Public Health Media Club takes on the New York Times
Public Health Media Club is back with another episode, this time tackling arguable the most problematic newspaper in the US. Sure, there are other far right newspapers that publish gutter bigoted garbage, but what makes the New York Times especially despicable is the fact that it does have mainstream prestige and reputation. Prestige and reputation they abuse again and again. Prestige and reputation that refuse to diminish despite all that abuse. It is, unfortunately, the US paper of record. Its air of authority and legitimacy is what makes the trash they publish particularly egregious. They should be better than this, but they are not. This is not even mentioning their comically wicked and tone deaf opinion columns, written by people who are openly terrible. Remember when they published that op-ed titled "Did women ruin the workplace"? Don't read it.
Fox news lies, but mainstream media like the NYT palters, which is much harder to debunk. By hiding between the "we're just reporting the facts" and "we're just asking questions" excuses, they can publish deeply problematic articles while maintaining plausible deniability. It's the perfect crime. Thankfully, some people are starting to see through the subterfuge. There's an account on Bluesky called NY Times Pitchbot, which posts an endless stream of problematic New York Time headlines. If you want something funny to read, I would recommend. It's also a good exercise to train your media literacy to spot problematic headlines in the future.
While this article we reviewed for this PHMC episode is not the worst NYT has to offer, it demonstrates quite clearly the NYT guiding editorial standards of false neutrality writing. It's not just what's on the page, but what an author/outlet leaves off the page that is most telling. A reader without the proper context may leave this article believing that science knows nothing about hanta virus, and there were some hiccups at the CDC. This is far from the truth.
The truth is not neutral. Especially when it comes to matters of life and death, which public health is, there is a clear moral component to it. When a newspaper fails to acknowledge this, they are doing the work of the fascists. They are sanewashing malicious actors, sanitizing tragedy, and normalizing injustice. "Just asking questions" fails to be a good motivation when the questions they are asking undermines the assumptions of basic morality and ethics. "Just reporting the facts" fails to be a good principle when the facts they present lacks proper context.
Anyway, don't support mainstream media. They are compromised, and leaning further right every day. Support your public, indie, and non-profit journalism.
Lots of episodes lined up in the upcoming weeks. Perhaps too many. That special project that I was working on and hoped to debuted this month got delayed but I hope to release it soon. I make my own life hell by overloading my mental capacity to think. Will I learn from my errors and drop some of my commitments? Doubt it.
As always, shout out to Daniella from the wonderful public health podcast Public Health is Dead.
Stay Tuned,
MJ
