Friday Mailbag: Spilled Beans, Monochrome Faces and Renegade Readers

Publishing publically that Israel was the origin of the "highly classified intelligence" President Trump shared with the Rusiians could have put his fledgling relationship with Israel and P.M. Netanyahu in jeopardy and possibly compromised his agenda for his visit to Israel. Shouldn't this have been at least one of your considerations for deciding whether or not to publish it?

Also, President Trump is a novice politician. Being a "greenhorn" is not tantamount to being "stupid". Quite contrarily, President Trump is exceptionally intelligent. He out-smarted-witted-lasted a field of 17 candidates for the Republican nomnination. He ran against a woman who was supposed to be a shoe-in, who had spent a billion dollars on her campaign, who had Barack Obama's endorcement, who brought Bill Clinton with her...He won because of his intelligence, his savvy, his comprehension of the public's needs and sentiments and how to close the deal! You may not like him but it isn't because he is "stupid". I suspect a lot of people, maybe even some of you reading this, are going to realise they don't really know why they don't like him or that they really don't not like him. It is easy to get swept up in the campaign to convince you to believe sometthing, in this case, that Trump is evil-wicked-horrific-demented-mentally ill-dangerous-Hitleresque-dishonest-crooked-a lair-a thief-a bigot-zenophobic-a misogynist-a racist... etc. But then that moment comes when we finally can see clearly.

I will probably send you an e-mail on this, but because I am not canceling my subscription (One Paul Krugman more than outweighs Bret Stephens, Ross Douthat, and David Brooks, combined - although I will note that the Times would immensely improve its editorial page if it added Dean Baker and Amanda Marcotte (right now the only permanent columnist who is not male is Gail Collins). I expect that the Bret Stephens matter has been beaten to a the ground, but I do find the idea that he will be introducing "new" or "different" ideas ludicrous, because I can pretty much write his column before he does once I know the topic.

2. My real peeve of the day is Jonathan Martin and his "Democrats in Disarray" "analysis" piece, which, as my quote mark indicates is not much different than most political "analysis" columns about the the Democratic Party written since 1972. First of all, the Democrats are completely out of power; the Republicans under Trump control the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court. The only realistic thing they can do is "opposed" and to demonstrate the unpopularity of the Republican-Ryan- Trump agenda to repeal the New Deal and to point out the crimes and corruption. 2d, Martin uses the term "working class" voters for Trump. Clinton, despite the Republican & Media campaign (led by the N.Y. Times) of 2015-16 to make her the most hated person in America, managed to get 48% of the popular vote. Also blacks, Hispanics, etc. Asians work.

I have to wonder how many NYTimes readers have Snapchat accounts, or, conversely, how many Snapchat subscribers are there for serious content. It's my understanding that Snapchat promotes a very short attention span, which hardly seems a promising way for the NYTimes to prospect for new readers!

If the Times buried the lede and said that the Ebola only accounted for 5.5% of deaths in NYC this week would anyone not notice that that 5.5% represented people who should never have been gone in the first place?

Gross metaphor, but most cancellations are most likely people leaving the Times because of moves or changes in their lives, not because the Times has betrayed their trust. These other cancellations can most likely replaced by other people starting up. The 6% is lost subscription base which the Times can't afford to lose. If 2/3 of the cancellations are ordinary churn from people coming and going, the 6% represents an increase in the loss rate of subscribers of 20% but we can't really know since Spayd's number is meaningless in itself.

The lack of context isn't surprising in that both Bennet and Spayd are both mathematically and scientifically illiterate - otherwise they would understand that the outrage isn't because subscribers disagree with Stephen's opinions but because he his numbers don't add up and his scientific and historical facts are all wrong.

The Times wouldn't hire a music critic who had never heard of Bach or the Rolling Stones and couldn't hear a note but is happy to publish any nonsense about science that they can find a quote for. Could we get just one journalist or editor who didn't struggle in algebra and glaze over in "science for poets?"

PE: "... the other appeared on The Times’s new Snapchat Discover."

Did the Times agree to be censored on the whim of Snap?

"... Snap Inc. reserves the right to review or remove all content that appears on the Services ..."

Snap Inc. Terms of Service
Effective: January 10, 2017
https://www.snap.com/en-US/terms/

5.5% is a huge drop in subscriptions, especially considering it is in reaction to one hiring event. This should really tell the Times something: we don't like fake news, even if it's filtered through Opinion. Leave that to the imploding Fox News. We don't like click-bait, either.

“"First, it’s worth underscoring that The Times’s newsroom, which functions separately from our Opinion department and is led by executive editor Dean Baquet, has sharply expanded the team of reporters and editors who cover climate change,' Sulzberger wrote. 'No subject is more vital.'"

