Talk:The New York Times/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 → Archive 5

leaks

Suggest that more weight be placed behind the NYT pattern of repeatedly leaking classified information without a regard for the fact that such a leak violated federal law claiming the justification that the public's need to know outweighs abiding by a federal law.

foreign bureaus

Could we get a list of where all the bureaus are? Also, I can help add information to the Times wiki, if someone could point me to what would be best for me to start on.

picture

a picture would be really nice here :) perhaps a quick digital photo of a recent issue? or just the title at the top.. Goodralph 19:39, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

NYT Readers' Rep Column

The readers' representative of the NYT, Daniel Orkent, penned a column in the 2004-07-25 NYT that stated that the NYT is a liberal newspaper. However, the column is the person opinion of Orkent, not that of the NYT editorial board.

I'm not sure if adding something like this to a Wikipedia article would create NPOV problems (I haven't done any deep searching for NYT columns that state the NYT is NOT liberal). But I thought it'd be something interesting to share.

"Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?" [1]

Recent Controversies or just Controversies?

Maybe we should change the "Recent Controversies" section to "Controversies" to contain older controversies as well. For instance, I recently wrote an article on the grunge speak hoax, which was an event that showed the Times in an unfavorable light (due to a lack of research on their part before publishing the hoax). I would add this event to this article, but there isn't a section for it at the moment, and it would seem redundant to make seperate sections for old and new controversies. -- [[User:LGagnon|LGagnon]] 01:13, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

The paper is 150 years old, so the grunge hoax is recent enough. Gamaliel 02:24, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bias

Is the latest addition about more recent headlines, that "helped fuel perception of a left leaning bias in news reporting" really necessary? Not daring to modify, I would suggest, it should either be removed, or at least be completed by a broader point of view. This would ensure a) encyclopedic character, and b) neutral point of view. - Fuffzsch 08:25, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree. 24.211.179.42's grudge against the NYT might be understandable if those articles stated rumours as facts, but I suspect he is referring to this article containing the sentences:
In the annals of Washington conspiracy theories, the latest one... is as ingenious as it is far-fetched.
The newest theory - advanced privately by prominent Democrats, including members of Congress - holds that Mr. Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush. The dismissed physician, Dr. Gary Malakoff, who four years ago declared that Mr. Cheney was "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" despite a history of heart disease, was dropped from Mr. Cheney's medical team because of an addiction to prescription drugs.
"I don't know where they get all these conspiracy theories," said Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief strategist, who has heard them all. "It's inside-the-Beltway coffee talk, is all it is."
Portraying democrats as wacky conspiracy theorists and following this with a sane, matter-of-factly ("has heard them all") Republican quote doesn't seem to "fuel the perception of a left leaning bias".
Furthermore, it is ridiculous to give this thing the same amount of space as the whole Jayson Blair affair.
And I can't see why the wikilink to Thomas Friedman should be deleted. I'll revert the edit. regards, High on a tree 01:07, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)



I reorganized the allegations of bias section and added balance for NPOV. The size of my edit should not be taken as a sign that I believe this section should be this long. IMO this section is placed way too high on the page, and it's too long (or, rather, the rest of the article is way too short compared to this one), but the previous version of this section was way too one-sidedly POV, so there wasn't much else I could do. k.lee 08:17, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I absoluetely agree. But I'm not sure whether the issue can ever be handled entirely unbiased. For highest level of objectivity, as many links as possible to allegations and defenses should be provided.
For comparison, the article about [Fox News] suffers from he same problems. Fuffzsch 12:37, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)



I have found out this statistical analysis by Riccardo Puglisi from the London School of Economics about the editorial choices of the New York Times from 1946 to 1994:

[2]

This is the abstract of the paper:


I analyze a dataset of news from the New York Times, from 1946 to 1994. Controlling for the incumbent President's activity across issues, I find that during the presidential campaign the New York Times gives more emphasis to topics that are owned by the Democratic party (civil rights, health care, labor and social welfare), when the incumbent president is a Republican. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the New York Times has a Democratic partisanship, with some watchdog aspects, in that it gives more emphasis to issues over which the (Republican) incumbent is weak. Moreover, out of the presidential campaign, there are more stories about Democratic topics when the incumbent president is a Democrat.


