[gamepsys]

This could be a blueprint for how other tech departments unionize, but I suspect NYT is a unique case because of their politics. Can such a left wing cornerstone really afford to look anti-union inside their own house? This gives the workers more leverage than they would otherwise have in other companies.

In any of the places I worked at in the past an anti-union consulting firm would have been called in to bust things up before it ever got this far.

[mint2]

Regardless of what infographic makers declare, the NYT newsroom is not “left” leaning.

Their coverage is much more complicated than left vs right, but one theme is they don’t question the loudest narratives, and they hold grudges when they perceive someone to not give them enough access.

The right tends to be louder and more uniform and persistent in messaging, so that coloring often gets unconsciously added to articles rather than the journalists taking a step back and analyzing the whole picture.

It’s the quick/lazy way to write stories after all, and journalists have deadlines. The author may be left leaning and some of that may even show, but a little left leaning flavor doesn’t mask that it’s based on the right’s take.

The choice of coverage also is very herd like, not left or right.

The NYT also goes out of the way to appear fair and balanced, trying to find the “average” in stories. But as anyone but the NYT knows, averages are skewed easily.

[thegrim33]

Well here's a challenge for you, we can easily put your viewpoint to the test:

Go on the NYT website right now and find me a single article currently on the front page that's negative about leftist policies or politicians, or a single article that's positive about rightist policies or politicians.

I bet you can't find any.

Repeat this experiment, any minute, any hour, any day, any year, for the last 10 years, and you will get the same exact results.

[mtalantikite]

Just a quick look, here's one that plays into the mainstream narrative that Hamas is hiding out in hospitals and schools and therefore it's understandable to bomb them: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/world/middleeast/airstrik...

[golergka]

That's just a fact, its not a matter of opinion or leaning.

[mtalantikite]

Regardless of whether or not Hamas is hiding out amongst civilians, those civilians are still entitled to human rights protections under international law. The comment section on that article says it all; a bunch of people largely agreeing that it's the Palestinians fault they are getting killed in their shelters.

But that is tangential to the discussion in this thread, which is that the NY Times is leftist. It's not. It, along with most of it's readership, is your typical establishment news organization in the US. Nothing status-quo shaking coming out of the NY Times.

Here's a quick search on how a leftist publication covered something like the bombing of al-Shifa hospital: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-gaza-propagan...

[aguaviva]

It's a fact that they've been using hospitals for non-medical purposes to some extent.

However, it's also a fact that the Israeli government has been attempting to milk these finds for far more than they're worth, to an extent beyond embellishment and closer to outright fabrication (c.f. the alleged "command center" under al-Shifa, the Hamas "shift schedule" that was really just an ordinary Arabic calendar, and so on).

In short: yes Hamas is bad, and all that. But for its own part, the Israeli government never seems to miss an opportunity to leverage available circumstances to undermine its own credibility.

[ImJamal]

Was that on the front page? I just checked and couldn't find it there.

[mtalantikite]

It was, but it's fallen off at this point. Now most of the front page and editorial is about the US presidential debate that is about to happen, the coverage of which looks like any other mainstream establishment news publication in the US.

Compare that to an actual leftist publication like The Nation, where the second most popular article is literally about the enduring legacy of Marx's Capital (lol): https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/wendy-brown-marx-c...

Or over at Jacobin where this is the top story: https://jacobin.com/2024/09/ruwa-romman-dnc-speech-palestine

[consteval]

Does that make a difference or are y'all just constantly moving goalposts to fuel the narrative that media is inherently left-leaning?

Because it's really not - especially not in the US. Go look through their articles. How many serve corporate interests? How many are fundamentally ultra-capitalists?

You guys act like these are commies. No, they're right-leaning, just not far right insane wackos (Fox News). You're right, they're not out here questioning how black Kamala is. No, that absolutely does not make them left wing.

[dgfitz]

> ...to fuel the narrative that media is inherently left-leaning?

Right around this time 8 years ago, the election was over... in the media. Clinton won, trump didn't, in like September of 2016. Like, the world was collectively shocked. Because, according to the media, trump was cooked.

How does that square?

[aguaviva]

Find me a single article currently on the front page that's negative about leftist policies or politicians,

Found on the front page of the NYT website, just now, after a few seconds of skimming:

  Kathleen Kingsbury
  The Question Kamala Harris Couldn’t Answer

[squigz]

Let's just assume you're right, and this experiment is true a majority of the time... wouldn't another possible explanation be that that's a perfectly fair representation of things? Both sides aren't always equal. Weighing the coverage of both sides to be equal would be misleading.

