NYT - READERS RULE? MY RESPONSE!

The New York Times recently celebrated its historic accomplishment of achieving 1 million digital subscribers, including me, by asking for reader feedback.  At the link, is the column from the NYT Public Editor to which I responded below.


http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/readers-will-rule-says-the-times-so-dont-be-shy/?ref=topics

You asked for it, you'll get it!  But before I start on what's wrong, I'll tell you what's right and why I care.  And before that, a little about me.  I fled LA County ASAP for Berkeley at 18, then San Francisco, which for a time seemed like Oz.  I spent 38 years working for the Federal government, most of them enforcing civil rights laws for US Dept HEW then Health & Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, returning to city of LA to help open OCR's first and only Field Office in LA during the glory years of govt service aka the Clinton Administration under the leadership of the most brilliant and devoted genius in govt service, now the Sec of Labor, Tom Perez.  Eventually I bought a house, retired, and started writing liberated from govt editors but not from my penchant for gratuitous comments, run on sentences, or needlessly long comments. 

I am devoted to the NYT because, other than possibly The New Yorker, published weekly, there is no better written media journal anywhere.  Your closest competitors mere ghosts of their former selves, the LA Times deteriorated into not much more than a tabloid without corporate support or the resources to allow the few journalists left to conduct the minimum amount of research necessary to complete an article, and the Washington Post chasing it downward as quickly as it can.  I rarely read the sports pages, but even there when I find something of interest I find quality writing.  Someday someone needs to beatify and bestow deserved sainthood on perhaps the best writer and critic in journalism anywhere, Stephen Holden.  No one writes better.

I smirked as I read your lead in this column thinking to myself surely your editor is a self absorbed jerk masquerading as a considerate editor only concerned with pleasing readers rather than increasing corporate profit but indeed I feel more and more often a cog in the corporate drive to make more and more money.  And I do understand that profit is necessary to publish the high quality publication I love.  And perhaps as some have said I am not like anyone else so my views lie outside the core of reader sentiment and that's OK too.  I subscribe to and read the digital edition as if it were the printed edition.  Maybe I am old fashioned.  I look through the articles - my favorite starting point is Today's Paper - and choose from there which article to read when in what order.  I have the impression you would like to eliminate that link.  Of course I check the main page site for more updated news.  But - and every other newspaper is worse at this - I resent feeling like the NYT thinks I am an idiot unable to navigate through your sections to find the articles I find of interest, rather than what some unseen viral presence seems to want me to read.  And granted as I did not grow up with this technology I am not as savvy as others but even i can find my way around a web site.  It seems like I can't even read one sentence of an article when up pops demands to read this, go here, go there, and I just want to scream for gosh sake leave me the heck alone and let me finish reading what I started.  I may or may not choose your viral ghost's selection next.  But I can find what I want.  And if NYT is making a profit at getting readers to accept your suggestion of a "new" way to read the publication, or wish to subscribe to additional features for behind the scenes materials, go for it, but without me.

I don't want a new way to read a newspaper.  Nor am I looking for more to read.  I prefer not to spend 24/7 with my eyes glued to a computer, tablet, cell phone, ad nauseam,  I like to have time to spend interacting with real people in real time.  I fear the next generation will be unable to communicate with other people directly or even write, but that is not for me to worry about.  And I will grant that I am not so self absorbed to think that you can remove all these annoying popups just for me while maintaining them for readers that provide NYT with income.  But in part this is because you have given me the opportunity to gripe and I have been wanting to complain about all this for a long time, petty as it may seem.

Perhaps more substantively, i find the absence of women from the top ranks of editors to the number of reporters slants and demeans coverage of women leaders, Hillary Clinton in particular.  And those few you have delight in skewering other women.  Wouldn't it be interesting if her editor told Maureen Dowd to refrain from writing one more column about Clintons or Bushes for 6 months - a year?  Do you think she could still produce a weekly column some readers would find of interest?  Fine if she hates Hillary so much but her demeaning condescending tone reeks of upper class snobbery.

On the news pages - twice now I have seen a similar headline - "Hillary says she opposes pipeline" and another I have forgotten.  Really have you ever said that when a male politician announces a decision or position.  I am sure your editor will excuse it by saying the word "says" is shorter than "announces" but it reeks of a negative condescending demeaning tone that questions her sincerity unfairly.  If you all think she is opportunistic, publish a column about it on the opinion pages.  Why can't you just publish "Clinton opposes pipeline"?  Succinct, brief and accurate.

Now on to your celebrity or perhaps performing artists' interviews.  You already got deservedly raked over the coals for the Taye Diggs interview so I don't need to pile on.  I'll give 2 examples of what I see as backsliding.  The recent interview with Aretha Franklin regarding her performance for the Pope.  Does NYT employ that interviewer?  A more insulting interview lacking in even one worthy question of substance I have never read.  It is only due to her stature and maturity that she did not throw a fit worthy of Nicki Minaj and throw him out.  For example, "Aretha, why did you choose to sing Amazing Grace for the Pope?"  Really?  You are expecting "When A Man Loves A Woman" or "Freeway of Love"?  It's like Wolf Blitzer asking the military this morning "how dangerous would it be if terrorists acquire nuclear weapons?"  Ask a 3 year old; these people have more important things to do.  Compare it to her interview published at Philly.com for an interesting interview of substance with merely an overlay of puffery.

Of course, I mention the feature on Nicki just published today and about to compete with your Taye Diggs feature for reader reaction.  I have nothing to add to the comments of Nicki and the interviewer at the end.  But my observation is to wonder if you go through that article, how much of it included actual quotes from Nicki Minaj spoken during that interview rather than from other sources?  A paragraph's worth, if that?  The interviewer actually seems to me a fairly good writer with legitimate ideas worth exploring, in a creative essay.  She could have written a commentary on the subjects she wished to explore regarding the role of women in rap, the evolution of rap, feminism, misogyny, relationships with male paramours, friends, and/or peers who are performing artists.   But that is different than an in depth interview lacking in questions that engage the interviewee sufficiently to result in an article or interview worthy of publication. 

Sincerely grateful for the opportunity,

Brock S. Evans
Los Angeles