And, they're notoriously obtuse to work with. Remember what they did to Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex)?
I'm not interested in defending the NYT. I'm just interested in the judgements of other people about the NYT that seem to me to be, shall we say, a little over the top.
And note: I think it would as true of SSC/SA as the NYT that they seek to shape public opinion in a direction that aligns with their worldview. If you speak publically, and don't speak complete jibberish, what else are you doing than seeking to shape public opinion?
There is a less activist way of presenting the news that doesn't attempt to "shape public opinion". I'm old enough to remember Walter Cronkite. I've read (some of) Manufacturing Consent. Today's media in America (almost all of it, NYT being no exception) heavily shapes public opinion, turning news reporting into a political battleground.
If the NYT is going to brand itself as some paragon of journalistic integrity, I would expect them to be dramatically more consistent with how they choose to cover and editorialize things.
Weiss has her own problems with misleading people too, and I for one was glad to see her leave the NYT and make her positions clearer than they had been in a number of her op-eds for the paper.
What do you mean? All they were going to do was mention his name, which is a very normal thing to do.
The obtuse bit was actually the expectation of Alexander and various SSC fans that they could impose idiosyncratic rules on others that they were in no position to enforce.
