One reason the NYT is number three in its home market
Michelle Malkin is upset that the NYT placed Kerry’s comments about the uneducated soldiers who are “stuck in Iraq” 15 paragraphs into its story entitled “As Vote Nears, Stances on War Set Off Sparks.” There is sure little sign of it on the front page:
We note that the NYT’s hard-to-find political blog seemed to understand the issue, after more than 20 paragraphs of this and that: “Mmmmmm. Plan or no plan, staying or changing the course, timetable vs. deadline vs. benchmark vs. goals, we’re pretty sure anything that anyone says that can be construed as maligning the American troops is a no-brainer, losing war of words.” But there is scant evidence of the story elsewhere in the paper.
The NYT trails the NY Post and the Daily News badly in its home market. The NYT sells about 550,000 copies daily in the 30 counties surrounding Manhattan. Meanwhile, as E&P reported, the NY Post sells 704,000 copies daily, and the NY Daily News sells 693,000 copies daily. Not all of the reason for the Times’ dismal showing is politics of course. Its local coverage, and hence its usefulness as a local advertising medium, have both declined sharply in recent years. But it certainly bears noting that two relatively conservative newspapers are not only beating the NYT 1.4 million to 0.55 million, but that they are growing while liberal dailies nationwide are in a spiral of decline.
So while the NYT ran the front page above, the other papers ran these:
The NY Daily News story accompanying the cover included the Kerry remarks in its headline, even before the article itself. We note, as you do, that the Post was too busy congratulating itself to run the Kerry story on the front page, but the paper made up for it a bit by running this as its lead editorial: “DEMS’ TROOP-BASHER. . .” in 24 pt type. (The smiling Statue of Liberty and the big American flag on the NY Post’s cover make their own statement, of course.)
We are not arguing, mind you, that the NYT should refrain from Bush-bashing or adjust its editorial line. But the NYT should report the news, and the Kerry comments, and the immense fallout from the Senator’s remarks, are news. Iowa Congressional candidate Bruce Braley asked Kerry to skip a campaign appearance for him. Kerry had to pull out of a rally for Democratic Congressional challenger Tim Walz in Minnesota. Kerry has pulled out of his appearance with Bob Casey in Philadelphia. Senate challenger Harold Ford has asked Kerry to apologize, as has Senator McCain. Conrad Burns’ challenger in Montana, Jon Tester, has also called for an apology.
There is no doubt that the Kerry story is news. Reportedly, the New York Times is in the news business, though you’d never know it from the way it is not covering this story. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that the NYT is virtually ignoring this Kerry story. It did the same thing with the SwiftBoatVets story, after all. The SwiftBoatVets story broke on August 3, 2004. The New York Times completely ignored the story until August 20, when it ran a piece entitled “Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Attack on Kerry.” Perhaps the Times can find a similar action line to advance its partisan interests in the matter of Kerry’s “stuck in Iraq” comments — a piece on underprivileged soldiers, perhaps. Stay tuned.
Many commentators have have observed the biased way in which Pinch Sulzberger’s New York Times reports the news. We observe today that one of the reasons that the NYT is a poor number three in its home market is that it sometimes fails entirely to report a story, if that story, however significant, goes against the grain of its preferred action line. Why buy a newspaper, New Yorkers may have asked, if it doesn’t even report the news? There are cheaper ways to line a birdcage.
UPDATE
Patterico notes that the NYT misquoted Kerry’s comments in its new story in order to defend him. That’s novel. We didn’t see that one coming.
UPDATE II
The NY Post made up for its lapse of the other day with the cover below:
November 1st, 2006 at 9:52 am
Gosh, just imagine that, news in a newspaper. What a great idea. Someone at the NY Times should read the Post or the Daily News and get up to speed on what’s happening.
People might even pay good money for an opportunity to learn what’s going on, you know, timely, important stuff like a recent candidate for the presidency insulting the men and women in our armed forces currently risking their lives in Iraq. Kerry’s insults, compounded by his stupid attempt to double talk his way out of the mess he made, and further compounded by his arrogant refusal to face up to his own words, is something people might be interested in. Kerry’s insults are something which might influence the outcome of an election. Yeah, that’s news.
If the guys running a big time newspaper, like the NY Times are more interested in concealing bad news for their Democrat Party allies than they are in informing their paying customers, well, you might expect to see a decline in the number of folks willing to pay for the privilege of being kept in the dark.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:49 am
The only way to get the NYT to report on this story would be to slap a Top Secret classification on it in the interest of national security. That would get it right to the front page!
November 1st, 2006 at 9:03 pm
As long as we’re talking about not reporting the news, how many stories do the Post or News publish about Africa, East Asia, or provide insight toward the more unglamorous tax-and-spend matters of government. But why have stories about Iraq and North Korea don your front page when you can have the Statue of Liberty holding an American flag? The marketplace is large enough in New York City for the Times and the tabloids.