There are great print-news sources in the United States: the Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal (minus its occasionally obnoxious editorial page) and several others. The Sarasota Herald Tribune is a very good paper. But all things considered the New York Times is the finest source of print-news and analysis on the planet. I like my "news" straight - a professionally written who, what, where, when and why. For analysis I seek columnists and op-ed writers from across the intellectual spectrum. In the Times, Brooks, Douthat, Dowd, Cohen, Collins, Krugman and Blow satisfy my requirements. Thus, at a celebratory family dinner I grimaced when a perfect grandson referred to the Times as a "left wing media outlet". This idea had never occurred to me.
The Times is not just a life-long, major source of my information but also a means to satisfy righteous outrage. Over the years I have dashed off numerous letters to the Times editors, several were published - one resulting in retaliatory efforts to have my employment at Hartwick College terminated. The Times also published a travel piece I authored identifying great Atlantic coast campsites.*
A poor educator I would have been had I not tried to use the Times as an educational tool. The objective was to get the undergraduate student to touch, glance at, or read anything from the Times and then show up in class better informed. My efforts frequently bordered on the desperate. I would advise students to always carry a copy of the Times under their arm. Then when relaxing in the library, dining hall, wherever, conspicuously display the newspaper while doing something else. The bait set I promised that an exceptionally attractive member of the opposite sex would "bite", using the Times as an excuse to strike up a conversation. This could most certainly result in a relationship with an extraordinary individual (in a Darwinian sense) - a good provider, then much successful breeding. Should the student wish to "dial up", then instead of the Times, s/he could substitute anything by Einstein, Gibbons or Thucydides. Seek to dial down? Comic books or a novel with a "bodice busting" cover would work nicely. Unhappily the digital era, cell phones and tablets have rendered this excellent strategy moot.
I have used the Times in Russia as a cudgel. Traveling in the old USSR accompanied by undergraduates gave rise to the occasional issue. One blustery night my group of 25 arrived in a vast hotel lobby in Yalta. We were joined by a large group from Argentina and were informed by a surly Administrator that our luggage - not more than 90 pieces - was unfortunately missing. The Argentine tour guide went ballistic protesting incompetence and threatening to call their ambassador in Moscow. The Administrator was unflappable, armored - the threat bounced off. I was irritated. But one missing bag is theft, 90 missing is a "muck up". I had to register my displeasure.
"I have a friend at the "New York Times" and smiled.
Behind his eyeballs there was a flash of panic. But before my bluff could be exposed an Aeroflot truck with 90 pieces of luggage and a besotted driver was discovered parked off a nearby road. But I would use that line with excellent effect again - twice. Now I do have a friend at the Times, Michael McIntire, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and Hartwick graduate.
The Times also publishes on occasion something that becomes an instant "classic". In October, 2016, a Trump lawyer demanded that the Times retract and apologize for a libelous article featuring two women who accused Mr. Trump of inappropriate touching. Part of the reply (paragraph 2) by Times lawyer David E. McCraw;
"The essence of a libel claim of course is the protection of one's reputation. Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women. He has bragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms. He acquiesced to a radio host's request to discuss Mr. Trump's own daughter as a 'piece of ass'. Multiple women not mentioned in our article have publicly come forward to report on Mr. Trump's unwanted advances. Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself." **
Mark Twain, H.L. Menken and Oscar Wilde are still smiling.
*John O. Lindell "In Search of the Perfect Beach Campsite" NYT Travel Section; June 26, 1977.
**New York Times October 13, 2016