[gamepsys]

If the unbiased view is leftist then an unbiased newspaper would be left leaning.

[squigz]

I'm pretty sure that's what I just said, yes.

[cess11]

When I visit now the screen fills with headlines that are sympathetic to Harris and seems to support her candidacy.

Obviously not a leftist bias.

[sealeck]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/opinion/kamala-harris-dem...

This was on the front page a couple of weeks ago

[relaxing]

Ross Douthat is still employed so your assertion falls flat on its face.

Aside from that, right now I see an item claiming Harris has flip-flopped on progressive policies.

[dgfitz]

> Ross Douthat is still employed so your assertion falls flat on its face.

I have no idea who that is.

> Aside from that, right now I see an item claiming Harris has flip-flopped on progressive policies.

I have no idea if this is true. Has she? Who is the authority on that?

[relaxing]

Then go read the NYT front page and find out? He’s always there because he’s pure clickbait.

Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. “Flip flop” is an insult in politics.

[dgfitz]

Uh, no? Why the hell does anyone read mainstream media anymore?

[greenie_beans]

find anything about gaza

[segasaturn]

It's not left vs. right, it's establishment vs. anti-establishment. New York Times was a major cheerleader for the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and uncritically repeated falsehoods from George W. Bush, who is not exactly a leftist hero.

[cruffle_duffle]

It also was unquestioningly supportive of any and all covid NPI's. NYT was one of the major publications that would routinely report the "covid kill rate" at like 4% despite massive data suggesting it was at least one or two orders of magnitude off depending on the age bracket.

[DinoDad13]

Any reasonably fair news coverage is considered left wing now-a-days.

[dopylitty]

NYT is a pretty solidly right wing organization (eg [1] and [2]) like most for profit media outfits in the US. I suspect they’ll react like any other for profit business. Previous leaks have shown this to be the case [0][3]

0:https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/01/leaked-message...

1: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/news-brief-boudin-recall-...

2:https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/news-brief-the-battle-ove...

3:https://actionnetwork.org/letters/new-york-times-stop-union-...

[smaudet]

> an anti-union consulting firm

Hmm. Maybe an anti-anti-union consulting firm is a business opportunity?

[diggan]

Or, we can use what worked in the past without involving for-profit enterprises: grassroots movements

Easier to align people when you remove the whole troublesome "money" part. Question is how to motivate Americans to work together if not for money?

[thaumasiotes]

Who would be purchasing its services?

The only obvious customer would be a union, and they already provide that service themselves.

[bee_rider]

Unions sometimes hire on third party organizations to help them organize, I don’t think they are specifically specialized against anti-union consulting firms, but I bet that’s part of it.

[neaden]

"Can such a left wing cornerstone really afford to look anti-union inside their own house?" - The NYTimes isn't left wing and being anti-union is entirely within their wheelhouse. Now they won't come out and say "We don't like unions" all their issues will of course be why this specific union isn't a good idea at this specific time, but they'd never willingly accept a union unless they really don't think they have a choice.

[seneca]

> The NYTimes isn't left wing

Allsides media bias rating for NYT is lean left[1], a -2.2 with -6 as the most extreme and 0 as neutral. Rating is left for their opinion section[2], a -4.

1. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times

2. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times-opinion-...

[norir]

I don't fully agree with how neutral is defined. The US has always been a right leaning country for better and worse. I might be able to agree with Allsides on a relative scale but I think all corporate media has a right leaning bias relative to what one would expect from non-profit media. Since very few people regularly consume non-profit media, it is not surprising to me that the NYTimes appears on the left even though I do not agree that it is on an absolute scale.

[TylerE]

From that page:

Editorial Review: Sep 2018

The NYT's slant has shifted post 2020.

[nickff]

Perhaps the NYT isn't left-wing in a global context, and it is likely centrist in New York City, but it is definitely to the left of the median US voter. They're probably anti-union in this case because they're on tenuous financial footing, and unions in New York have a history of squeezing their employers out of business.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NYT/new-york-times...

[mandmandam]

> it is definitely to the left of the median US voter.

No, it isn't, and it's not remotely close.

