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Andrew, I've read you for 30 years now, and I must say your statements are becoming ever more hyperbolic. You wrote that the NYT's editors want 'to “teach” readers how to absorb the lessons of critical race theory (which is literally how the NYT executive editor explained his support for the 1619 Project and every story in the paper).'

Reading the link you provided, we find that executive editor Dean Baquet was referring to "race and understanding of race", and then went on to say "one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that."

"Think a little bit more" about "race and understanding"...what the heck is wrong with that? "...every story in the paper"? I don't see that interpretation or anything close to that. And, for some reason, you commit similar exaggerations over and over again. It is a significant flaw in your writing.

You too have an agenda, and all too often it is clear that it is not based on a "gimlet-eyed" understanding of current events. You may believe that the 1619 project was so corrupt that any defense of it is "illiberal", but that attitude is illiberal in itself. Please, some journalistic ethics in your posts would be appreciated.

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I think you have a good point about the "legacy MSM," and I think JVL has a good point that you have overstated it to a degree that makes a difference. I see the Steele Dossier as a good example. My reading of MSM coverage was that it did consistently convey the idea that the dossier was likely to contain bad information, but also that it probably contained enough good information to offer support to the basic claim of "collusion." Since we like black/white outcomes, it looks like the Danchenko arrest will discredit the whole thing, but, like your dissenter here, I never perceived the dossier as being a central part of MSM reporting on the "Russian collusion" story. In that respect I think your characterization is overstated. But I agree that references to the dossier were much more frequent than the dossier's credentials warranted, and the purpose often seemed to be to keep the dossier in the public eye--it worked, but not to the intended ends.

You've published here a dissenter who weighs the recent Central Park rape case against Cooper v Cooper, and you seem to affirm the comparison. I think that many violent rape cases featured in the tabloids are not covered in the Times. My assumption is that your reader is not suggesting that the problem isn't that the Times doesn't behave like a tabloid; rather they're using the contrast as a way of magnifying a complaint about the treatment of Amy Cooper. But the Cooper affair was not about its minimal crime; it was about dangerously overwrought racial profiling. You may object to the Times's coverage of it (and to the level of consequences for Ms. Cooper), but it has nothing in common with the Velez rape other than Central Park. It would be as logical to contrast the tabloid rape coverage to the Times's coverage of the Charlottesville trials. I think your response not only affirms this poor parallel, it goes to some lengths simply to wave away the Cooper affair. "Microaggression" refers to minor, everyday slights that align with stereotypes of race, gender, etc. Dismissing Amy Cooper's attempt to sic the police on Chris Cooper as an everyday slight seems to reflect the lack of balance you're bringing to the broader MSM issue.

I think the message to send is that we're currently faced with a unique political threat fueled by attacks on MSM reliability and fairness. Mistakes that feed more fuel enlarge the threat. The MSM needs to do better at avoiding them--the cost to the country is far too high to justify the risks of self-righteousness or self-indulgence. I don't think it's a good idea to line up the MSM's avoidable mistakes in a way that encourages taking part for whole; that too seems to me an unjustified risk.

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