--Johnny Guitar 17:20, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Militant?

As the French newspaper Libération is currently being characterized as "militant" in its article I would like to know whether the New York Times statement [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/899082/posts "Chirac and his poodle Putin have severely damaged the United Nations", "Chirac's Latest Ploy", WILLIAM SAFIRE] would qualify this newspaper as "militant" as well? Just a rhetorical question... Get-back-world-respect 15:12, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Note that William Safire was an Op-Ed contributor, not a reporter. You might want to argue that Safire is/was "militant" (Safire once described himeself as a "right wing scandal monger" so possibly he might even agree with the characterization), but that's a rhetorical leap to apply it to the newspaper as a whole. In any event, it sounds like your beef is really with the Libération article.

Crust 8 July 2005 14:28 (UTC)

"leadership"

I rolled-back an added paragraph titled "leadership" that exaggerated the paper's actions during the Kent State riots. If nothing else, it had the tone of extreme POV. - DavidWBrooks 16:45, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My removal

I removed the following text:

The editorial stance of The Times can be traced to the liberal education of its staff, in the tradition of liberal education of the American university system, dating back to Benjamin Franklin. During the period when most of the financial and industrial power of the US was concentrated in New York, journalists, businessmen and politicians all enjoyed the same tradition of education. Since 1980, when industrial power was beginning its diffusion away from New York, a segmentation of political and business interests began. But The Times retained its stance; as the country shifted, this difference between the liberal tradition and more rural and conservative elements, which were gaining power, became evident. For this reason, scientists, by dint of their liberal education for example, consistently align with the liberal tradition. Thus the divide became more pronounced as the political parties polarized. It was not always this way.

It seems to me to be unsourced speculation, not encyclopedic content. I'm not sure it belongs in an encyclopedia. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:57, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

Revert War on "Allegations of Bias"

There seems to be an undiscussed revert war going on between 4.152.255.197 and several wikipedians concerning the NYTimes' presidential endorsements. Perhaps the two sides ought to explain their positions. I'm not sure why the NYTimes' presidential endorsements are considered vandalism, unless the paragraph 4.152.255.197 is inserting is factually incorrect. It's clearly in need of copy editing and a bit of NPOV cleanup, but the information (unless factually false) certainly doesn't warrant deletion as vandalism. I see that people here have complained that the NYTimes article as a whole weighs too heavily on the side of criticism, and while I agree, that doesn't mean criticism should be avoided—it means wikipedians have been remiss in writing more substantively about the NYTimes's other aspects and achievements. The text being inserted reads as:

Presidential endorsement
Its news reporting is considered liberal by its detractors.There might be some truth in the allegations of bias as the times has endorsed no republican candidate after Eisenhower in the 1960's.It has supported Walter Mondale,Michael Dukakis,Bill Clinton and John Kerry .More recently its editorials have been known for their criticism of Bush.After Kerry lost the election the Times went through a period of self examination and decided to open an offfice in Kansas city apparently in an effort to balance its views.


The information is factually correct. NYT has always endorsed a democratic candidate after Eisenhower. Thats something like 40 years. Even when raegan won 49 states out of 50 states NYT supported Mondale.And NYT opened a office in Kansas city to voice more red state concerns part of reorientation of the newspaper.Check NYT website for historical abstracts. Thanks

Information Mine

Businessweek article that contains a huge amount of info on the state of the paper. Someone with a bit of free time could data mine this and insert paraphrased bits into the wikipedia article.


Politics/Art

Some claim that political commentary may intermix with art criticism in the Arts section of the paper. For example, A. O. Scott's film reviews sometimes contain barbs directed at social conservatives.

Ummmmmmm...since when are political commentary and arts criticism supposed to be completely separate???

