Requiem for The New York Times - by Mr. Fish NEW YORK: I am sitting in the auditorium at The New York Times. It is the first time I have been back in nearly two decades. It will be the last. The newspaper is a pale reflection of what it was when I worked there, beset by numerous journalistic fiascos, rudderless leadership and myopic cheerleading of the military debacles in the Middle East, Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, where one of the Times contributions to the mass slaughter of Palestinians was an editorial
I'm related by marriage to the family that founded and still controls the NYT. I know where many of its private and very hidden skeletons are buried. Chris only scratches the surface of the overt Zionism that informs the family's core values and which percolates down to the NYT editorial mindset and choice of executives. Believe me, there's a book in all of that. Splendid and passionate revelation about why he really quit. You could never be replaced, Chris. Thank goodness you are still speaking out.
This was a beautiful and very moving piece that graciously connected the personal to the political. I love Mr. Hedges and have suffered similar struggles - he too knows what the scapegoat knows.
Edit: I borrowed that phrase "what the scapegoat knows" from a marvelous book by C. Fred Alford titled : "Whistleblowers: Broken Lives And Organizational Power". It is a profound analysis that fits Hedges' personal experience (and my own) and writings about the "demonic" nature of all institutions. Highly recommended.
Two recent journalistic triumphs for the budgie liner of record are fresh in memory. An anecdote can sometimes betray volumes of chicanery and BS.
1) when Epstein left earthly environs, the NYT was on it with the speed of anaphylaxis. In breathless Auden - like tones, mere minutes/hrs later, they flatly informed the world that he had committed suicide. All this, while the body was still warm. All before he was seen by the Medical Examiner. Of course no citation.
Not an unexplained death. Not a mysterious death. Not a suspected suicide. Not a death being investigated, but an unqualified suicide. Baten the Uber experienced former NYC Med Examiner did not agree. Cue in the ad hom on Baten?
They were right about him being dead. But then it would be easy to be sure if you’re connected with those who knew for sure what happened.
2) the ice-hearted way they described the seemingly annoying (to them) victims of Epstein, purveyor and sex trafficker of mall runaways as young as 13. No hint early on of their appalling backgrounds, or their ages at first. Not a soupçon of empathy. The fix was on. So unsurprisingly, the unwashed were immediately informed that the girls were “underaged women”, implying they were happy consenters. Well what would you expect from them, sitting on explosive coincidences like Clinton’s frequent flyer status on the Lolita Express, including trips to Thailand without his wife. And MI6 protecting the prurient interests of Prince Andrew.
The NYT is today mostly quoted for comedic value. The paper is a good indicator of what the corporate-run government of the US wants its readers to think, NOT what is really happening. Sad.
Forgot to include this....I became an activist in defense of Palestinians because of Chris Hedges' reports years ago that IDF forces were targeting children--literally TARGETING them as a psychotic form of, apparently, recreation. We are seeing this deeply sadistic, ingrained cultural attitude throughout much of Israeli society and of course in the genocidal psychopathy of Netanyahu. Apparently it is now perfectly acceptable in their ingrained entitlement culture to kill aid workers, bomb hospitals, inflict what everyone realizes is deliberate starvation, and ensure lifetimes of deprivation and trauma because of their disturbed craving for utter and destructive revenge and what is clearly genocide. Don't rail against this last sentence, because I won't respond. THEY ARE NOW THE NAZIS.
As the West's MSM act as cheerleaders and propagandists for their various governments and institutions, your words, your voice tell the truth of what has happened, and is happening, to democracy, justice, decency, fairness, honor, and compassion here in America and around the world.
Dear Chris, your truth-telling is a balm which eases for a while my aching, grieving heart. From the bottom of that heart, thank you for your courageous work. Be safe. Be well.
