New York Times Downsizing

Women and minorities hardest hit

Reuters is reporting in this story that the daft old lady is finding it difficult to survive in the age of new media, especially when the paper runs story after story attacking the nation's ability to defend itself by leaking classified secrets to the enemy. The Times will close one of its printing plants, located in New Jersey and fire the workers who have been employed there. But of course there will be no series of investigative reports into the cruel and unjust actions of a major corporation harming the working class or the massive salaries paid to the top executives who made the decision to put those workers out on the street. Nor will there be any reporting on the mismanagement that might have led to the mass layoff of people who had been working for the company for years. And there will be no full color pictures of weeping wives with their babies who now will have to eat dog food because of the cruel injustice of an uncaring and remote corporation concerned only with its profitable bottom line.

Meanwhile, Thomas Lifson takes a look at some of the underlying reasons that the New York Times has been in decline. In particular he examines the economic and business decisions which led to the loss of income for the paper and how it has limited the choices that the business now faces.

The Times is well known for its elitism and its unconscious condescension toward those occupying less lofty stations in life. Editor Bill Keller let slip a telling remark in remarks reported* by the AP:

“…this is a much less painful way to go about assuring our economic survival than cutting staff.”

The blue collar denizens of Jersey never quite made it being considered staff, after all. Not in the eyes of Bill Keller his colleagues in Manhattan. Not even close.