The median US voter is far more left wing than you would know from politics and media. Most voters actually support an arms embargo vs Israel, support universal healthcare, support action on climate change, want an end to the prison industrial complex, want minimum wage increases, gun control, an end to predatory college costs and loans, stronger worker's rights, reproductive rights, cannabis legalization, reduction in militarism, affordable housing, etc.

The NYT is central to fooling these "median voters" into supporting politicians and parties that have absolutely no intention of supporting genuine left wing action.

To say the NYT supports unions in general is to ignore very recent history, such as their coverage of Amazon and Starbucks union efforts. You also need to ignore a very very long and well described slant against left wing causes in general. Here, have a nice digestible Chomsky piece from nearly 30 years ago: https://chomsky.info/199710__/

[spondylosaurus]

See also: the NYT's coverage of trans issues, which in recent years has tried to both-sides the topic in a way that gives fundamentalist hate groups equal oxygen as the fucking APA. No self-respecting leftist publication is handing the mic to Mumsnet users and conversion therapy advocates. (Contrast that to the New Yorker, which is hardly a commie rag and yet has been unambiguously progressive on that front, among others.)

An apt quote from Pynchon's Bleeding Edge, which was published in 2013 but set in 2001:

> How right-wing, Maxine wonders, does a person have to be to think of the New York Times as a left-wing newspaper?

[hollerith]

And the main problem with Stalin was that he wasn't leftist enough, eh?

[mandmandam]

Thank you for exemplifying my point.

There's nothing particularly radical about wanting more fair healthcare, labor rights, education, housing etc.

As I pointed out, the majority of Americans want those things. It's pretty basic human decency, empathy, efficiency, etc.

And yet, when you raise these _majority_ viewpoints, someone pops up from behind a Bush to call you 'tankie'/'commie'/'literally Stalin'. That's not an accident. There are some people who like things the way thay are, and about 6 of those people own 90% of all media.

We spent over 8 trillion dollars (!) in the Middle East, murdering millions, all based on lies; and now our Democrat candidate is overjoyed to get endorsements from the architects of those wars... At every stage, from plotting to image rehabilitation, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria to Lebanon to Yemen, etc, to Gaza, the NYT was with those warmongers all the way.

They're not left. Never were.

[Hasu]

> Perhaps the NYT isn't left-wing in a global context, and it is likely centrist in New York City, but it is definitely to the left of the median US voter.

That isn't true at all. You're probably thinking of the NYT 20 years ago, under the Bush administration. Do you read the newspaper, or are you parroting talking points? I used to subscribe until the blatantly conservative bias became overwhelming.

> They're probably anti-union in this case because they're on tenuous financial footing

Didn't they just report a 13.3% increase in YoY profits on their most recent financial quarter? Your chart shows a company with healthy growth for several years running. A billion dollars in profit last year and on track to do it again this year isn't "tenuous".

[nickff]

According to this source, NYT Opinion is "Left", and NYT News is "Lean Left", and I think their ratings seem relatively well-calibrated: https://www.allsides.com/blog/see-our-updated-bias-rating-ab...

You can't just look at results over the last four years when you're analyzing a newspaper that's 172 years old. They've had massive declines in recent years, which caused huge cutbacks. I think it's reasonable for them to try to preserve their options to cut costs in the future.

[Hasu]

Their methodology is literally, "We didn't like the results we got so we assumed they were wrong and ignored them."

> Surprisingly, ABC News was rated Lean Right (1.18) in the July 2024 Blind Bias Survey. A total of 478 respondents rated ABC. This rating differed from AllSides’ current rating of Lean Left (-2.40) at the time, and triggered the Aug. 2024 Editorial Review.

> AllSides speculates this outlier response is because the survey content was collected on July 15 and 18, 2024, which were just days after the July 14 assassination attempt of Donald Trump.

> The Lean Right rating was incorporated into the final rating for ABC News, but was weighted less to account for outlier conditions.

This is literally just putting your foot on the numbers to make it show what you want - the network showed more right-leaning content and they said, "Well that doesn't count." Why doesn't it count?

Look at the increasing number of criticisms of Times coverage from the Left. Look at their trajectory since the Cotton editorial. Look at how they're covering this election. It's not a left wing paper, under A.G. Sulzberger.

> You can't just look at results over the last four years when you're analyzing a newspaper that's 172 years old. They've had massive declines in recent years, which caused huge cutbacks. I think it's reasonable for them to try to preserve their options to cut costs in the future.

