The NY Times seems to have changed, per my anecdotal, subjective experience: I see more friendly, no-trauma explainer articles, but much less, it seems, of the investigative journalism that seemed to define them. Where are the world-changing revelations that seemed to regularly grace the front page? I can't think of the last story the Times broke. There's not even much breaking news on the front page, just summaries.
Does anyone else see the same thing? Has the NYT said anything about changing?
It's a serious loss to society and the world to lose its top investigative news source.
NYTimes was never about investigative journalism. NYTimes's value comes from the fact that it's the 'paper of record'. It's the paper that 'the state' uses to communicate to the public. Others investigate and if the times find it important, the times will run with it and bring about change. NYTimes value is that important people use it and read it. For example, if wired or other magazines/newspapers publish reports about the need to censor social media. Nobody cares. If the NYTimes picks it up, then you will see action from DoJ, etc. It's the state power behind the NYTimes which makes it the paper of record.
The Times is indeed the paper of record, but it also is (or was) the leading investigative journalism source - massive, groundbraking pieces like (off the top of my head), the Pentagon Papers, the NSA's domestic spying (Snowden), Hillary Clinton's email server, Donald Trump's tax records, and far, far more.
uhm... Off the top of my head: Revelations about the US military mistakenly planning drone attacks that end up only blowing up civilians and then not following up to investigate these failures? Trump's hidden debt and misleading tax filing? On the ground people in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan? Various smaller reports on scams in healthcare or housing in the US?
In particular with the various tax related investigations, I remember feeling bad for whoever worked on them, because they got released when he was causing immense umbrage with his debate performance and the senate was approving the last justice, so no one paid attention.
They are certainly diversifying with more podcasts and video series, some of them more magazine-like or opinion based, but their investigative journalism seems pretty solid.
Does anyone else see the same thing? Has the NYT said anything about changing?
It's a serious loss to society and the world to lose its top investigative news source.