In the New Yorker...

[serious crayons]

That I wouldn't know. My point is, back in the day, the Lancaster papers didn't.

Oh sorry, I didn't get that. You said the combined paper printed both. I thought that was your first mention of op-eds, but I see that you said that when there were multiple papers, one was Democrat and another Republican. Often those labels apply to the stance of the editorials as opposed to the op-eds. For example, my paper and the NYT and the Washington Post all lean left in their editorials (though they probably tried to mix it up now and then by endorsing an occasional Republican back when Republicans were relatively normal). But the op-eds they publish are a mix.

Isn't that part of the pay package? "We're not going to pay you a whole lot, but, hey, you're working for The New Yorker!" 

I suppose, but you can't buy your groceries with prestige. And you couldn't live in NYC for $75,000 a year -- unless, of course, you were also a surgeon or a dean at an Ivy League school.

   

[Front-Ranger]

Do read Jill Lepore on seed catalogs (March 20). Apparently she's quite fond of beets. 

So she is! But beets are minor players in the eating world, perhaps grown mostly for curiosity's sake. They're ugly in and out of the ground but when you go to the effort to clean, pare, and cut them up, they're really beautiful. They taste really good as long as you don't subject them to the "Harvard" treatment. People used to can and pickle them and now most people don't know them any other way.

One of the reasons I don't read seed catalogues is that I get bedazzled by illustrations and copy and order seeds I shouldn't have for plants I shouldn't grow. The only catalogue I receive nowadays is J. L. Hudson's of La Honda, CA, "The Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds." It is a no-nonsense black-and-white printed booklet that has been published for more than 100 years. 

I thought of you, Kathryn, when Lepore followed up a verbose quote with "Wait, what?" Did she steal from you or is that kind of a journalist thing?

[Jeff Wrangler]

With each paper "speaking" to its own constituents without attempting to be "fair and balanced," it was kind of like an antediluvian social network. 

Or maybe I should say prelapsarian. ... 

I suppose, but you can't buy your groceries with prestige. And you couldn't live in NYC for $75,000 a year -- unless, of course, you were also a surgeon or a dean at an Ivy League school.

Yeah, I know, I was just jokin'.

Poor ink-stained wretches. ...

[Jeff Wrangler]

So she is! But beets are minor players in the eating world, perhaps grown mostly for curiosity's sake. They're ugly in and out of the ground but when you go to the effort to clean, pare, and cut them up, they're really beautiful. They taste really good as long as you don't subject them to the "Harvard" treatment. People used to can and pickle them and now most people don't know them any other way.

I've had Harvard beets. They are abominable. I like pickled beets, but I understand they are very bad for you--an awful lot of salt, like just about anything pickled.

Lepore mentions roasting them (I think it's roasting), and that might be interesting to try.

One of the reasons I don't read seed catalogues is that I get bedazzled by illustrations and copy and order seeds I shouldn't have for plants I shouldn't grow. The only catalogue I receive nowadays is J. L. Hudson's of La Honda, CA, "The Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds." It is a no-nonsense black-and-white printed booklet that has been published for more than 100 years. 

I think she addresses the bedazzlement, too, or sort of.

I thought of you, Kathryn, when Lepore followed up a verbose quote with "Wait, what?" Did she steal from you or is that kind of a journalist thing?

I've heard characters on TV shows use that expression.

[serious crayons]

With each paper "speaking" to its own constituents without attempting to be "fair and balanced," it was kind of like an antediluvian social network. 

Or maybe I should say prelapsarian. ... 

Wait, what?  I'm not following. But to clarify my post, the newspaper political leanings I mentioned were all on the editorial page, not on the news pages. That is, if the newspaper's editorial board endorses a candidate or takes a side in some local partisan issue, they say so in an editorial, not in the news pages. The news reporters make every effort to be fair and balanced, consciously doing their best not to let their reporting favor one candidate or the other, for example. Hence we have situations like Hillary Clinton's dreaded emails in 2016. That was also the DOJ attempting to be fair and balanced (or sumpn') but newspaper reporters, in an effort to be fair to both sides, sometimes go overboard with false equivalencies.