They had massive declines from the mid-oughts to 2018 in line with the rest of the newspaper industry. They've reinvented themselves as a tech media company and are on a better track now, so it makes sense that the employees who made that happen want the same union protections as the rest of the employees of the newspaper!

They also were never doing so badly that they weren't still making millions of dollars in profit, which I'm not willing to call "tenuous" for a newspaper that's 172 years old.

[spondylosaurus]

It's wild how few people in this thread are unaware of the massive blowback the NYT has faced from the left, but I guess most people are generally not in sync with the left to begin with :P

Really telling that the NYT's attempt to please everyone has pleased almost no one, though. Progressives are angry that hate groups get airtime in the name of "objectivity". Conservatives still think it's a left-wing paper and won't read it. Liberal centrists are playing Wordle?

[pessimizer]

The NYT isn't left-wing in any context, other than one a segment of the US inherited from Glenn Beck some time in the 90s. It is an establishment paper, and energetically capitalist and interventionist.

> They're probably anti-union in this case because they're on tenuous financial footing

Why does your link say that their profit is up 60%(!) since 2020?

-----

edit: tbh, I think people think the NYT is left-wing only because they associate NYC with Jewish people, and they're still steeped in conspiracy theories of "Judeobolshevism." So I guess that's on the Dreyfus affair (through Ezra Pound, Eustace Mullins and the Birchers.)

The NYT is a paper owned by a rich family that has always praised every dictator the CIA has praised, and passed on any lie they were asked to.

[nickff]

They've suffered a massive contraction in revenue and already had to cut back hugely; you're ignoring that, and focusing on the bounce-back.

[pessimizer]

So what you're saying is that the NYT was doing badly, then had a massive bounce-back. I am supposed to ignore the bounce-back, and accept the contraction that ended at least a half decade ago as an explanation for what is happening today. Why would I do this?

[uoaei]

Public opinion has little bearing on the decisions that NYT makes, until a critical threshold is passed. The aim of the union is to bring that critical threshold of displeasure into focus and to approach it until NYT relents.

The politics of the median voter in the US is not relevant for this discussion.

[mc32]

The NYT has been liberal since I can remember; however, up until relatively recent decades, it was respected by conservatives as well as liberals. Now it reflects liberal and progressive povs.

[klyrs]

On the other hand I have recently seen George W. Bush being described as a progressive because he wouldn't say who he's voting for. Left/right determination seems to be made purely on loyalty to a single individual in today's US politics. So if that's where we're at, NYT is liberal because it won't endorse Trump. That's fine, but let's just say that.

In the world outside of petty dictatorships, though, left/right determination is made on the basis of alignment with various policies and philosophies -- so increasingly, people within the US are losing credibility when it comes to any conversation about left/right politics.

[mc32]

The neocon thing is weird. Bernie and others used to compare Cheney with pretty unsavory characters in history, but now he’s lauded by progressives. This shit is getting weird. Some weird realignment is happening where former enemies are bedfellows now with a new enemy. In very loose terms, Republicans are subverting previous Democratic issues and the Democrats are subverting previous neocon issues. The Dems now get most of “big money”, new Republicans are now the populists. Broad strokes of course, but that’s how it’s shaping up.

If anyone remembers, in the eighties the Repubs were into importing foreign labor (i.e. cheap; hence “no uvas”) and Bernie used to protest against dumping refugees in his state. This has reversed!

[Izkata]

> Some weird realignment is happening where former enemies are bedfellows now with a new enemy. In very loose terms, Republicans are subverting previous Democratic issues and the Democrats are subverting previous neocon issues. The Dems now get most of “big money”, new Republicans are now the populists. Broad strokes of course, but that’s how it’s shaping up.

People underestimated how many Bernie Sanders supporters switched to Trump when he dropped out in the 2016 election. Some of us have been seeing this realignment coming for that long.

[Clubber]

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

>Cheney with pretty unsavory characters in history, but now he’s lauded by progressives. This shit is getting weird.

We've always been at war with Eurasia.

Ok I'm done with the clichés.

[klyrs]

I haven't seen Cheney being lauded for anything other than maintaining his stand against somebody he has been calling a criminal, coward, and worse for years. I haven't seen a single democrat show excitement over policies supported by Cheney, except when he says that the law should apply to Trump as well as the rest of us. So, again, what you're calling weird is largely a result of loyalty to a person instead of actual policies.