Let's unpack these claims, as Spayd should have, but didn't.
If there is, as risibly posited by outgoing editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal to Times Insider, and supported by boss Sulzburger here, an "absolute separation" between news and opinion, how could Rosenthal have allowed Baquet entry into the Times' Editorial Board's interview with candidate Donald Trump? Further, how did some of the supposed, per Rosenthal, "off the record" interview material with Trump end up very much on the record in Baquet's "news" pages?
It is rich in irony that Sulzburger tries to claim an expansion of "reporters and editors who cover climate change" when he was responsible for dismantling the "environmental pod" of reporters, and the elimination of both the Green Blog and Dot Earth. So the publisher cut resources to near zero, and gives himself a pat on the back when resources are increased from the BOTTOM OUT level?
If we're to believe AS Jr.'s claim that "no subject is more vital," why did he countenance the end of the environmental pod and the Green Blog, and come up with no successor to Dot Earth when Andy Revkin pulled up stakes? Sorry, not credible. Where's Spayd's follow up to his incredible claim?

Read the Stanley Greene obit today, all you whining readers ("I don't want to see any disturbing photos") and get into the REAL--not your safe 1950's--world.

Another "decades-long" reader (is there any other kind?) declares an intent to "cancel my subscription" unless a particular feature/writer is terminated.
And these are your so-called elite, highly educated readers who, one hoped, would have learned in college to seek out and RESPECT all points of view.
Just like the New UC Berkeley.
And, just to let you know, unless you change your archaic slogan, "All the news that's fit to print," I am cancelling my subscription.

Is this random chance or the hand of deity at work?
The planet's warming cycle is adding water to the oceans, but -
Nearly all our liberals live next to the ocean.
Blub. How sad. Maybe they'll learn to surf like the drawing shows.

"The dog ate my homework." Compelling reason, my foot. And blinking? This excuse column fails to provide substantive review. Of course, the NYT pays the salary. That goes higher, as the NYT advertisers are not interested in the dangerous and unvarnished truth that a truly open-minded and curious writer could easily find for themselves. Bret Stephens has hitched his star to Lomborg, so where he could be a more "honest broker" he instead relies on someone who comforts the comfortable.

As to those cancellations, I agree with the NYT that it's better to focus on a good reporting, but it is not nearly enough. How about daily front page news about our increasingly wild planet and the livelihoods and homes destroyed? The Antarctic feature was outstanding, but where are the midwest tornadoes and news outside the US.

Another thing not mentioned was the ***quality*** of the scientific community who have made a public fuss, many of whom are at the top of their field. These are not amateurs. We who follow real science are pretty fed up at the lukewarm coverage of the issues. If you really want to know what's going on, you need only speak to your own reporters, Justin Gillis, John Schwartz, and many others. The reason Stephens chose to be "in your face" about his half-baked climate opinions does not bear close scrutiny.

It's exhausting seeing the excuses for inaction; Stephens made that worse with NYT support. I enjoy his articles on other subjects, but look for a shallow streak.

Slightly off-topic, but still apropos for the Public Editor:

We comment often, but have noticed in the last 2-3 days that our Mozilla Firefox browser has trouble accessing the Times's comments section, which is surprising, considering the Mozilla/NYTimes partnership:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/business/media/new-york-times-and-was...

Since Internet Explorer's browser flawlessly accesses the same comments sections that Firefox is having trouble with (and yes, our Firefox browser is up-to-date) it seems like there is a technical ' hand-shake ' problem of some sort.

Wonder how many other readers are having this issue and if Times's I.T. personnel are aware ?

I must correct my last entry. Of the five entries under "Latest from the Opinion Blogs," only ONE (from Nicholas Kristof) is from calendar year 2017, and that one from one month ago. In fact, one, from David Brooks, dates to June 19, 2014, or 35 months ago, to the day.
Why was the Public Editor's output of excised from this easy link space? Who made that decision?

Just like Spayd's last column, there is no link anywhere to this. The only way to access it is by clicking on one of the two "Public Editor tabs.
In her still short tenure, most Friday Mailbags, if not all, are accompanied by a link on the front page, under more news.
Is this intentional? At whose behest is this being done?
Of course, Spayd's arrival coincided with the disappearance from a standing link of the Public Editor's latest entry from the incredible shrinking blogroll, "Latest from the Opinion Blogs."
In the Times, the "latest" has five entries, two of which are from the year 2016. I don't think "latest" means what the Times opinion management team thinks it does.