Why blog link was removed

We can't link this articles to every blog that speculates on issues which may or may not be altering Times coverage, because it would completely swamp it. Remember wikipedia is not a link farm! - DavidWBrooks 15:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Disinformation

An article about the changing voting parterns of Jews in Europe should not be in an article about The New York Times. It is totally not on topic. The justification by User:Jvb "The New York Times perhaps fears to lose some of its Jewish readers. A shift to the right abroad might be an omen for things going to happen in America itself" is supposition. This is not encyclopedic. If there is no disagreement I will revert out after 12 hours (and the next time I am connected). Trödel|talk 15:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Concerning: MajorityRights: Jews moving Rightwards February 25, 2005 The New York Times writes literally: “a small but vocal number of Jews are supporting a far-right party whose founders were Nazi collaborators”. Founded upon this allegation the rant goes on, not forgetting to mention that in Antwerp most of the Jews died in the concentration camps.
But that Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) founder Karel Dillen didn’t collaborate with the Nazis, is not only claimed by Vlaams Belang itself, but can easily be checked at the Dutch Wikipedia, see http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Dillen were one can read: “Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog maakt hij geen deel uit van een collaborerende organisatie”. This can be translated as follows: “During the second world war he was no member of a collaborating organisation”. There it stands since July 6, 2004 and it is surely based upon scientific historical work.
In the best case one can imagine that The New York Times heard from Vlaams Belang’s enemies something The New York Times liked to hear without verifying the facts. Perhaps thinking of Haider (Austria) or Le Pen (France) or Fini (Italy) and then generalising. In that case The New York Times made a simple error. But aggravating is that they wrote in the course of one week two major articles about Flemish Interest, of which the second was the hatched job, heavily loaded with anti-Nazi rhetoric, thus there can be no other possibility than that it was done intentionally. Mind you, this is no bias, because the fundament is a downright lie. It is disinformation.
About the motives of the New York Times, I suggested the following: “The New York Times perhaps fears to lose some of its Jewish readers. A Jewish shift to the right abroad might be an omen for things going to happen in America itself.” But perhaps The New York Times wasn’t aware of the lie, you say. Indeed, perhaps it was the French-speaking Walloon professor who was the liar and The New York Times journalist only speaks French but not Dutch so that he did not verify? And the journalist perhaps wasn’t aware that the French-speaking professor belongs to a community which has a financial interest in presenting Flemish Interest as negative as possible. And that Walloon French-speaking community, although close in distance, is mentally far away from Flanders and moreover it has a complete different experience of modern history. But at any event it was The New York Times responsibility to verify that what they liked to hear was nevertheless false. But they did not. And this is called disinformation, wherever it is originated.
--Jvb February 28, 2005
It looks like you are saying that this is evidence of an alleged agenda or bias of The New York Times. There is a section on that already in the article. I agree with the others below after reading more of the entry - it shouldn't be included. Trödel|talk 21:55, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

An encyclopedia article is not the place to discuss or document every mistake that a newspaper may make. When this particular issue gets significant media coverage, then it can be included. Until then, it does not belong. Gamaliel 20:17, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In the coming days I plan to send a new protest email to the New York Times. Thanks for the assessment. --Jvb March 1, 2005

I agree with the removal of the link. It's just a blog post. It's not significant enough to include as an external link. Rhobite 20:32, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)

Why blog link was removed AGAIN

Irrespective of how legitimate the argue may be, we can't link to every blog that speculates on issues which may or may not be altering Times coverage. This may well be a legitimate topic of discussion but not here. Wikipedia is not a link farm or a debate forum! - DavidWBrooks 20:11, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Augusta National

There's been no mention yet in this article of another recent controversy, one that helped weaken Howell Raines' position even before the Jayson Blair storm broke. I mean the spiking of opinion columns on the sports page that dissented from Raines' crusade against the Augusta National men-only policy. Anybody want to have a go at added a few words on point? --Christofurio 19:50, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

NYT online?