And, yes, the world remembers Bernie's about-face on policy -- there's been quite a lot (e.g., [1]) written on the topic. But it's pretty normal for politicians and even political parties to change their minds in issues over a span of time as long as Bernie's career. This should be expected of politicians: they should be willing to change their minds and adapt their policies to new facts gained over time. Moreover, they exist to represent We The People, so when we change our collective minds, politicians who fail to keep up are replaced! Bernie is still around despite his change of heart precisely because it followed that of his constituency.

Do you remember when Theodore Roosevelt ran on the Progressive Party ticket? That party, founded by a lesbian, was eventually folded back into the mainstream Republican party back when Democrats were conservatives. There's nothing weird about parties and politicians changing their minds on stuff.

[1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/25/21143931/b...

[mc32]

Well, for one Kamala herself said she was proud to be endorsed by Dick, one previously deemed the be(s)te noir of the left.

[bee_rider]

I’ve always thought of NYT as pretty liberal too. Not leftist, those are two totally different philosophies. In the case of union organizing, they might be vaguely on the same side, but only after jumping through a couple hoops.

I think leftists are basically in favor of unions in the US because leftists are generally in favor of labor protections, and unions are the best we can get inside the capitalist system. More extreme leftists might prefer some kind of socialist system, but that’s not on the table in America really.

Liberals are, of course, typically market oriented (that’s what liberal economics are). A liberal point of view would be “of course people have a basic right to associate with people of their choosing, negotiate contracts, and a union is just a vehicle for doing that.”

A union is about as much collectivism as a liberal can stomach, more of a stop-gap for a leftist.

[hungie]

The NYT is not a left wing organization. It aligns, mostly, with a centrist Democrat politically. That position puts it pretty center right on the global scale.

A left wing paper would typically be pretty anti capitalist, anti imperial, etc. which the NYT is definitely not.

This is a global forum, it's important to remember that while the democrats in the US are called "the left" there, they really really are not a left wing party.

[adw]

"Center right" is if anything underselling it. The NYT is to the right of, for example, the Financial Times.

[hungie]

And yet, downvotes. I feel like it's pretty objective that NYT isn't leftist in any meaningful way.

[walrushunter]

The Democrats are most definitely leftwing. What a preposterous thing to claim. Just because other countries are withering away under socialism, doesn't suddenly make the Dems right wing.

[hungie]

I'm sorry, you are simply incorrect here. Some members of the Democratic Party are left of center, but by and large they are a center/center right party.

They broadly support capitalism, broadly support imperial military power, broadly do not support single payer health care, broadly do not support nationalization of industry, oppose criminal justice reform, oppose upzoning, oppose transit, oppose large tax hikes, and are active in the eradication of minorities.

Biden shut down a major labor strike, he expanded drilling for oil, he made it easier for states to medically and socially discriminate against trans people, he's pumped up the police, and he's continuously armed a state accused of genocide. Biden has put forth one of the most restrictive border policies we've ever had, and kept many trump era policies. The democrats also had the opportunity, years ago, to permanently secure abortion access and chose not to. They have by and large expanded the carceral state (and coined the concept of super predators to ensure Black people remained incarcerated.)

Also, and this might be a shock, democrats are anti gun, while many many leftists believe in gun ownership. (Karl Marx, Martin Luther king Jr., Malcom X, etc were all believers in individual ownership of firearms.)

Leftists generally believe in nationalization, limiting corporate and executive power (or eliminating it), social housing, socialized medicine, free food and water, elimination of oil drilling, trains, dense urban areas, mutual aid, "wellbeing for all", free education, free childcare, etc.

I've never once seen a Democrat say that we should abolish private property. If you think democrats are left wing you simply don't understand what left wing means.

[slater]

No. By international political standards, the Democratic Party is at best centrist.

> Just because other countries are withering away under socialism

on the topic of preposterous things to claim...

[keybored]

The NYT is as Left Wing as the journalistic profession is Ant-Establishment: Not in the slightest but they themselves constantly claim to be.

[matrix87]

They're about as left wing as hillary clinton. only when it's convenient for them

[MisterBastahrd]

Left wing?

The NYT is corporate wing. There's no charitable way to look at their reporting on the current election cycle and make the claim that they've treated the candidates equally. Donald Trump hasn't uttered a consecutive set of coherent sentences where he starts with an idea and finishes with an actual conclusion that isn't "and it'll be better / worse than ever before" in at least 5 years.