The NYT proving its own irrelevance.
The irony of this image struck me in the context of the wasteland of suffering American newspapers. That is, who cares if the New York Times rejected McCain’s editorial? Is this not on the scale of Springsteen deciding he would no longer distribute his music on cassette tapes?
Don’t worry. I understand the historical importance of the Times as an editorial town square, albeit a one-sided one. To be relevant in today’s political scene, there’s still an intellectual cachet to their OpEd page, and therefore, isn’t to be ignored. Plus, the Times has done a relatively good job with their content online, which means that a word printed on their paper is more likely that those in other papers to become part of the digital news landscape
But really. Let’s take the liberal bent of the Times out of the conversation for a moment (even though doing so ignores what should have been obvious to the editorial board — that is, McCain’s piece would get far more attention for its exclusion than it ever would have were it included in the first place.) No, the real issue here is that newspapers just aren’t necessary to distribute a point of view. Readers of the New York Times — at least those who would care to read a McCain editorial — will be reading 15 other sources over the course of the week, and none will be printed on newsprint. His words would get out one way or another. Why not have your masthead above them?
The Times doesn’t have all the news that’s fit to print any more. And because of it, they’ve officially lost their power to decide what’s news and what isn’t. The market will decide, and other media will deliver. If the last 24 hours of Drudge is any indication (14 million readers), the market decided they wanted to read what McCain had to say.
