to print.” My dad immigrated to the US and settled in NYC after WWII, and took a bus and a subway to work and back every day, just about an hour each way. He would buy a New York Times when he got on and read it standing up on the crowded subway, folding it in the magic way commuters somehow knew so they could keep the big pages in their personal space. Not an easy read for a man who was still learning English. When he got home all of us kids would descend on it, because we all had current events homework due and needed to find an article. Our family also subscribed to the Long Island Press, and sat down to watch the news with Huntley and Brinkley after dinner. The need to be informed was drilled into me at an early age. Think of the households now where there is no exposure to news at all, let alone a shared experience of it. You can’t value something if you aren’t aware of it.
Jimmy Kimmel is my NEW HERO!!! We've been bombarding our legislators with calls and letters, we NEED to do the same for 60 MIUTES! It's the last bastion of BALANCED JOURNALISM in this country...Our democracy DEPENDS on a free press!
Yea, I call the Times my “Bible” but, because of its length, I did not bother reading that what we used to call a “think piece” by Sulzberger. And a minor local footnote to history: Adolph Ochs, the media titan who you refer to and the man who rescued a failing Times from bankruptcy around 1900, lived in a mansion on Bolton Landing for 10 years around 1920. While there, almost exactly 100 years ago, in 1924, he was one of the founding 35 families of the reform Jewish Temple Beth El on Marion Avenue off Glen Street in GF. He continued to financially support the strapped Temple until his death around 1935…Re the Clooney-Murray Broadway show, CNN apparently is running the entire show around the time it closes on June 7 or 8. (Think 8th.) Last week, the show became the first Broadway program to surpass 4 million in one week receipts.
I think that it is appropriate to recognize the press as the "Fourth Estate" or even, as in many European countries, as the "Fourth Power." In a democratic state with the common tripartite, or three branches of government consisting of the legislative, executive and judicial branches, the Fourth Estate composes a quadrumvirate. In a government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is the means of speaking truth to power in government.
The Fourth Estate, the Fourth Power, demonstrated its greatest strength and power during the French Revolution, raising up the people and toppling a dictatorial monarchy. In this country we might think of Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense, inspired the American Revolution, and who was also a French revolutionary.
Thought of in this way, when you speak of defending freedom of press, you are speaking of defending our way of government. Thus, when you see that freedom of press is under attack, that it is called "fake news," you understand that it is our government that is at stake, not just the interests of the press like the elite of the New York Times. When you defend the press against such attacks you defend our common way of democratic government.
The real problem today is that there is no Thomas Paine, no revolutionary phamphleteer. Tingley and Sulzberger can moan all they want. But, when other major news organizations, such as the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times capitulate, their moaning is just a cry in the wilderness. If our democracy is going to survive, we need revolutionary zeal among our press, within our Fourth Estate, as the strength and force of the Fourth Power. Where is it?
On one hand, I probably have no business commenting because I stopped subscribing and reading the NYT in 2022 and don’t have first-hand experience with their current reporting. On the other other hand, I ended my subscription because of their choice of headlines and their coverage of the politics-of-daily-living-in-community that showed a multi-year pattern of business-revenue-over-unbiased-reporting-type decisions and a fear of being called ‘fake news.’ I get it IS a businesses, but lives and liberties have been in the balance since he took over the editorship. I cancelled after a lifetime, literally. Because my father, grandfather, and great-grand father all were printers working in the basement of The Times, inhaling ink day in and day out to earn their living. The Times was in the home for me to read since I could read. —- I am glad to see this essay by Mr. Sulzberger, which is not the first time he has expressed concern since taking over the paper, AND I’d love to know more about why there was not congruency in the paper’s practice in their choice of headlines, coverage of accomplishments that supported citizens and their well-being and coverage of obstruction to citizen rights and well-being. Thanks for the gift link. I will read it and hope it is the beginning of finding a way to make amends for the complicity the paper owns in the weakening of the press.
I wish I could find any news source that reported only fscts in an unbiased manor (the way we were taught by Mrs, McNulty to reort in the Glens Falls Junioe Highlights), so that I could make an informed decision as to whether to challenge or support those in power.
Thank you, Ken, for allowing those of us who do not subscribe to the Times to read that entire article. It is long, yes, but very very informative. I hope that kind of reporting continues. We all get the truth and lots of information here, and on other substack posts. Good to see the Times is doing their job.
Good reporting is critical to the democratic process that happens to be our way of life.
Many known and unknown souls have been lost to dictators and their minions. In our country, established judiciary and legislative professionals are choosing to protect their careers over our freedoms, as if anyone is exempt from the insatiable ravishing of dictators. It is courageous to openly expose the tactics and actions that are anti-democratic ideals. Thank you to the many journalists including Ken and Will, for preceding the Sulzbergers and the Kimmels in the calls for alarm and action.