Chills as a read this article, Chris Hedges. The courage to speak up and speak out re the infamous NYTs and your personal experiences and memories of Joe Lelyveld. Thank you for Being:)
The New York Times has unfortunately committed itself to serving as a propaganda outlet on behalf of Wall Street and the Pentagon. I’ve written elsewhere about how NYT editors swung the 2004 election for Bush by sitting on a story about illegal and unconstitutional mass surveillance programs that he authorized until after the election. More recently, I’ve documented the Times’ coverage of civil rights concerns about police body cameras that editors suppressed for nearly a decade. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/the-new-york-times-shows-upa-decade
I think I agree with Paul Tillich: while I read your post, I could plug in one of the industries in which I spent 35 years (commercial/industrial lighting), from its dispicable practices and willingness to sacrifice everything for the almighty dollar to the pathetic know-nothings who headed the corporations and acted like they were so much better (instead of more ass-kissing) than those who worked under them. Leadership? Hardly. I also worked as an adjunct instructor of composition and research, whrere I witnessed (and it's still falling) the lack of quality or ethics in reporting . . . even at the New York Times. As of about 1998, I told my students they could no longer use this formerly touted source as reliable evidence to support their claims. Your Requiem assures me that as I went against the grain of academia (another institution that has sold out), I wasn't wrong or misinformed. Thank you, Mr. Hedges.
So, Elon Musk started what has been the "wokeist purge" and corporations began to take his lead. Media is just at the tail-end of this trend... even later than NGO purges.
These are toxic grievance-oriented employees that have been tolerated because there was a need for employees and this is what the education system had/has been providing.
But there have been some pretty massive layoffs.
We are moving to a point where all of these people are going to be unemployable. It is already happening. And the education system is going to have to take responsibility for the damage it has caused.
Another fine piece illustrating Hedges' nuanced moral intelligence. His respect for Lelyveld as an editor, and thinker, while still recognizing his human short-comings, is a case in point. This is why I trust the judgement of Hedges. He knows the world does not come to us in neat little parcels marked good and bad.
What is worthy of respect in this life does not arrive neatly packaged and labeled. Rather, it is an essence we have worked to discover by sifting through a painful mountain of moral debris, positive and negative. Serious moral minds work hard as any miner in a deep shaft. Such work requires great expenditure of energy and thought. That is why so few are truly good at it.
A reframe which will help diminish the regular disappointment:
The theologian Paul Tillich writes that all institutions are inherently demonic, that the moral life usually requires, at some point, that we defy institutions, even at the cost of our careers.
I'm related by marriage to the family that founded and still controls the NYT. I know where many of its private and very hidden skeletons are buried. Chris only scratches the surface of the overt Zionism that informs the family's core values and which percolates down to the NYT editorial mindset and choice of executives. Believe me, there's a book in all of that. Splendid and passionate revelation about why he really quit. You could never be replaced, Chris. Thank goodness you are still speaking out.
This was a beautiful and very moving piece that graciously connected the personal to the political. I love Mr. Hedges and have suffered similar struggles - he too knows what the scapegoat knows.
Edit: I borrowed that phrase "what the scapegoat knows" from a marvelous book by C. Fred Alford titled : "Whistleblowers: Broken Lives And Organizational Power". It is a profound analysis that fits Hedges' personal experience (and my own) and writings about the "demonic" nature of all institutions. Highly recommended.
Brilliant as always, Chris.
Two recent journalistic triumphs for the budgie liner of record are fresh in memory. An anecdote can sometimes betray volumes of chicanery and BS.
1) when Epstein left earthly environs, the NYT was on it with the speed of anaphylaxis. In breathless Auden - like tones, mere minutes/hrs later, they flatly informed the world that he had committed suicide. All this, while the body was still warm. All before he was seen by the Medical Examiner. Of course no citation.
Not an unexplained death. Not a mysterious death. Not a suspected suicide. Not a death being investigated, but an unqualified suicide. Baten the Uber experienced former NYC Med Examiner did not agree. Cue in the ad hom on Baten?
They were right about him being dead. But then it would be easy to be sure if you’re connected with those who knew for sure what happened.
2) the ice-hearted way they described the seemingly annoying (to them) victims of Epstein, purveyor and sex trafficker of mall runaways as young as 13. No hint early on of their appalling backgrounds, or their ages at first. Not a soupçon of empathy. The fix was on. So unsurprisingly, the unwashed were immediately informed that the girls were “underaged women”, implying they were happy consenters. Well what would you expect from them, sitting on explosive coincidences like Clinton’s frequent flyer status on the Lolita Express, including trips to Thailand without his wife. And MI6 protecting the prurient interests of Prince Andrew.
