[mcphage]

> Emotional response tends to be the opposite of impartial reporting

"Impartial" is not the same as "unemotional". Part of the job of the news is to put what happens in context—not just what happened, but why it matters. News organizations aren't striving to be unfeeling automatons merely spitting out facts.

[TangoTrotFox]

Here [1] are a wide variety of other articles from the NYT covering famous events throughout history. I think you'll find that the incredible reputation they built up was indeed driven by striving to do little other than impartially report on the facts. Which, in the past, they did an excellent job of. It sounds simple, but in many ways it's perhaps the hardest thing to do. Both from a business perspective, and from a human one.

This [2] is an absolutely phenomenal article by Robert Kaiser, "The Bad News About the News." Kaiser worked at the Washington Post for more than 50 years as a reporter and editor, leaving only shortly after Bezos purchased the company. It gets into all the facets of the rise and fall of the media, and why things have changed so markedly. I don't really think I can do it justice with cliff notes, other than to give it a strong recommendation if you're really interested in the history of all of this.

[1] - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/samp...

[2] - http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...