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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2009
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 OPINION 
9

Web Will Make Conservatives Miss the Times

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(Newser) – Conservatives have delighted in making a piñata out of the New York Times, but they’re not going to like the post-Times world, writes Francis Wilkinson of The Week. “Like most powerful, entrenched institutions, the Times has a deep bias in favor of the way things are,” he argues, and that’s benefited conservatives. The online journalism system rising to replace it has no such sympathies.

The Times still won’t call waterboarding “torture.” It runs columns by David Brooks. It sat on the story of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping for a year. Can you envision the Huffington Post or Talking Points Memo doing any of that? Those are the sites breaking stories—“conservative sites tend to be short on reporting”—and the more the Times falters, the stronger they become.

Taxis pass The New York Times building on Tuesday, March 18, 2008.
Taxis pass The New York Times building on Tuesday, March 18, 2008.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
The New York Times headquarters is seen February 19, 2009 in New York City.
The New York Times headquarters is seen February 19, 2009 in New York City.   (Getty Images)
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If conservatives were to look up from hammering nails in the Times' coffin, they might notice that there is a growing web-based journalism infrastructure preparing to supplant their bête noir. - Francis Wilkinson

Even the most far-right conservative websites routinely embrace the Times as a source of truth—so long as it’s a truth they like. - Francis Wilkinson

Having evolved in the era of Bush and Cheney, WMD and torture, much of the new establishment considers the contemporary GOP irredeemable. - Francis Wilkinson

In the Right's blogosphere, the? Times is a piñata to be broken anew each morning with a battery of textual analysis and criticism from the smart set, calumny and snark from the dimmer bulbs. - Francis Wilkinson

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9 comments
VIEWING:
 
NutsInNY
May 27, 09 11:42 AM CDT
Conservatives bashing the NY Times is the same as how they bashed Hillary Clinton: rhetorical smoke and mirrors to make us think that those targets are actually liberal -- AS IF! Just an attempt to move the center further to the right. Reply
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+3
NewserHound
May 27, 09 1:08 PM CDT
If only the web could make the conservatives go away. Reply
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+1
IN RESPONSE:
nick
May 27, 09 2:00 PM CDT
For the last few years, the Republican Party has been thinning it's ranks quite effectively. Today, most of those who remain appear to be, at best, technically-challenged. I can't even imagine the likes of Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, or Rush Limbaugh actually logging on. Last year, John McCain admitted that he couldn't. The web, by it's very existence, is helping to make conservatives, go away.
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+2
IN RESPONSE:
godawgs
May 27, 09 2:10 PM CDT
Yeah know if only Biden could get me the number that Recovery website again...things would be alright.
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-1
IN RESPONSE:
AnnieChrist
May 27, 09 4:22 PM CDT
dawg, your little zinger loses something with your typo, incorrectly tying 'know' for 'now.' Anyone can type words incorrectly, just like Biden can misspeak, calling for the 'number' of a webb site, rather than the address. Furthermore, webb sites do have numbered IP addresses, so Biden was not in error asking for the number of the site.
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