To take one example, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is famously extremely conservative. But their news coverage is considered balanced and very good.

So it's OK for the editorial page to not be fair and balanced. It's the equivalent of Tucker Carlson -- he can be as unfair and unbalanced as he likes, as can Rachel Maddow, because they're pundits/commentators, not reporters. Of course, regardless they should tell the truth and Tucker clearly does not.

Fox's straight news department was semi-well regarded but it was always teetering on the brink, especially with what the network would let it cover. That has pissed off at least a couple of normal reporters -- Shepard Smith quit right while he was on the air. Chris Wallace recently switched networks; he's a respectable journalist and I've long wondered how he lasted so long.

[serious crayons]

I thought of you, Kathryn, when Lepore followed up a verbose quote with "Wait, what?" Did she steal from you or is that kind of a journalist thing?

I saw her, or somebody, say that recently and thought of me, too. No, I've been using it for years on years because I like my writing to be conversational. I mean, I typically wouldn't use it in a news story except a really feature-y fun one. But I use it on Facebook, I use it in essays. I'm pretty sure I've used it here.

I don't mean to sound like I'm constantly saying it (I hope).

[Jeff Wrangler]

Wait, what?  I'm not following. But to clarify my post, the newspaper political leanings I mentioned were all on the editorial page, not on the news pages.

Sorry. I thought we were talking about the op-ed page or pages, not the news. Back in the day, the Republican (evening) paper did not run op-eds that supported a Democratic position, and vice versa for the morning (Democrat) paper. Today in the single paper I typically see op-eds that support either position.

But then I probably shouldn't have said op-ed either, because what they're really doing is running syndicated columns from both positions, Republican vs. Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal. That didn't happen in the distant past. So if you read the morning paper, you got the Democratic position, and if you read the evening paper, you got the Republican position. It was like reading things that supported views that you already held. Sort of like some people do on the internet today. ...

Fox's straight news department was semi-well regarded but it was always teetering on the brink, especially with what the network would let it cover. That has pissed off at least a couple of normal reporters -- Shepard Smith quit right while he was on the air. Chris Wallace recently switched networks; he's a respectable journalist and I've long wondered how he lasted so long.

I've had the impression that our local Fox news is perfectly fine in its reporting, with no real difference among the local Fox, CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliates. I used to wonder what Chris Wallace's father thought of him as a journalist.

There is a line in the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy (one of my favorite films) where James Cagney, as George M. Cohan, tells the actor playing FDR that a certain newspaper would never print anything good about the President because it's a Republican paper. 

I've always felt that Times-Picayune was a funny name for a newspaper (what's Picayune anyway?), sort of like the Hooterville World Guardian. 

[serious crayons]

Sorry. I thought we were talking about the op-ed page or pages, not the news. Back in the day, the Republican (evening) paper did not run op-eds that supported a Democratic position, and vice versa for the morning (Democrat) paper. Today in the single paper I typically see op-eds that support either position.

Oh, I guess I was confused because I've never seen a paper whose op-eds were all one side or the other, so I was confused by the "fair and balanced." All the papers I'm familiar with run a mix.

I used to think there were far more far-right syndicated columnists than far-left, which I still believe used to be the case. But now, I'm not sure. There are still no far-left syndicated columnists in mainstream papers, I don't think. But far right? MAGA types certainly wouldn't think any are far right enough -- none of the NYT conservative columnists supports Donald Trump, for example. And MAGAs would probably find, I don't know, Russell Baker to be part of the media's-liberal-agenda-woke-mob-out-to-destroy-America.

