The New York Times and CNN

Two elite media companies. Two huge messes.

It is too much to ask that media organizations maintain a veneer of honesty and respectability.

American media watchers have watched in horror as what was once one of the world’s finest newspapers has descended into both sides ism.

The Times has become a worthless rag that has replaced hard-hitting, factual journalism with hair-splitting and false contextualization.

For example, their headline reporting the murder of NY subway rider Jordan Neely by a former Marine:

“Man Dies on Subway After Another Rider Places Him in Chokehold”

There are a number of issues with this headline.

First, the passive voice is used in this headline to place the emphasis on the victim rather than the killer.

It frames the story by implications as if Mr. Neely did something that warranted his death.

It’s not wrong to use the passive voice in headlines, but in this case, it indirectly faults the mentally ill man, not the ex-Marine who put him in a fatal chokehold.

The headline should have contained the words “non-violent” and “Ex-Marine.”

They took an obvious case of vigilante murder, and made it seem to be an unfortunately unavoidable incident.

Another example is how the Times chose one story over another. On its digital front page, it chose to focus on this headline:

“Should College Come with Trigger Warnings? At Cornell, It’s a ‘Hard No.’ “

They focused on a relatively minor dispute about trigger warnings on educational material instead of a more important higher education story. The headline of the appropriate lead would have been:

“Texas Republicans Try to End Tenure for College & University Professors.”

At the same time a minor kerfuffle was going on at Cornell, the entire state of Texas was discussing removing tenure for professors who did not teach according to Republican standards.

A recent and more repugnant lack of journalism ethics is how the Times defended CNN for its unvarnished ratings grab known as “The Trump Town Hall Meeting.”

The so-called “moderator” Kaitlan Collins did an abysmal job in challenging the former president’s ceaseless lies.

From the Times’ Peter Baker:

“Props to @kaitlancollins who was in an impossible position but did a heroic job of fact-checking Trump throughout the town hall. No easy task given how many factually untrue things he said in such a short time. Collins was a true pro and showed what a stellar journalist she is.”

In fact, she was a disaster.

The New York Times used to have a reputation that was the envy of its competitors. Now, it is a laughingstock and an object of derision.

As for CNN, where were the news network’s morals and ethics when they decided to give a forum to the most inartful, inarticulate liar in modern politics?

The answer is they are non-existent.

The network consistently points out his shortcomings, yet they serve him a prime-time slotted town hall meeting with a friendly audience.

How appropriate to watch make jokes about his sexual assault accuser and watch the audience laugh with approval.

This farce was about ratings. Nothing more, nothing less.

CNN was willing to abandon the dignity achieved by Murrow and Cronkite and decided that ginning up their ratings was worth losing credibility.

You shouldn’t despair of what he does one minute and give him a free pass the next.

One would expect this from Fox News. That would not have been a surprise.

The New York Times and CNN have lots of work to do to repair their image.

They won’t be able to do so if they worry more about their finances than their credibility.