Perhaps somebody can add a heading with some facts about the New York Times online and also mention the fact that the opinion pages (online) will become subscription only in September. --newsjunkie 19:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Major sections

The article as it currently stands describes the newspaper as divided into three major sections -- news, opinion, and features. Does the New York Times use these designations (other than as headings on its web site), and are they useful to the Wikipedia reader? These "sections" are not necessarily associated with the physical sections in which the newspaper is printed. For example, the editorials, op-eds and letters to the editor are printed in the main news section Monday through Saturday and in the Week in Review section on Sunday. --Metropolitan90 19:12, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the Major Sections are just wrong and don't represent the NYTimes in any form that I've seen it - either Tri-state region (local) or National editions. Pending no disagreement, I might change it. Anyone else concur or disagree? --Areback 00:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The "The"

Should be renamed to New York Times, unless its officially part of the name. Even if it is, its very questionable - Violates name policy. -SV|t 05:12, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

You have stepped ihnto a long-running debate within the newspaper world, as to whether including "The" as upper-cased part of the name is legitimate, pompous or stupid. Whatever your belief, "The" is part of the paper's official name, and the name of The New York Times Company, and should be part of the article title. - DavidWBrooks 12:26, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
The definite article here does not violate the naming policy. Read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name), which states that titles of works retain the definite article. —Lowellian (talk) 18:56, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
Whether or not any naming policy is violated, it seems that there are far more wikilinks to New York Times than The New York Times. Something to consider. Kaijan 20:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Hard to say, actually - there are more than 500 linking to both versions. I started fixing some and then decided that this was not a good use of time ... redirect wikilinks are not one of the Great Evils of the World! - DavidWBrooks 02:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Latest pre-scandal

Rumors of investigation at New York Times regarding Carl Hulse of the DC bureau ghost-writing political columns for Maureen Dowd. Haven't seen documentation yet. Anyone know the inside information?

Retrieved from "http://journalism.wikicities.com/wiki/Talk:Current_events"

Don't know anything about it. You sure somebody isn't pulling your leg? --Christofurio 20:12, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
And, of course, wikipedia waits until things move out of the rumor stage before writing about them. Otherwise we have descended to (shudder) blog status. - DavidWBrooks 20:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Working on investigation. Have inside source with a least a A- intelligence rating. Very seedy story, almost like pulp detective novel, but using 21st century tech, i.e. emails, digital audio, etc. For sure Washingtonian magazine is aware of it, but possibly hesitant of poking Gray Lady, especially Maureen Dowd.
Six months later, that anonymous "investigation" continues ... - DavidWBrooks 02:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Liberal criticisms

I deleted the paragraph: "Third, some Times political reporters, such as Elisabeth Bumiller and Adam Nagourney, have been accused by liberals of covering politics in a shallow and unreflective fashion that (perhaps inadvertently) benefits conservatives." I hope everyone can see why. --zenohockey 15:56, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Just today somebody deleted a long paragraph on the "conservative bias". While I don't have a strong opinion on the matter and am reluctant to reverse this, I do believe we should have a discussion on whether this is a false equivalence for the sake of political correctness or a real bias. Mhym 18:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I still can't figure out....

...quite why the New York Times is considered a liberal paper, it just seems like a nice excuse to have conservatives represent both 'sides' of every issue on TV news programs, which are also marked as part of the great liberal media, best I can figure it, conservatives don't actually watch the channels they take the time to call liberal.. ..and don't read the papers they choose to call liberal

  • and in today's panel, we have conservative republican op ed columnist Bob Somebody from the NYT, and repressenting our conservative side we have Joe Someguy, Republican Congreesman from the great state of texas, which one is supposed to be the liberal?? the one with NY in his title, duh

It's just silliness, no matter how loyal a newspaper/tabloid/newschannel is to the Bush administration, they'll still be a part of the great left wing conspiracy, I mean who are you going to blame when you control all 3 branches of the government? obviously not the government, this debate is entirly pointless as there are still people who call the New York Post and New York Daily News liberal papers, rofl--172.174.25.220 13:04, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Info box politics.

Hello, everyone

There is some disagreement over the "Political position" line that appears in the info box to the right of the article.

It is beyond doubt that some controversy surrounds the political viewpoints intrinsic to the Times' newsreporting, and no assertions can be made about the general leanings of opinion editorials, either. Anything under the header "Political position" must be a complete discussion. I have therefore removed the line. If you wish to reinstate it, this is a good space to justify this.

