NY Times quarantines the news

One goes to sleep a pessimist and wakes up an optimist, until one unfolds the morning paper where all hell breaks loose.

Once again The New York Times has quarantined Bernard Sanders, the front runner who can't win.

Yesterday morning it was Thomas L. Friedman, NYT Columnist and ex-cheerleader for the USA Chamber of Commerce, among others in the Dem fold, warning about Bernard's 'electability', going so far right as to endorse M. Bloomberg for President ('Paging Mr. Bloomberg', A25, 2/12/2020), as if Mike needing paging! That notion's actually pretty funny, and places Friedman in an elite line of good humored journalists-- P.J. O'Rourke, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity come to mind-- making one wonder if Friedman ever watches TV, where Mike B' s been blasting out his centrist message: that a wealthy privliged technocrat is  more competent to lead the nation than a malignant narrcissist.

And then in this morning's NYT, more hand-wringing, and this on the front page, which once contained news reporting and now serves as a supplemental Op-Ed section. A news story with the same theme--the Dem party is worried about Bernard's 'socialism', that he's pushing the party too far to the left etc,. and another story on the  glories of Amy Klobuchar, her 'surprising' results in New Hampshire, the briliance of her campagin strategy...

I'm just reporting here, I'm not making this up.

The late great I.F. Stone, journalist and a man who also wrote a serious book on Plato, the Greek philosopher and founder of The Green Party, once said, 'you can find the news, it's out there to be found.' And this during the time of Watergate, a era only slightly less grim than the present.

As one who's followed such things since the late 1960s I'm beginning to believe that despite its international news-gathering abilities The NYT (world-wide bureaus, correspondants, photogs) is not so much committed to the truth, as they like to say in their  full-page ads, as thery are to not alienating their consumer constituency, and that the behavior of NYT 'reporting' on the Sanders candidacy serves the corporate interests of which The NY Times is not only a beneficiary but a corporate member.

Which makes me wonder: where does one get the 'news' today?

Or am I better off 'following my bliss" as instructed by that other counter-culture figure of the 1970s, Joseph Campbell?

The New York Times this morning, advertising the perfect Father's Day gift, not to be confused with editorial endorsement. As seen on pA15, February 13, 2020. Photo by author.