I read the NY Times every day, and although MSNBC speaks to my heart, the Times speaks to my brain. And if Mr. Sulzburger's article is long, that's because he buttresses his admonitions with facts. HIs august newspaper gives me material I need to have credible opinions, to vote wisely, and to hold beliefs I can defend. Donald Trump's henchmen spent four years preparing a diabolically clever blueprint to inform their dismemberment of our democracy. The NY Times has been speaking the truth for 175 years. My money is on the Times.
“All the news that’s fit to print.” My dad immigrated to the US and settled in NYC after WWII, and took a bus and a subway to work and back every day, just about an hour each way. He would buy a New York Times when he got on and read it standing up on the crowded subway, folding it in the magic way commuters somehow knew so they could keep the big pages in their personal space. Not an easy read for a man who was still learning English. When he got home all of us kids would descend on it, because we all had current events homework due and needed to find an article. Our family also subscribed to the Long Island Press, and sat down to watch the news with Huntley and Brinkley after dinner. The need to be informed was drilled into me at an early age. Think of the households now where there is no exposure to news at all, let alone a shared experience of it. You can’t value something if you aren’t aware of it.
Jimmy Kimmel is my NEW HERO!!! We've been bombarding our legislators with calls and letters, we NEED to do the same for 60 MIUTES! It's the last bastion of BALANCED JOURNALISM in this country...Our democracy DEPENDS on a free press!
Yea, I call the Times my “Bible” but, because of its length, I did not bother reading that what we used to call a “think piece” by Sulzberger. And a minor local footnote to history: Adolph Ochs, the media titan who you refer to and the man who rescued a failing Times from bankruptcy around 1900, lived in a mansion on Bolton Landing for 10 years around 1920. While there, almost exactly 100 years ago, in 1924, he was one of the founding 35 families of the reform Jewish Temple Beth El on Marion Avenue off Glen Street in GF. He continued to financially support the strapped Temple until his death around 1935…Re the Clooney-Murray Broadway show, CNN apparently is running the entire show around the time it closes on June 7 or 8. (Think 8th.) Last week, the show became the first Broadway program to surpass 4 million in one week receipts.
I think that it is appropriate to recognize the press as the "Fourth Estate" or even, as in many European countries, as the "Fourth Power." In a democratic state with the common tripartite, or three branches of government consisting of the legislative, executive and judicial branches, the Fourth Estate composes a quadrumvirate. In a government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is the means of speaking truth to power in government.
The Fourth Estate, the Fourth Power, demonstrated its greatest strength and power during the French Revolution, raising up the people and toppling a dictatorial monarchy. In this country we might think of Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense, inspired the American Revolution, and who was also a French revolutionary.
Thought of in this way, when you speak of defending freedom of press, you are speaking of defending our way of government. Thus, when you see that freedom of press is under attack, that it is called "fake news," you understand that it is our government that is at stake, not just the interests of the press like the elite of the New York Times. When you defend the press against such attacks you defend our common way of democratic government.
The real problem today is that there is no Thomas Paine, no revolutionary phamphleteer. Tingley and Sulzberger can moan all they want. But, when other major news organizations, such as the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times capitulate, their moaning is just a cry in the wilderness. If our democracy is going to survive, we need revolutionary zeal among our press, within our Fourth Estate, as the strength and force of the Fourth Power. Where is it?
Thank you, Ken, for another great column. I hope others heed these warnings.
It’s worth noting that Adolph Ochs had a summer home on Lake George (Abenia) and was a member and major contributor to Temple Beth El in Glens Falls.
On one hand, I probably have no business commenting because I stopped subscribing and reading the NYT in 2022 and don’t have first-hand experience with their current reporting. On the other other hand, I ended my subscription because of their choice of headlines and their coverage of the politics-of-daily-living-in-community that showed a multi-year pattern of business-revenue-over-unbiased-reporting-type decisions and a fear of being called ‘fake news.’ I get it IS a businesses, but lives and liberties have been in the balance since he took over the editorship. I cancelled after a lifetime, literally. Because my father, grandfather, and great-grand father all were printers working in the basement of The Times, inhaling ink day in and day out to earn their living. The Times was in the home for me to read since I could read. —- I am glad to see this essay by Mr. Sulzberger, which is not the first time he has expressed concern since taking over the paper, AND I’d love to know more about why there was not congruency in the paper’s practice in their choice of headlines, coverage of accomplishments that supported citizens and their well-being and coverage of obstruction to citizen rights and well-being. Thanks for the gift link. I will read it and hope it is the beginning of finding a way to make amends for the complicity the paper owns in the weakening of the press.
This is ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND VITAL TO OUR VERY SURVIVAL AS A DEMOCRACY!!
I wish I could find any news source that reported only fscts in an unbiased manor (the way we were taught by Mrs, McNulty to reort in the Glens Falls Junioe Highlights), so that I could make an informed decision as to whether to challenge or support those in power.
Get the AP news app. They answer the 5 W’s factually, and any editorial comment is clearly labeled as such!
Thank you, Ken, for allowing those of us who do not subscribe to the Times to read that entire article. It is long, yes, but very very informative. I hope that kind of reporting continues. We all get the truth and lots of information here, and on other substack posts. Good to see the Times is doing their job.