The heart of my objection is the idea that you can change the world by changing the new york times. Especially now, but not even back when newspapers mattered do I think that would work in a lasting way.
The New York Times isn't/wasn't the paper-of-record that gets to decide how everybody will get their news. They are/were a paper with certain journalistic standards and practices that rose in the marketplace of ideas to a level of trust and importance. When the NYT changes what it does, in some short run it is likely influential, but in a longer run if the change is not appealing to its audience, the audience loses faith in the NYT. If NYT articles became somewhat consistently one-sided because they were no longer publishing only partially-attributable information, would the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Huff Post, NPR, NBC, etc etc etc follow suit? Or would they instead aggressively market the stories they were able to cover that the NYT could not because of its policy?
We may or may not get the quality of new that we deserve. We absolutely get the quality of news that we are willing to pay attention to. And shifting the tastes of the public is not as simple as an editorial decision.
See this Newsroom clip.
Basically, their news network is trying to change the way political debates work by having the moderator force the candidates to answer the questions that are asked of them, not interrupt each other, justify arguments that are based on obvious falsehoods etc.
How big of a positive impact do you guys think that this would have on society?
My initial thoughts are that it would be huge. It would lead to better politicians, which would be a high level of action. The positive effects would trickle down into many aspects of our society.
The question then becomes, "can we make this happen?". I don't see a way right now, but the idea has enough upside to me that I keep it in the back of my mind in case I come up with a plausible way of implementing the change.
Thoughts?