Departing the New York Times

* the Times employed Krugman to generate content, originally on terms that included a Times-branded blog where he could write with minimal editorial oversight.

* The Times consolidated their opinion content and eliminated the blog, leaving Krugman only venues with extensive editorial oversight, notably including how often he wrote about specific subjects (that is: with an editorial calendar).

* He started a Substack; the Times freaked out; he ended up leaving.

This feels like a lot of Substacker stories. He will probably have a bigger and more lucrative audience on Substack, and the Times probably won't suffer much from his departure.

From my own vantage point, the less the Times can index on punditry, the better. I don't pretend this change is strategic for them, but I think it'll probably work out to their benefit so long as they don't immediately go hire another economist.

Paul Krugman was not the worst in that regard by any means. The champion was A. M. Rosenthal: Israel good, China bad, drug legalization bad, again and again and again. But I still became able to predict with confidence what position Krugman was going to take—and what positions he wouldn’t take—without reading his columns.

Bari Weiss left for the same reason Krugman did (you can make more money for less hassle with a Substack) even though her politics were the opposite and she didn't have as good a gig as Krugman did.

Since the NYT had a web site everybody there knows they live and die based on the usage stats, and the usage stats says that people would rather read Krugman, Klein, Brooks and Blow blow it out their ass rather than read a meticulously researched story (actually news) about some person they never heard of in some town they never heard of about some issue they never heard of that doesn't justify some pre-existing moral conclusion the reader already made.

Substack can steal away the heavy hitters of the opinion page, but it's not going to replace boring journalism, the real news that readers need even if they're indifferent to it [2]

[1] ok, she framed it more in terms of ideology https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter

[2] ever note on Fox News they have a crawler that says "ALERT ALERT ALERT" when they camera leaves the studio? Because they know the viewers are only comfortable when some folks are sitting around the table talking about the way things are spozed to be.

The post was bought by Bezos, so changes are more explainable. What about the times?

My interpretation of Krugman's departure is that higher-ups edited and re-edited his columns to reduce the possibility of calling up a kerfuffle. They wanted him to soften his words and blunt his message because they were sensitive to calls of media bias. I think that's exactly the wrong response.

This is what it looks like when an Overton window moves. In particular, this is how it looks when critical media insights are dulled in an attempt to appease an audience that probably isn't interested anyway. How many hard-core Trumpers do you know that started reading the New York Times after the editorial board made an effort to "expand their message"? For better or for worse, the world is leaving the New York Times behind. The older generation turns to Fox News, the younger generation to TikTok (or its successor), and the board's attempt to dull its message will only bore to death whatever remaining readers they have. If real news and real journalism wants to remain relevant, they should make sure their message is above all interesting, not boring, not muted; and they should choose an appropriate medium, which, sad to say, is probably not dead trees.

[edit:] Another depressing aspect of this is that Krugman isn't just a pundit, some talking head: he's a legitimate expert. This is exactly the kind of person who needs a bigger audience. Krugman draws attention to this fact in this piece, and I like the way he said it: there's a difference between an opinion and an informed opinion. In the age of the internet, there is no trouble hearing someone else's opinion on any topic imaginable, but it's a lot harder to hear from someone who actually knows what they are talking about, and is able to communicate well. Krugman was one of those, and now the Times has none.

People shout about "bias" as if it's a bad thing. But yet, every human being has biases, formed by their experiences. It's impossible to write anything interesting about anything without potentially being accused of bias. The deeper vice, of which we should be aware and try to combat, is corruption. The difference is this: if someone expresses a sincerely-held opinion based on evidence, they're biased; if someone expressed an opinion that they do not in fact hold, but express only because it is their job to express it, they are corrupt.

Journalism is too important a task to go down with them though. I wonder if the Hindenburg research model could be a way to fund it?

Why should I keep reading past this point? Why would anyone?

1. They proclaim the intention to report on all the relevant news with as little subjective bias as reasonably possible.

2. They make money through advertisements and subscriptions, the amount of which is proportional to the magnitude of their readership.

Maximizing point 2 above competes with netflix, books, movies, etc... anything on which Americans spend their disposable time. This leads newspapers to continue to have crosswords, comics, wordle, etc. and opinion/editorial pages.

Opinion and editorial pages are not relevant news with little subjective bias.