You already wrote, Liz, the same words regarding "relatively few readers" having canceled, twice in two difference columns. The first time, some readers minded, and the second, you made sure to use the exact words again so they could see how much you cared that they minded. A nice little toss of the hair in their direction. I don't care how many readers canceled, though I was one who has. And it wasn't so much over Stephens' being hired as it was over the in-your-face attitudes toward the NYT's own readership that have been evinced most of all in four or five of your own columns, starting with the "tailored news" piece and continuing through your several uncalled-for attacks on many of your readers' motives and reasoning. You didn't listen or respect their words while accusing them of being unwilling to listen, a fine example of projection if I've ever seen one.

I suppose the editors and owner are willing for you to keep it up, to further the newly embraced "balanced" approach to news (and comments?) that will bring you closer to Fox than to the former paper of record this once was. So John Yoo and this Stephens fellow are steps in that direction, sure. And you'll be sure we don't argue without your putting a thumb on the scale. We get it, really we do. You don't have to go on about cancelations anymore, Liz. Just go on doing what you're doing, and we'll take care of the rest.

It seems that Spayd's characterization of Times readers who cancelled their subscriptions over the hiring of Bret Stephens really encapsulates Spayd's contempt for Times readers: "Renegade Readers."

"Renegade" is defined as "a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles. Synonyms: traitor, defector, deserter, turncoat, rebel, mutineer

And that defines Spayd's contempt for readers of this paper. Anyone who dares question Times management, anyone who complains about its coverage, anyone, in short, who dares to stand up to Times management is, according to Liz Spayd, a traitor, a turncoat, a mutineer.

And this from the person whose job it is to "represent readers."

Ron Lieber: "... as best we can tell, one is a person of color ..."

As best I can tell, her essay is the one consigned to Snapchat Discover. Why?

This Year’s College-Bound Essayists and Their ‘Beautiful Contradictions’
By RON LIEBER
MAY 12, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/your-money/2017-college-essays.html

For the last several days the columns sporadically come up without their comment columns. What I mean is, one time the comment column will appear next to the story, and the next time you click on the story it looks like there are no comments on that story. Some type of malfunction.

When we start basing decisions about good writing on color, we have slid far down the slope of returning discrimination to our intellectual pursuits.

Good writing is color blind.

But those who chose color over good writing are just blind.

"Of those canceling their subscriptions between April 12 through this weekend, 5.5 percent cited the new column as the reason,” Rhoades Ha said. “That’s a fractional drop from the 6 percent it was in the immediate aftermath of his firing.”
This doesn't make sense. Did Rhoades Ha mean "hiring" instead of "firing," or was it a spectacular Freudian slip?
And percentages are absolutely meaningless and useless without being given the absolute number of cancellations. And what reason is there for withholding the absolute numbers, other than embarrassment? The credibility of the Public Editor was called into question when she almost predictably drifted into her seemingly preferred position as senior flack and apologist for the Times by passing on the unsubstantiated claim that "relatively few" had actually canceled subscriptions in the aftermath of Stephens' hiring. So what are the actual numbers?

Public Editor Liz Spayd and The Times are deliberately downplaying the impact of the Bret Stephen hirings. Spayd reports that "between April 12 through this weekend, 5.5 percent cited the new column as the reason."

Taking a closer look, this means that cancellations of Times subscriptions have jumped more than 5% for more than five weeks in a row, and the cancellations are barely abating. And that number likely understates the impact of Stephens' hiring on Times subscriptions, since it doesn't count those individuals who cancelled, but didn't specifically name Stephens. We're not told how many cancelled over Stephens, perhaps thousands. But it is clear that it is not a "relative few," as Spayd contends; this is a major revolt by Times readers.

And that is why Spayd's direct boss and Times publisher A.O. Sulzberger, Jr., sent out that plea to all those who cancelled their subscriptions.

Once again, Liz Spayd is functioning as a Times PR rep, spinning the facts to downplay the reality, and dismissing the very real concerns of Times readers.

"There were also convincing reasons in favor of publishing. For one, Israel is particularly wary of Russia, which has close relationships with Iran and Syria, avowed enemies of Israel. Second, Trump is on his way to Israel for his first major overseas trip. So for reasons involving diplomacy and relations with a crucial ally, we considered the fact that Israel was the source to be newsworthy and in the public interest."

Newsworthy and you put the embedded spy in additional danger, but newsworthy is of course your main concern..

However, your hand wringing is a waste of time. The Russians are not stupid and they had it figured out long before the public outing by journalists. Nor are the Israelis stupid and they undoubtedly had fail safe and fall back mechanisms for damage control. Unfortunately there were other people involved and some, or one, was and is stupid. Harsh perhaps, but in this case certainly correct enough.