The TrueTalk Blog: Thin Skinned Gray Lady

I start with a confession: I love The New York Times.

I grew up in the Bronx in the 50s and 60s, when New York had scads of newspapers. In the morning you could read the Daily News, the Daily Mirror, The Herald-Tribune and, of course, The Times. The afternoon brought The Post and The World-Telegram and Sun.

My family read The News in the morning and The Post in the afternoon. Working class people in the Bronx (Italians in particular) didn't read The Times. The sentences were too long, the vocabulary too advanced, the crossword puzzle too difficult. No funnies.

But I loved it. At about the age of 12 or so, I started buying the Sunday Times. I loved carrying home that three pound load of newsprint under my arm, knowing I was going to delve into stories about things I'd never heard of; encounter ideas foreign and exciting. The Times was a shaft of light into another world.

When I lived in Ohio in the late 60s, I missed the paper as much as I missed anything about home. Finding a place that supplied the Sunday edition, sometimes a day late, was like discovering an oasis.

When I lived in Pittsburgh and Chicago, I subscribed on Sundays and felt connected with the city I'd left behind.

We eagerly signed up for a seven-day a week subscription when we moved to Connecticut. Despite Jason Blair, or Howell Raines or any of that, I still believed (and do now) that The New York Times is the finest newspaper in America.

But the paper's in trouble. Not financially, although that's a struggle as well. I mean in trouble dealing with the new realities of the media world. I had lunch today with Tish Grier, Editor of Corante's Media Hub. We talked about lots of things (Tish's an unusual combination: a great listener and a great talker), one of which being the dilemma the newspaper finds itself in today.

Simply put, I think that dilemma is one of "voice." The Times is used to having voice, not giving voice. And there's no better example of that than the paper's reaction to GM's response to Tom Friedman's May 31st column, in which he said:

Is there a company more dangerous to America's future than General Motors? Surely, the sooner this company gets taken over by Toyota, the better off our country will be.

I commented here. You can only read the piece if you're a Times Select member. Which is fine; it's their prerogative and an understandable business decision in the volatile media world we now inhabit.

No, that's incorrect. We don't "inhabit" the media world today. We've invaded it. Or, at least I can imagine that's what it feels like. We're like a bunch of rowdy revelers, rank amateurs at that, shooting our mouths off whenever we feel like it.

But not in their pages. That's what GM's Brian Akre learned when he tried to get a letter to the editor published in The Gray Lady. Akre claims that Steve Harris, a GM VP of corporate communications, wrote a 490 word letter. In response, the Times claimed that to his initial Akre, the Times claimed that it would "consider" publishing a 175 word version.

They settled on 200.

Silly enough for you yet?

Hang on.

The Times editors then went to work editing content. They took umbrage at Harris' umbrage at Friedman's claim that GM was "buying votes" with campaign contributions. GM's refutation: inadmissible.

Then they refused to print the letter because it contained the word, "rubbish." They offered synonyms for rubbish, like, "We beg to differ," and "Not so." At the end of the exchange, GM refused to make the changes and the Times refused to print, saying the word, "rubbish," "[is] not the tone we use in Letters."

This is the newspaper that printed the Pentagon Papers? This is the newspaper that's won over 90 Pulitzer Prizes?

They're offended by the word "rubbish" in a Letter to the Editor?

Uh oh.

I'm afraid something's gone seriously awry in their thinking over on West 43rd Street.

This is not the time to retreat behind a wall of festidious, if not arrogant, linguistic parsing. This is the time for engagement. And engagement's messy.

Tags: GM Fastlane Blog New York Times