NY Times Email From Editor Regarding My Cancellation

[TomCADem]

I cancelled my subscription from the NY Times a few weeks ago because they hired a climate denialist writer who advocated against taking climate change seriously. His rationale? Experts thought Hillary would win. She didn't. Therefore, we should be skeptical of climate scientists:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html?_r=0

In the final stretch of last year’s presidential race, Hillary Clinton and her team thought they were, if not 100 percent right, then very close.

Right on the merits. Confident in their methods. Sure of their chances. When Bill Clinton suggested to his wife’s advisers that, considering Brexit, they might be underestimating the strength of the populist tide, the campaign manager, Robby Mook, had a bulletproof answer: The data run counter to your anecdotes.

That detail comes from “Shattered,” Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’s compulsively readable account of Clinton’s 2016 train wreck. Mook belonged to a new breed of political technologists with little time for retail campaigning and limitless faith in the power of models and algorithms to minimize uncertainty and all but predict the future.

The NY Times certainly has the right to hire a climate change denialist in order to appear fair and balanced. But, why should I pay for a subscription for such an apologist for the right wing? I would like to support the NY Times, but if they want to abdicate journalism in favor of simply providing a he said, she said forum, then they really are no different from any other media outlet.

Our customer care team shared with me that your reason for unsubscribing from The New York Times included our decision to hire Bret Stephens as an Opinion columnist. I wanted to provide a bit more context. Every subscriber to The Times is a stakeholder in our work and, as such, you are entitled to an explanation of our strategy and actions.

First, it’s worth underscoring that The Times’s newsroom, which functions separately from our Opinion department and is led by executive editor Dean Baquet, has sharply expanded the team of reporters and editors who cover climate change. No subject is more vital. Here are a few recent examples that demonstrate the depth of our commitment to this story:

Our architecture critic, Michael Kimmelman, worked with the photographer Josh Haner to show, quite vividly, how rising waters threaten China’s cities.

We featured a detailed look at nearly two dozen environmental rules, regulations and other Obama-era policies rolled back during President Trump’s first 100 days in office.

The reporters Damien Cave and Justin Gillis presented a devastating firsthand account of the profound trouble facing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

A recent issue of the Sunday magazine dedicated to the climate’s future asked: “How do we live with the fact that the world we knew is going and, in some cases, already gone?”

And the reporters Nadja Popovich, John Schwartz and Tatiana Schlossberg expertly distilled public opinion data about climate change into a series of six maps.
This journalism is unrivaled in its sophistication and imagination. The support of our subscribers is what allows us to pursue such ambitious stories all over the globe. I encourage you to sign up for a free newsletter from our climate desk to discover future stories and insights.

Meanwhile, The Times’s Opinion pages remain an independent and unblinking forum for debate from a wide range of viewpoints among open-minded, informed writers and readers. I don’t think, in these polarizing and partisan times, there’s anything quite like it in American journalism.

As on so many consequential questions these days, Americans on the right and left are talking past each other about how best to address climate change, and we are determined to put these different points of view into conversation with each other in hopes of advancing solutions.

We feel very fortunate to have a principled, independent-minded conservative writer like Bret Stephens join our team. Bret’s work has joined a running debate in our pages that has also recently included Bill McKibben, a founder of the climate advocacy platform 350.org, warning that, “President Trump’s environmental onslaught will have immediate, dangerous effects,” as well as the Times editorial board arguing for a carbon tax. We have, as always, invited our readers into this conversation, too, publishing their letters and comments as the debate has unfolded.

Our editorial page editor, James Bennet, and I believe that this kind of debate, by challenging our assumptions and forcing us to think harder about our positions, sharpens all our work and benefits our readers. This does not mean that The Times will publish any commentary. Some points of view are not welcome, including those promoting prejudice or denying basic truths about our world. But it does mean that, in the coming years, we aim to further enrich the quality of our debate with other honest and intelligent voices, including some currently underrepresented in our pages. If you continue to read The Times, you will encounter such voices — not just as contributors, but as new staff columnists.

I’m grateful for the support you have provided to our journalism in the past, and I hope you may consider supporting it again in the future. You’ll always have a home here at The Times and we welcome your feedback at [e-mail].

Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
Publisher
The New York Times

[Hortensis]

1. Thank you for sharing that, TomCADem. The problem

of how to replace a source that googling issues so frequently turns up important investigative journalism from kept me from doing as you did.

