Not taking official positions allows a veneer of objectivity, and gives weight to them when they do come out (on bipartisan positions clearly in the national interest like supporting the Iraq war, for example!) but really I think what this is about is allowing the NYT corporation to find justification to fire uppity journalists for the sake of 'unbiasedness' who step out of line. This directive essentially says "while you work at NYT you are banned from using the Internet", so expect it to be enforced very selectively.
Are we talking about the same New York Times, or are you otherwise having a "really good Times"?
> defending the status quo
Okay, you may be talking about small-c conservatism. As in "they're not in favour of throwing everything away and starting over as a civilisation". I don't know what "range of popularly supported views" you're referring to, but I doubt those views are as popular and supported among the Time's readership as you may think.
> like supporting the Iraq war, for example
Oh, look! It's their 16-year old mistake, where they trusted a journalist who mistakenly trusted her government sources who had mistakenly trusted German intelligence who had mistakenly convinced themselves to believe something they wanted to be true to impress their US counterparts. Who was, by the way, summarily fired afterwards.
Well yes, stating the the Times' readership is far removed from American popular opinion since the Times is by and for elites and elite-hopefuls who benefit from or hope to benefit from the status quo is exactly my point... How many in the US support universal health care? 60%? 70% How many NYT op eds have you seen in favor of it?
Not to mention the fact that the Times readership has been plummeting and continues to do so, so relying on this ever shrinking group as a barometer is questionable.
>Okay, you may be talking about small-c conservatism. As in "they're not in favour of throwing everything away and starting over as a civilisation". I don't know what "range of popularly supported views" you're referring to
I'll quote Greenwald since he doesn't like to mince words:
"If your goal were to wage war on media diversity in all of its forms, and to offer the narrowest range of views possible, it would be hard to top the roster of columnists the paper has assembled: Tom Friedman, David Brooks, Nick Kristof, Paul Krugman, Roger Cohen, Ross Douthat, Maureen Dowd, Frank Bruni, David Leonhardt, Charles Blow, Gail Collins, Bret Stephens, with Bari Weiss as a contributor and editor."
With Bret Stephens as a beautiful cherry on top as their most recent and high profile hire. https://theintercept.com/2017/08/31/nyts-newest-op-ed-hire-b...
>Oh, look! It's their 16-year old mistake
A 16-year old mistake that is a 16-year-old ongoing war responsible for the pointless deaths of hundreds of thousands and the rise of a horrific terror state. When the stakes are that high, you can't just brush off mistakes.
>where they trusted a journalist who mistakenly...
Nope, it wasn't a single endorsement, NYT was beating the drum for war throughout the entire buildup. They were entirely complicit in warming up public opinion to the idea, with article after article after...
In short: even when they present biased opinions as objective truth, they don't have whole meta-conspiracy around planning to do that. Nobody is writing these social-media guidelines thinking "this will better allow us to get away with presenting our political angle as objective truth" or anything like that.
It's like the test that Harvard put out that shows we are all at least a little prejudiced. I was a little surprised by my results, as I'm racially mixed. I didn't want to admit it was true but I spent a while pondering and, indeed, I have my prejudices.
You're right. It's possible (but far from certain) that the NYT folks believe themselves to be more objective than they are (or are capable of being). But a delusional belief in one's own objectivity and aiming to tamp down on public shows of bias is not the same as the implication in the comment I was replying to (which implied a self-awareness of bias that was being intentionally hidden publicly).
You might consider reading "Manufactured Consent", by Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky's thesis doesn't suggest that entities like the NYT are intentionally biased and crafty in hiding it. His thesis suggests that the basic nature of news media as we know it, the economic models, social structures, etc. inherently work in a fashion that reinforces mainstream thought and rejects challenges to it.
I think Chomsky is right. My point is that the NYT is behaving exactly as Chomsky would expect including my suggestion that they aren't consciously aiming to be biased and hide it. They exist in a broader context where they can't even see their own bias (which is common in many cases, even outside of this topic of journalism).