NYT: Newspaper of Broken Record?

Editor & Publisher more in sorrow than in anger bemoans the Jayson Blair ethos on checking facts that is turning what was once a respected publication into an agenda-driven "fits our point of view" tabloid. And Hugh Hewitt points out, the correction was in the pay-per-view section of the NYT!

It's no secret that the NYT is emulating the Titanic in its rush to break the record for something or other, perhaps the most rapid downfall of a journalistic icon? The Pinch Sulzberger Harley Hog culture of insouciance has spurred Moody's to consider a "multi-notch" adjustment in the NYT's debt rating. In an interesting TCS article on newspapers, Glenn Reynolds notes that the NYT is leading the general downward spiral that the LAT and San Jose Mercury News also emulate, and the San Francisco Chronicle merits the memorable appellation "Daily Worker for the Baby Boomer Generation" as this third California paper goes down in flames.

Is it just good riddance to bad rubbish, or can these prisoners of leftish jabberwocky actually regain their lost readership by balanced journalism and avoidance of tendentious leftist cant? Even the Huffington Post, usually an acolyte at the altar of NYT worship, has a humor-piece by Harry Shearer lampooning the attempt to raise circulation by a burgeoning corrections-page readership!

As Glenn Reynolds points out, the Internet and other sources of news, including blogs, have seriously cut into the traditional newspaper format, and by undermining the supercilious highbrow authority of the NYT, for example. The motion picture industry has also been "captured" by unrepresentative leftish agitprop specialists, and is also a declining industry.

The exempt liberal media may be heading for its own comeuppance, as news outlets sidle toward the middle to avoid looking like propagators of the liberal agenda.