The former editorial page editor of the New York Times, James Bennet, has a long piece in the Economist about how the New York Times lost its way. Among the highlights of a perceptive article:
The new newsroom ideology seems idealistic, yet it has grown from cynical roots in academia: from the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth; that there is only narrative, and that therefore whoever controls the narrative – whoever gets to tell the version of the story that the public hears – has the whip hand. What matters, in other words, is not truth and ideas in themselves, but the power to determine both in the public mind.
That's related to the point mentioned here the other day about Harvard President Claudine Gay and "my truth."
Bennet also describes how the Times' commercial incentives skewed the journalism:
As the number of subscribers ballooned, the marketing department tracked their expectations, and came to a nuanced conclusion. More than 95% of Times subscribers described themselves as Democrats or independents, and a vast majority of them believed the Times was also liberal. A similar majority applauded that bias; it had become "a selling point", reported one internal marketing memo. Yet at the same time, the marketers concluded, subscribers wanted to believe that the Times was independent...
Perception is one thing, and actual independence another. Readers could cancel their subscriptions if the Times challenged their worldview by reporting the truth without regard to politics. As a result, the Times's long-term civic value was coming into conflict with the paper's short-term shareholder value.
This is also illuminating:
The Times's failure to honour its own stated principles of openness to a range of views was particularly hard on the handful of conservative writers, some of whom would complain about being flyspecked and abused by colleagues. One day when I relayed a conservative's concern about double standards to Sulzberger, he lost his patience. He told me to inform the complaining conservative that that's just how it was: there was a double standard and he should get used to it. A publication that promises its readers to stand apart from politics should not have different standards for different writers based on their politics. But I delivered the message. There are many things I regret about my tenure as editorial-page editor. That is the only act of which I am ashamed.