When the New York Times redesigned its website, I started to worry — so dumbed down, so much white space, so many bells and whistles. Was the Times having another identity crisis trying to keep up with the Ipod-Slvr Phone generation?
This weekend’s papers confirmed my concerns as the Times went VH1 over allegations that New York Post "Page Six" contributor Jared Paul Stern attempted to extort California billionaire Ronald Burkle. Over 48 hours, the Times relentlessly deluged readers with multimedia graphics, photos, charts, sexed up backstory and snarky quotes from irrelevant pundits. It doggedly tracked down former co-workers and associates who lurked in the "dark corners of nightclubs and parties" with Mr. Stern sipping on "champagne with supermodels." It obtained a copy of the key evidence (a grainy security tape of Stern with Burkle) and expertly analyzed it. It camped out at Stern’s Catskills home and uncovered this vital piece of information: "he paid $220,000 for it." This revelation, however, paled in comparison to the bombshell that Mr Stern claims to "be the only child at his northern Ontario camp reading Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City." Ah hah!
Meanwhile the paper devoted far less space to Scooter Libby’s revelation that Bush personally authorized intelligence leaks in the Iraq/WMD scandal — referring to it as "no shock to official Washington" before launching into a numbingly dull rehash of previous coverage and intelligence leak history. The stories broke within 24 hours of each other, and here’s the recount for the weekend:
Articles about Scooter Libby: 2 (plus one op-ed by Maureen Dowd)
Articles about Jared Paul Stern: 5
Number of reporters contributing to Libby coverage: 4
Number of reporters contributing to Stern coverage: 9
Total word count for Libby articles: 2,872
Total word count for Stern articles: 5,468
So on a story involving national security and the lies and misconduct of the President of the United States, the paper of record seems to be saying, "It’s hard. And difficult. And boring. You wouldn’t be interested anyway." Meanwhile, it practically launches a special section on a freelance gossip columnist for a rival daily. Gee, could the Times be trying an old trick publicists use to keep juice on their clients out of the news (give the reporters "better dirt on somebody else")? Could the Times be trying to deflect attention away from the prominent role a certain disgraced, former staff reporter had in the scandal that really matters? And why didn’t the Times devote these kinds of resources to investigating the administration’s case for war instead of relying on said reporter’s tainted sources and canned information?
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