Omphaloscope » talk 00:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The New York Times is a self-described liberal newspaper: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E7D8173DF936A15754C0A9629C8B63. That is an article from its public editor answering the question. I am adding the political line now. 206.15.101.253 20:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)Ed
Um, no. Okrent no longer works at the paper (and didn't when the anon user posted the above comment). Disingenuous edit. The ombudsman by nature comments outside of an official editorial board capacity, and does not speak for the Times, but his opinion of the Times. I'm removing the line. Eleemosynary 23:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Omphaloscope » talk 19:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I've modified the info-box line to refer specifically to the papers Editorial Page/Board opinion. Any in house columnists are Op-Ed, not Editorial. Big difference. The Editorial Page is unabashedly, and admitedly Liberal. See "Preserving Our Readers Trust" report to Bill Keller at http://www.nytco.com/pdf/siegal-report050205.pdf. This was issued by the committee Keller empowered to review the aftermath of the Blair fiasco and also address other problems at the paper. (See page one of the report for a full description of who was on the committee)
Most important passage.
Nothing we recommend should be seen as endorsing a retreat from tough-minded reporting of abuses of power by public or private institutions. In part because the Times’s editorial page is clearly liberal, the news pages do need to make more effort not to seem monolithic. Both inside and outside the paper, some people feel that we are missing stories because our staff lacks diversity in viewpoints, intellectual grounding and individual backgrounds. We should look for all manner of diversity. We should seek talented journalists who happen to have military experience, who know rural America first hand, who are at home in different faiths.
This is from the parent company website, from an official NY Times Committee sent to Bill Keller. I think it is safe to say that this version of the infobox would now represent a compromise/consensus. If not, please explain how the Editorial Page is anything other than Liberal leaning. Otherwise, I could make strong arguments that the WSJ info-box political line "Conservative" needs to go, as many of the columnists on the Op-Ed pages and in other sections are probably more Classical Libertarians and Neo-Liberals (economically speaking).
Why do Liberals run from the term Liberal? 213.86.213.196 » talk
To the anonymous polemicist: Your theories don't wash. The info box is for hard facts (date of founding, publisher's name, etc.) The opinion of the committee that advised Keller is an opinion that can be refuted by others' opinions (re. the Times' pro-Iraq-War run-up editorials, support for GOP candidates like Michael Bloomberg, etc.) Your attempt to say that your disingenuous edit now represents "compromise/consensus" is laughable.
If you'd like, run over to the WSJ page and delete the entire "political line" there as well. The "Classical Libertarian" obfuscation has been well debunked there, however. Nice try, though.
Why do people with an anti-First-Amendment agenda insist on twisting themselves into partisan pretzels in a failed attempt to appear nonbiased?
It certainly doesn't work.
P.S. At least have the courage to sign your own posts. Yeesh. Eleemosynary 17:47, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
My edit was anything bt disingenious. OK, so an official Times report, from a Committee made up of Times employees and other journalists, prepared for the Executive Editor of the Times, and prominently included on the NY Times Company website (not the "debinked Public Editor" link you incorrectly accuse me of) self describes the paper's editorial page position is Liberal, and the best you can come up with is that the Times supported Mike Bloomberg's re-election? (I assume you are familiar with Bloomberg and his politics?) 213.86.213.196 » talk
More disingenuousness. 1. You're inflating the committee report. It was not a statement of fact from the Times Board, but an opinion from a handful of reporters, some of which did not even work at the Times. What about the pro-Iraq-War run-up editorials? Interesting you don't mention those. And I never accused you of using the Okrent artcle. A bit paranoid, are we? P.S. Sign your posts (or do you wish for us not to see the vandalism admonishments you've received on your Talk page?) Eleemosynary 19:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see the controversey here. If you don't think the line belongs in the template for the infobox at all, take your battle to the template page itself. But otherwise, for consistency with other entries on other papers, it should be included here. It is a fact and it is verifiable. How is it an "anti-First Amendment agenda" to provide an appropriate label for the paper's Editorial Page in the infobox? What is the problem refering to the Times as having a Liberal Editorial page, not unlike that of the Guardian, Le Monde or the LA Times? Or having a label of the WSJ, NY Post, or Daily Telegraph pages as "Conservative"? So I restate my question: why the discomfort with the term Liberal? It isn't a dirty word. is it? 213.86.213.196 » talk
