The New York Times' political stances are just as obvious as those of WikiLeaks, and I say this as a long-time NY Times reader.
I gave the 1619 Project as an example of how the Times' political biases shine through. It's a clear-cut case in which the Times ignored the objections of the actual experts on American history (including the historian they asked to fact-check the project, but also several heavyweights of American history, such as Gordon Wood and James McPherson), and published ideologically motivated, rubbish history. The way the Times then dismissed the criticisms of academic historians (the 1619 Project lead dismissed them as "white historians") left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. This was one of the Times' flagship projects, which they put on the cover of the paper and which they have heavily promoted since.
> nihilistic attitude towards journalism
I'm not nihilistic about journalism. The NY Times, despite its obvious political sympathies, is still a very useful source of information. So is WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks published some extremely important information that the public had a right to know. The value of WikiLeaks was that it did not have the same close relationship with the US government that the NY Times has, and that it was therefore more willing to publish material that would gravely embarrass the US government.
To give you one such example of how the NY Times' relationship with the government compromises its journalism: the Times knew about Bush's unconstitutional warrantless wiretap program before the 2004 election. It refrained from publishing the story, at the request of the Bush administration. It was only when the journalist covering the story threatened to publish it by himself, outside the Times, that the Times finally decided to run it. That was a year after the Times found out. In other words, the Times withheld a major story during a Presidential election, because the President (who was also one of the candidates) claimed vague security concerns.
WikiLeaks would not have withheld that story. That's the major difference between the Times and WikiLeaks - not that the Times is a bastion of political neutrality.
Julian Assange has been sitting in prison in the UK for years, fighting extradition to the US, which wants to lock him up for 175 years. The suggestion that he's not a journalist, because he's politically outspoken, is one of the tactics the US political establishment has used to justify going after him.
I gave the 1619 Project as an example of how the Times' political biases shine through. It's a clear-cut case in which the Times ignored the objections of the actual experts on American history (including the historian they asked to fact-check the project, but also several heavyweights of American history, such as Gordon Wood and James McPherson), and published ideologically motivated, rubbish history. The way the Times then dismissed the criticisms of academic historians (the 1619 Project lead dismissed them as "white historians") left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. This was one of the Times' flagship projects, which they put on the cover of the paper and which they have heavily promoted since.
> nihilistic attitude towards journalism
I'm not nihilistic about journalism. The NY Times, despite its obvious political sympathies, is still a very useful source of information. So is WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks published some extremely important information that the public had a right to know. The value of WikiLeaks was that it did not have the same close relationship with the US government that the NY Times has, and that it was therefore more willing to publish material that would gravely embarrass the US government.
To give you one such example of how the NY Times' relationship with the government compromises its journalism: the Times knew about Bush's unconstitutional warrantless wiretap program before the 2004 election. It refrained from publishing the story, at the request of the Bush administration. It was only when the journalist covering the story threatened to publish it by himself, outside the Times, that the Times finally decided to run it. That was a year after the Times found out. In other words, the Times withheld a major story during a Presidential election, because the President (who was also one of the candidates) claimed vague security concerns.
WikiLeaks would not have withheld that story. That's the major difference between the Times and WikiLeaks - not that the Times is a bastion of political neutrality.
Julian Assange has been sitting in prison in the UK for years, fighting extradition to the US, which wants to lock him up for 175 years. The suggestion that he's not a journalist, because he's politically outspoken, is one of the tactics the US political establishment has used to justify going after him.