At least he's shunted to the opinion pages to limit the damage to their credibility. His attempt to build a platform for denying the validity of research by false comparisons reminds me of Rush's technique, minus the "Listen, folks, you're not going to believe what the Democrats are up to now."

[lunasun]

2. Challenging assumptions . Enrich the debate with under represented voices

How does that work out with climate change?
Why subscribe when you could just run this in a loop??

[TomCADem]

3. I Had Subscribed to Support Print Media and Journalism...

...but if they are going to promote just another version of the CNN shout fests where false equivalency is substitute for the objective search for truth, then why should I pay for the NY Times when I can get similar drivel for free?

[lunasun]

4. Exactly!

[BBG]

13. Turn the page

Unlike CNN where you can't push the talking heads off the screen you can turn the page in the Times. Or get some blinders to help contain your focus while reading the opinion page. I use my hands.

[iluvtennis]

18. I push the CNN nonsense talking heads off of the screen by changing the channel.

[BBG]

19. There ya go

We do seem to be using remote batteries faster these days.

[marybourg]

17. I chose the Washington Post to support

and have been happy with their coverage of the fake precedent.

[n2doc]

5. Would they hire a holocaust denier to provide 'balance' and 'dialog'?

What about a Sandy Hook Truther? It is all the same in my book.

[TomCADem]

8. So Long as They Call Them an Opinion Writer. Its Okay.

After all, Hillary Lost, thus every scientific conclusion is suspect.

[Amaryllis]

12. You nailed it. The problem with that argument is that Climate change is not an OPINION.

It is a fact. Would be like having different opinions about whether the earth is flat to foster debate.

[Meowmee]

20. Terrible

I don't read their articles anymore. My father buys the Sunday times and that's it. I have never subscribed to any paper but I refuse to even click on their links now which a friend sends me. There is no excuse for this. They are a joke and part of the problem. They have been for quite a while now but this is the last straw imo. The truth doesn't matter any more. It's all about ratings, money and coddling a bunch of loonies & fascists.

[AngryAmish]

6. Reply to the email with a picture of your asshole.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Someone was wrong about something, once. Therefore, no one can ever be right about anything again.

Logic!

[TomCADem]

9. But According to the NY Times Editor...

...that sort of reasoning makes you an award winning columnist. Go figure.

[sharedvalues]

10. Times is deathly afraid their role in Hillary's loss will get attention

Times played a big role in 45's election.

That's why Dean Baquet sent all subscribers an email after the election.


The Gray Lady is still the US paper of record. They do lots of good stuff. But they are susceptible to bothsidesism and right wing PR exploitation .


http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54602/new-york-times-clinton-coverage-book/

[ProudLib72]

11. What a bunch of horseshit!

So in order to shed light on the debate about how old the Earth really is, they are going to hire a christian fundamentalist to argue that Jesus rode a dinosaur? Don't they get that there is a limit to how far right one can go and still claim to be serving a function in a debate?

[benpollard]

14. It's good to hear both sides of an issue

... as long as their arguments are based on facts.

The opinions of anthropogenic climate change deniers are not based on facts; they are based on lies, usually put out to help the profits of oil companies, although I couldn't find any evidence that Stephens is connected to the oil companies. He is a fierce critic of Trump and seems to be sane, otherwise. He also doesn't have any kind of background in science, unless you consider political science to be a "science."

[johnp3907]

15. So many words.

So much crap.

[marybourg]

16. Just as an aside: Tatiana Schlossberg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2700986/Quite-summer-job-Caroline-Kennedys-daughter-New-York-Times-intern.html

[defacto7]

21. There's no room anywhere for fake news.

There's no room on the planet for lies that are dressed as a viable opinion and sold for profit, power or prestige. There's no room.. because it has shown itself to be destructive to everything that exists. Censorship is not the way to fight it but it can't be allowed the same value as scientifically proven fact. There's no "point/counterpoint" where facts vs. fiction are concerned. Dividing it between opinion and news within the same source is absurd.

I have a hard time believing that an intelligent, educated person could possibly think that climate change science is a hoax. I can believe that some people can be paid enough to pretend, and some people are gullible enough to accept what they write.

Again, it all comes down to education vs. dumbing down.