Straw man argument. Until the Times editorial board categorically states it is Liberal, it is not a verifiable fact that it is. By the way, you might want to think about signing your posts. Eleemosynary 19:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
As this is based on an entirely different source than the Okrent link, and is specific to the Editorial page, it is a verifiable, sourced fact and I've reverted. I am interested in others comments on the matter. And will continue to revert this back until someone offers up a meaningful rationale for why it should not be included. 213.86.213.196 » talk
And I will be removing it (the reasons stated above). You've shown you'll accept nothing as "meaningful" that detracts from you agenda. P.S. Sign your posts. Eleemosynary 19:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
As for the "polemecist" crack, despite going against the principle of NPA, it is amusing coming from someone whose sole contributions to Wikipedia have consisted of removing anything remotely negative or controversial from all Liberal pundit and paper pages and at the same time adding spurious information, unflattering photos or negative POV entries on Conservative pundit pages and then crying "vandal", "wingnut", and "whitewash" when others disagree. 213.86.213.196 » talk
Ah, still smarting from the John Podhoretz incident, I see. Oh, I may have forgot to mention that you might want to think about signing your posts. Eleemosynary 19:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Tough to assume good faith with tsomeone whose entire edit history is that of a partisan POV editor. 213.86.213.196 » talk
And the pot has once again called out the kettle. Check your Talk page for your vandalism history. Now, how could we find that? Oh, yes! You could Sign. Your Posts. Eleemosynary 19:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
UPDATE Anonymous vandal 213.86.213.196 » talk has deleted the info box on the Wall Street Journal page, but insists on including it here, with his unproven "liberal" agenda. What a hypocrite. What a vandal. What a... expletive deleted. Eleemosynary 19:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Excellent, the eleemosynary trifecta. I'm a vandal, a hypocrite and have an agenda. Ironic, coming from the person who originally insisted on having the "Conservative" label on WSJ and *deleting* any and all label from the NY Times. (Leaving NY Times as the only Newspaper on Wiki without a political label). What's good for the Eleemosynary is good for the gander. And unlike you and your sputtering screeds of "vandal" and "agenda", I actually did something constructive and took this to the Infobox page itself, opening it up for discussion on whether this belongs in the box for any paper at all. While you instead will just continue to censor the NYT page, add POV to the WSJ page and try and find more unflattering photos of K. Lopez and cry "whitewash" when they are deleted. I leave it to the readers of the page, after perusal of your partisan edit history and POV contributions, to decide who has the "agenda" and who is trying to actually be constructive here. 213.86.213.196 » talk
Still hiding anonymously, I see. Face the facts, the WSJ editorial page is proudly conservative, and states as much. The NYT page leans liberal, but is more often than not centrist, and your efforts to impugn its journalism by tagging it as biased won't wash. Interesting projection on your part, though. Yesterday, you deleted the WSJ info box editorial line, yet kicked and screamed about including it here. That's hypocrisy. As for Kathryn Jean Lopez, I'll leave it to you to come up with a "flattering" picture of her taken by something other than a spy satellite. I realize it must be depressing for you that photos of her do exist. But you're just going to have to deal with that. Also, I welcome anyone to check my edit history. They might also want to check yours, especially the occasions when you were discovered removing other users' votes for deletion. Did you really think no one would find about out that? Ouch.Eleemosynary 18:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Eleemosynary, live up to your name and be more charitable with your patience; drop the personal attacks. 213's business in other discussions has nothing to do with this article and certainly has no place in your debate. Moreover: "hypocrite", "vandal", "paranoid", etc. are not words you would throw around the classroom or the boardroom; nor should they appear on these discussion pages. I've noticed that you string together words well: why not use this skill constructively? Remember, Wikipedia is a cooperative effort.

