Well, that's certainly striking. I agree with the thesis, but the way he presents it illustrates the problem.
It's completely impolitic. That's deliberate. The entire point is to reject the mainstream journalistic approach of being neutral to a fault, to avoid even the appearance of bias.
But the New York Times is going to be accused of bias anyway. Their old habit was designed for a world that no longer exists. It's not clear that it ever existed, but there was a time when the New York Times' approach worked better.
Now, I agree with the article: it's time to start using words like "liar" and "wrong". They hate being judgmental; they want you to be able to figure it out for yourself. But it's clear that a lot of people aren't figuring it out, and that this presents a genuine threat.
The NYT lacks language to deal with that. The language used in this article is, I think, not the correct one either. I concur with the article nonetheless, that Joe Kahn does need to go looking for one.
It's completely impolitic. That's deliberate. The entire point is to reject the mainstream journalistic approach of being neutral to a fault, to avoid even the appearance of bias.
But the New York Times is going to be accused of bias anyway. Their old habit was designed for a world that no longer exists. It's not clear that it ever existed, but there was a time when the New York Times' approach worked better.
Now, I agree with the article: it's time to start using words like "liar" and "wrong". They hate being judgmental; they want you to be able to figure it out for yourself. But it's clear that a lot of people aren't figuring it out, and that this presents a genuine threat.
The NYT lacks language to deal with that. The language used in this article is, I think, not the correct one either. I concur with the article nonetheless, that Joe Kahn does need to go looking for one.