But then I probably shouldn't have said op-ed either, because what they're really doing is running syndicated columns from both positions, Republican vs. Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal. That didn't happen in the distant past. So if you read the morning paper, you got the Democratic position, and if you read the evening paper, you got the Republican position. It was like reading things that supported views that you already held. Sort of like some people do on the internet today.

Well, since op-ed just means opposite the editorial page (I used to always think of it as "opinions and editorials" but I guess it doesn't), I don't think its partisanship or lack thereof is dictated. That said, as long as I've been paying attention (maybe since college), larger city newspapers have run a mix.

People do seem to read all one or the other on the internet. Me included; aside from mainstream newspapers most of my online reading is left-leaning: TNY, the Atlantic, Slate. I do, however, read Ross Douthat, David Brooks and Bret Stephens from time to time.

Today on Twitter, I was just marveling about how the way far-right-wingers think of left-wingers is just cartoonish. Like, it's not enough to just say they favor affirmative action or something; they want to destroy America with their woke (whatever they think that means) agenda. Joe Biden does [fill in the blank with ridiculous things of which there's no evidence, including stuff Trump actually did do, with evidence].

Of course, they might say the same of me but I read mainstream (i.e., not partisan) news and I get data from places like the CDC, which they also distrust. The only sources they apparently trust are right-wing media, and apparently still do even after Tucker et. al. were found to be disavowing their on-air opinions behind the scenes. The fervid Fox fans probably didn't even see that, or didn't believe it.

I've had the impression that our local Fox news is perfectly fine in its reporting, with no real difference among the local Fox, CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliates. I used to wonder what Chris Wallace's father thought of him as a journalist.

Same with our local Fox. I don't watch any of them but I've heard no complaints. The husband of a former boss worked there and was an outspoken liberal. AFAIK, it only applies to the national network.

I've wondered that about Chris Wallace, too, but I think he's a pretty good one. At no time when he was on Fox did he seem in the same group as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, etc. In interviews with conservatives he asked challenging questions. Whether Mike, as more of an investigative journalist, would be proud of Chris, more of an interviewer/debate moderator, probably depends on how picky Mike was.

There is a line in the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy (one of my favorite films) where James Cagney, as George M. Cohan, tells the actor playing FDR that a certain newspaper would never print anything good about the President because it's a Republican paper. 

Well, there again he may have been referring to the editorials as opposed to the news or maybe even the op-eds. (This concept of op-eds that all go one way or the other is new to me.)

I've always felt that Times-Picayune was a funny name for a newspaper (what's Picayune anyway?), sort of like the Hooterville World Guardian. 

It's the name of a Spanish coin. And since it was something like a penny, it referred to the cost of the paper and also means petty or trivial.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Oh, I guess I was confused because I've never seen a paper whose op-eds were all one side or the other, so I was confused by the "fair and balanced." All the papers I'm familiar with run a mix.

I was just trying to be snarky. If I remember correctly, at one time Fox News tried to sell itself as "fair and balanced." Of course these days it's nothing of the kind, if it ever really was.

It's the name of a Spanish coin. And since it was something like a penny, it referred to the cost of the paper and also means petty or trivial.

Who would want their paper to be perceived as petty or trivial? 

[serious crayons]

I was just trying to be snarky. If I remember correctly, at one time Fox News tried to sell itself as "fair and balanced." Of course these days it's nothing of the kind, if it ever really was.

I think that was their slogan from the start -- and from the start it was patently false. But their brainwashing/gaslighting campaign means getting their audience to think they're the only news source that *is* fair and balanced. And it worked! Now they all think NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times etc. are fake news.

Who would want their paper to be perceived as petty or trivial? 

I know, it's kind of ironic, isn't it? (I realize that's not the true meaning of ironic but I think we need a word for "weirdly coincidental or seemingly contradictory situation" without having to search in German.) I'm not sure which came first, the paper (in about 1850) or that meaning, but AFAIK the word wasn't a judgement on the paper. And when the paper went out of business a few years ago and was bought by the Advocate, they kept the paper's name.