213, the same applies: your critique of Eleemosynary's argument should steer clear of attacks on Eleemosynary.

With regard to the debate itself, I think putting the word Liberal in the info box makes the article worse. The burden of proof for items in the info box is very high. Readers expect information boxes to have empirical, proven data. As Eleemosynary points out, the info box is for "hard facts". But the claim of "liberal" is neither empirical nor proven in the least. The words of a former editor or those of an internal NYT review are not true simply because they are "official". Lots of organizations contend they are what they are not. Also, the Okrent article's conclusion is completely unsubstantiated: his isolated examples of individual Times articles' support for particular American social liberal causes do not meet our burden of proof.

Let's keep anything remotely controversial out of the sidebar and in the article body itself, where it can be explained properly.

I think the best thing we can do is to offer evidence to the readers and let them weigh it. Wikipedia is built on the fascinating notion that even common schmendricks are worth a bit of trust. Let us then put some trust in that other group of middling individuals: our readers. Let them decide what to make of what Okrent, Keller, et. al. have said. If the evidence is as strong as you contend, 213, then it should be able to speak for itself.

If you're reading this and have an opinion, feel free to type it in below.

Omphaloscope » talk 05:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to responde Omphaloscope, and for also Assuming Good Faith. I tend to agree with your statement on the Infobox only being used for empirical and proven facts. My main reson for contribution here has been in response to some disputed edits at the WSJ page re: the Infobox and the political labels and to point out that the NY Time is effectively the *only* major paper on Wikipedia without a political label in the box, so we either include something, or delete it for all (where it is just as subjective and controversial). Why have a category that is open to POV and interpretation in any paper's infobox? One man's loony left is another man's ragin wingnut, depending on where one sits on the political spectrum, so consensus is virtually impossible. I simply was interested in bringing the inconsistency to light. As for updating the template itself for consistency, I've posted as such on the main page for the Newspaper infobox template and would appreciate your comments.
And FWIW, to correct 2 misrepresentation in the thread above, I did not provide a link to the Okrent article or any comment by the Public Editor as evidence here, and also this would seem to be a shared ip, so I can't take credit for any of the messages on the related talk page outside of the John Podhoretz item from a few months back. 213.86.213.196 » talk
Wow... 213.86.213.196 » talk's gonna get whiplash with all that backtracking. I thank him for the Freudian slip of "One man's loony left is another man's ragin liberal," though. It certainly puts his repeated attempts to brand the NY Times as "Liberal" in perspective. Certainly no bias there. I appreciate your thoughts, Omphaloscope. But "Assume Good Faith" does not mean "Suspend All Disbelief." (P.S. to He Who Will Not Sign His Posts: the "this would seem to be a shared IP" ruse ain't workin' either. And it just destroyed what remained of your credibility.)
But I'm very glad to see the Political Position line has been removed from the newspapers' info boxes. Sometimes a particularly frenzied editor can get into such a lather that he winds up doing some good in spite of his original intentions. The NY Times info box now only contains hard facts. That does bring a smile to my face. Eleemosynary 02:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Wow, so petty, so Angry. Which of us has actually accomplished something here and which is here to POV troll? Thanks for proving Omphaloscope's point! Cheers.
Nope. Not angry at all. You accomplished bringing "a smile to my face," after all. But what really made me break out into a laugh was your failed attempt at erasing your own Freudian gaffe right here: [3]. Thank goodness for those edit histories. Now, get back to work Photoshopping 400 lbs. off K-Lo. LOL! Eleemosynary 03:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Someone recently attempted to reinsert a political position of "Far Left" into the info box. It did not appear there, probably because the inserter misspelled "political position". :) I removed the change rather than correcting the spelling, though, because I agree that an issue as inherently controversial and nuanced as a paper's political leanings should not go into an infobox. Kickaha Ota 21:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Inherent POV in left-wing and right-wing

As a corollary to the note above ("info box politics"): The terms left wing and right wing have no definite meaning. It may be opined that this or that is Left or Right, but use of these words constitutes a non-neutral point of view. It is bad enough to use them to describe clearly defined political positions; it is egregious to present them as descriptions of unclearly defined political positions like that of the Times. Omphaloscope » talk 00:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Circulation

Any chance of a circulation sectio being added, with numbers and history, possibly using this? --Maru (talk) Contribs 15:09, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

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