The NYT is today mostly quoted for comedic value. The paper is a good indicator of what the corporate-run government of the US wants its readers to think, NOT what is really happening. Sad.
Forgot to include this....I became an activist in defense of Palestinians because of Chris Hedges' reports years ago that IDF forces were targeting children--literally TARGETING them as a psychotic form of, apparently, recreation. We are seeing this deeply sadistic, ingrained cultural attitude throughout much of Israeli society and of course in the genocidal psychopathy of Netanyahu. Apparently it is now perfectly acceptable in their ingrained entitlement culture to kill aid workers, bomb hospitals, inflict what everyone realizes is deliberate starvation, and ensure lifetimes of deprivation and trauma because of their disturbed craving for utter and destructive revenge and what is clearly genocide. Don't rail against this last sentence, because I won't respond. THEY ARE NOW THE NAZIS.
It's a toss up whether Zionism or McCarthyism will prove most poisonous to Western "civilization."
As the West's MSM act as cheerleaders and propagandists for their various governments and institutions, your words, your voice tell the truth of what has happened, and is happening, to democracy, justice, decency, fairness, honor, and compassion here in America and around the world.
Dear Chris, your truth-telling is a balm which eases for a while my aching, grieving heart. From the bottom of that heart, thank you for your courageous work. Be safe. Be well.
Chills as a read this article, Chris Hedges. The courage to speak up and speak out re the infamous NYTs and your personal experiences and memories of Joe Lelyveld. Thank you for Being:)
This was heart warming to know there are still ethical and caring journalists
The New York Times has unfortunately committed itself to serving as a propaganda outlet on behalf of Wall Street and the Pentagon. I’ve written elsewhere about how NYT editors swung the 2004 election for Bush by sitting on a story about illegal and unconstitutional mass surveillance programs that he authorized until after the election. More recently, I’ve documented the Times’ coverage of civil rights concerns about police body cameras that editors suppressed for nearly a decade. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/the-new-york-times-shows-upa-decade
I think I agree with Paul Tillich: while I read your post, I could plug in one of the industries in which I spent 35 years (commercial/industrial lighting), from its dispicable practices and willingness to sacrifice everything for the almighty dollar to the pathetic know-nothings who headed the corporations and acted like they were so much better (instead of more ass-kissing) than those who worked under them. Leadership? Hardly. I also worked as an adjunct instructor of composition and research, whrere I witnessed (and it's still falling) the lack of quality or ethics in reporting . . . even at the New York Times. As of about 1998, I told my students they could no longer use this formerly touted source as reliable evidence to support their claims. Your Requiem assures me that as I went against the grain of academia (another institution that has sold out), I wasn't wrong or misinformed. Thank you, Mr. Hedges.
I’m grateful for your decision not to be a company man, to be a voice I have come to trust.
lay this bird to rest
RIP NYTs
So, Elon Musk started what has been the "wokeist purge" and corporations began to take his lead. Media is just at the tail-end of this trend... even later than NGO purges.
These are toxic grievance-oriented employees that have been tolerated because there was a need for employees and this is what the education system had/has been providing.
But there have been some pretty massive layoffs.
We are moving to a point where all of these people are going to be unemployable. It is already happening. And the education system is going to have to take responsibility for the damage it has caused.
Another fine piece illustrating Hedges' nuanced moral intelligence. His respect for Lelyveld as an editor, and thinker, while still recognizing his human short-comings, is a case in point. This is why I trust the judgement of Hedges. He knows the world does not come to us in neat little parcels marked good and bad.
What is worthy of respect in this life does not arrive neatly packaged and labeled. Rather, it is an essence we have worked to discover by sifting through a painful mountain of moral debris, positive and negative. Serious moral minds work hard as any miner in a deep shaft. Such work requires great expenditure of energy and thought. That is why so few are truly good at it.
And Hedges is truly good at it.
A reframe which will help diminish the regular disappointment:
The theologian Paul Tillich writes that all institutions are inherently demonic, that the moral life usually requires, at some point, that we defy institutions, even at the cost of our careers.
Thank you.