The one-paragraph takedown of New York Times columnists

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Monday, March 16, 2009 - 10:53 PM Share

Since I'm apparently picking on the New York Times op-ed page today, it's worth linking and quoting from George Packer's one-paragraph evisceration of how the Times' columnists have weathered the financial crisis:

These days, it’s striking that the Times’s columnists seem unable to contend with the earthquake rolling under our feet. With the whole world undergoing a once-in-a-lifetime upheaval, the stars of the Op-Ed page have almost without exception fallen back on the comfort of well-worn stances and personality tics, which are the habitual danger of publishing one’s thoughts every week for years. Friedman, who knows a lot about economics but has too much faith in elites, calls for a summit of “the country’s 20 leading bankers, 20 leading industrialists, 20 top market economists and the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate,” as if these very individuals are not the main agents of the catastrophe. Dowd publishes a column of inadvertent self-parody whose subject is Michelle Obama’s arms, and whose sum total of reporting is a conversation in a Washington taxi with her fellow columnist David Brooks. Kristof continues to call necessary attention to chronic, less-noticed disasters, but he does it more and more by making himself the hero of a moral drama and, in a recent series of columns from Darfur, insulting his readers with the suggestion that they’re too shallow to read on unless he bribes them with celebrity gossip. Rich never challenges his own side, and the result is a weekly display of rhetorical bravura and cheap shots. Bob Herbert has one tone of voice, and as often as outrage is called for, it’s also tiresome. Only Brooks and Krugman seem to be registering the earthquake in a meaningful way, asking themselves difficult questions on a regular basis and struggling out in the open with the answers, which is why the page is at its best on Friday.

Indeed.

EXPLORE:MEDIASPHERE, NEW YORK TIMES, PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS, PUNDITRY

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BRAHMIN

11:05 PM ET

March 16, 2009

You are forgetting

You are forgetting the one practical option, which America is likely to use if Iran decides to go all out for the Nukes, and that is Israel.
America can esaily nudge Israel to do the deed, or at least, ty to do the deed.
Hey, we have nothing to lose, so we might as well try.

BLUE13326

12:44 AM ET

March 17, 2009

I don't disagree, and I find

I don't disagree, and I find Friedman to be particularly annoying as his worldview crumbles around us, but the whole notion of newspapers having a few regular opinion writers in the age of the internet--where news is 90% opinion and where one can get a wide variety of viewpoints--seems outdated.

Just as an example, one click takes me to this website, where I can read expert opinions and be exposed to a wider spectrum of viewpoints than that which exists in the pages of the NY Times; and whose opinion writers, for the most part, don't have nearly the background, experience and qualifications as those that are available at sites like this one. I mean, Frank Rich's only real prior experience was a theater critic--how that makes him someone whose opinion I should take seriously on geopolitical affairs is beyond me.

Rather, the role of papers like the Times would seem to have more value if they opened up their opinion pages to a wide variety of guest pieces from the spectrum of political opinion--and used their brand to draw attention to these pieces.

BRETT

1:16 AM ET

March 17, 2009

What strikes me about

What strikes me about Friedman is that he has such faith in elites. You look at his reporting history, how he lived in places where leadership was so clearly deficient and lacking on various issues (in Israel and Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war), and you'd think he'd be skeptical of the capabilities of elites to influence their situations in the kind of oligarchic way he suggests above.

As for Brooks, he's on and off. Occasionally, he produces an interesting column, but many of his descend into a kind of history-ignorant muddle.

Rather, the role of papers like the Times would seem to have more value if they opened up their opinion pages to a wide variety of guest pieces from the spectrum of political opinion--and used their brand to draw attention to these pieces.

Well, the NYT does have its "contributions" section, where they take in op-ed pieces from various contributors, and occasionally they do a big contribution section of different views around an issue.

ZATHRAS

2:07 AM ET

March 17, 2009

Kristof

Kristof is pretty much right to assume that a column on Darfur needs some kind of hook after all this time. If some of his readers are insulted, well, most of them have had pretty easy lives.