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Comment by synetic | Hacker News Reader

What is the definition of left leaning as it pertains to a newspaper? Is this an impression you have or is there a roughly objective criterion that the NYT meets to called left leaning?

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The most recent Republican candidate they endorsed for president was Dwight D. Eisenhower.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presid...

The Republican party is only right in the sense that they've gone over the edge, and the Democrats have chosen to stop short of it. We don't really have a left with meaningful power in the US unless you bulldoze the traditional meaning of left and build a shopping center over it. What we have is a nationalist party and a neoliberal party domestically. Every so often a member of one will realize this and move over to the party that aligns with their views. Both are nationalist when it comes to geopolitics.

There is no objective criterion on left vs. right leaning. These are all based on impressions. The only thing you can do is survey readers and ask if the NYT has a bias. It is pretty well acknowledged that NYT does have a left lean, but it is not on the extreme left. Another thing to note is that many argue what we call left in the US is closer to center right in Western Europe. Perhaps in a global sense it is at the center.

Agreed. I'd also emphasize that "center" is not synonymous with "neutral." Which is fine, politics cannot be neutral, but sometimes I see people clinging to the idea of the center as something virtuous or good in and of itself. The center is relative because it sits between whatever the left and right is, and those two points vary. Like to your point, I would say the politics of the USA has shifted to the right over the last several decades.

For 30 years right wing pundits have decried “liberal press”. I suppose if you say it often enough people believe it. What would be nice are reasons for this belief other than my tribe says it is so.

There is no absolute definition of "left", nor absolute calibration.

At best, relative comparisons can be made.

Politics are controversial, but near universal consensus is that WSJ is right of NYT, and others are left and right of both respectively, and in between.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Accusations...

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times-opinion-...

That's always going to be a subjective metric, but the general consensus, including my own perspective, is that NYT is a traditionally liberal (so slightly left leaning) paper.

Left on Identity politics, right on economics.

In USA it's all neoliberalism. There is really no Left.

And to most Europeans, liberals are center-right. Center-left is socdem and part of the green (the bicycle part), then you have socialists/radical greens (both part of the 'radical left' but still like or at least tolerate representative democracy, they mostly want technical solutions for 'better vote'), then you have the far left/revolutionary left, two branches, one based on trotskism, one on anarchism, mostly Jaques Decoeur, Emma Goldman as an ideological pivot from 'regular' Marxism

Is an impression I have mostly. Do you really want to debate if the NY times is left leaning right now? I know of no objective criterion, maybe someone came up with one based on the editorial staff or bag or words, or number of news articles about certain topics labeled left v. right. But feel free to reject the premise I guess, seems fairly self-evident if you've paid any attention to what they've been writing at the very least post Trump.

It's only left in the sense of left of the New York Post or the Republican Party.

In short, NYT is only "left of" hard right wing.

They endorse the war in Iraq. They don’t side with Occupy Wall Street. They have some famous conservative columnists. Etc. Is there a left lean to their factual reporting? Is there a left lean to the types of news they report on?

Outside of the U.S. I think the NYT would be considered right of center. Same with the Democratic Party. There has been a steady rightward shift in U.S. policies since Reagan. From my perspective there is no liberal bias as such but there is a lot of rhetoric stating this. I’ve yet to see any sort of semi objective reasoning behind this belief.

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