Cotton's essay didn't call for murdering the protesters or anything illegal, and I believe a significant percentage of the public supported the move, but the Times claimed it was so offensive that it shouldn't have been published and fired the head of the editorial section for allowing it.

To me, it seems outrageous that a senator making arguments with some significant amount of public support are too offensive to be published in the NYT op ed section. It makes me feel like the whole paper has a very ideological bent such that they don't want to discuss things so much as tell their audience what to think. Incidents like this make me regard the NYT as a kind of mind-poison because they're showing you they want to manipulate and control what you think by preventing you from seeing different opinions.

They're also a pain to cancel (calling them??? this is what temporary card numbers were made for) and their data handling is poor https://twitter.com/rharter/status/1358809000905736194/photo...

They also may have fired a freelancer for a tweet mildly revealing their political affiliations https://www.vox.com/2021/1/24/22247390/lauren-wolfe-new-york...

And yet I subscribe. I read their articles fairly often and journalism is worth paying for.

I’m not certain this website isn’t itself interesting for plenty of other reasons, though.

One of their columnists made a big stink about not being allowed in a particular Clubhouse chat, and how it was incredibly dangerous for people to be talking without allowing the media in.

She then signed up with a fake name, joined a chat and immediately (wrongly) accused Marc Andreesen of "using the r-slur."

It's clear from reading comments by Americans (not just on HN) that the New York Times was considered something of a cultural institution, a pillar of society, a bit like how the BBC used to be perceived in the UK. Perception: If the NYT published something then it was almost certainly true, it was high quality, it cared about journalistic standards, was respected around the world, a unifying force, etc.

Then at some point the NYT changed. A lot of news institutions changed. Or maybe we just got the tools to understand their true nature, who knows. Whatever happened, that perception is now fatally damaged amongst very large numbers of people, in fact majorities of people in both the USA and the UK are now telling pollsters they no longer trust the NYT or the BBC. Those people are angry about it. They want to be able to trust these institutions - it makes life simpler if you can read the news and believe it. But they're realising that they cannot. This anger mixed with disappointment can sometimes look like hate, and in some cases it perhaps becomes that, because these institutions are still vigorously manipulating the large minority that still trusts them and it's natural that this could cause resentment.