[everdrive]

I think that in isolation this is a completely fair criticism of the NY Times. My point would be that not every topic covered by them suffers in the same way. Check out some of their topic feeds:

- https://www.nytimes.com/section/world/middleeast

- https://www.nytimes.com/section/business/economy

- https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/nuclear-energy

- etc.

I'm not suggesting that these stories are all perfect. But, my claim would be that they don't suffer from the same problems (or at least to the same degree) as the very loud Trump vs. Biden bias that may exist there. It ought to be possible to say something like the following: "The NY Times probably has a measurable slant when it comes to reporting on the major US political parties, however that particular bias does not directly bleed into all other areas of their reporting."

[leereeves]

That seems like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect ("you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page...and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate...You turn the page, and forget what you know.")

That's always seemed rather strange to me. When I see that a newspaper isn't trustworthy on one subject, I think it's reasonable to doubt them on all subjects.

I'm not saying they're always wrong; sometimes they're even right about Trump. But no one should trust something simply because they've written it.

[everdrive]

I don't think gell-mann amnesia applies here. At least, it doesn't apply to me in particular. I'm moderately well informed about the topics I've posted, and not particularly well informed about U.S. politics. If anything, you've got it backwards (at least in my specific case) -- I'm reading the topics I don't know very well with increased skepticism, and am more trusting when I see that topics I'm better versed in are presented well.

I don't think being wrong on one subject damns a whole paper.

[leereeves]

> I don't think being wrong on one subject damns a whole paper.

I would agree in general. A paper that was consistently wrong about sports might still be trustworthy about science.

But almost every story touches on US politics, so misleading the public about US politics casts doubt on all of the stories. They're probably still trustworthy on sports and celebrity gossip, but politics influences science, medicine, business, economics, international news, etc, so their bias in politics is likely to infect all those other topics.