Why I canceled my NYT subscription

Better late than never

This post is a departure from my work on administrative burdens in health insurance in the United States. Of course, there’s much more to be said on this subject, but safeguarding American democracy is a necessary precondition to engaging in reasonable debates toward solutions to these problems.

I used to love The New York Times, and for a while one of my proudest achievements was having placed in the NYT an op-ed about the Republicans’ failed efforts at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, which was the largest health care expansion since 1965.

For me, NYT was not only the paper of record, but a source of memories throughout my very political upbringing. When receiving an award for being the strongest student in Government my senior year of high school, my teacher (who ultimately went on to officiate my wedding!) joked in his remarks that to be his student was to be greeted in the morning with a NYT op-ed for him to read (probably by Paul Krugman), given a news update at lunch, along with another news article to read, and to end the day with a list of senators to call about my grievance of the day (this was the Bush Administration, so there were many).

A couple of days after the 2004 election, Andrei Cherny — someone I’m now proud to call a friend, and hopefully soon Congressman — wrote a NYT op-ed titled “Why We Lost,” which energized me to work on a campaign that would not leave us standing in the rain learning that there would be no victory speech. My fan mail to him after that letter — appealing to our shared Cal affiliations (go bears!) helped to connect me with campaign staff work, and sure enough, we had causes to celebrate in 2008 and 2012, both campaigns on which I worked tirelessly in battleground states.

The 2016 NYT’s “but her emails” fixation and bothsidesism infuriated me, but as Trump ascended to power in 2017 and he continued to designate the media as “the enemy of the people,” canceling newspaper subscriptions felt out of the question. I wanted — needed — to know the ins and outs of Trump’s latest assaults on the marginalized, on democracy, on basic norms (because as I remind my non-political science friends, the United States relies heavily on norms and has historically lacked adequate imagination as to what happens when a non-norm-follower comes to power). And I appreciated the more academic analyses found in The Upshot, which I often assigned to my students, forgiving the NYT for the anxieties induced by its election needle. Yet I wondered whether the NYT reporters genuinely labored under the delusion that giving the Trump Administration favorable coverage would ever lead Republicans to cease their decries of the “liberal media” as “fake news.” (Spoiler: They didn’t.)

As the 2024 campaign has been underway, there seems to be deja vu with respect to the “but her emails” fixation, except instead it’s President Biden’s age, and instead of potential for autocratic rule around the corner, it’s a certainty. I write this not as an enthusiast of Biden’s age, but an enthusiast of Biden’s policies, which have been the most progressive and effective that we have seen in many decades — from infrastructure to inflation reduction to health care to labor to student debt relief despite an intransigent Supreme Court that, for reasons that elude me, has not captured nearly the attention that it ought to from NYT reporters (too many to name, but let’s say one of them starts with “B” and ends with “aker”) more focused on spinning false narratives about the economy and emphasizing Biden’s age to the virtual exclusion of Trump’s authoritarianism. And the op-ed team has done the NYT’s bidding, writing that “immorality alone doesn’t make [Trump] a criminal” (no, but the crimes do).

There are many competing stories. The election. The economy (which contrary to popular perception is improving). The Supreme Court’s decimation of the American administrative state. The Supreme Court’s facilitating of authoritarianism by granting presidential immunity for official acts, the only upside of which is that American politics and Constitutional Law professors can save some room on their syllabi now that Federalist 51 and originalism are officially irrelevant even on the Leonard Leo Court. Donald Trump’s convictions in New York and many other trials and allegations elsewhere. Project 2025, a blueprint for the authoritarianism that awaits the United States if Trump comes to power again — and a subject that has captured scarce attention among NYT reporters, a recklessness that does not reflect well on them now and will reflect on them even worse in hindsight. Yes, that’s a lot of column inches. But choices are made.

Rather than focus on looming authoritarianism (which the NYT should have a vested interest in as a media organization that will suffer under such rule), the NYT has published dozens of stories on President Biden’s age to shape a clear narrative about the status of the Democratic Party. Will President Biden step aside? It’s unclear. But the NYT is working with all its might to put its thumb on the scale, when these are decisions best resolved by the voters and party officials.

The day after the Supreme Court attacked the administrative state by overruling the 40 year-old precedent of Chevron v. NRDC — virtually guaranteeing that no serious environmental regulation will happen in the foreseeable future — and well after the release of Project 2025 plans to gut what is left of American democracy — the NYT had its eye on the prize: it published Ross Douthat’s “The Dangers of a Second Biden Administration.”

On a week in which the Court gave a future President Trump its blessing to go as far as to assassinate a political opponent conditional upon it being an official act, the NYT Opinion section published the op-eds “LBJ Did It in 1968. Biden Can Do It, Too” (did they ever read past chapter one? How did the 1968 and 1972 elections work out?) and “There’s No Reason to Resign Ourselves to Biden.” No such concerns were voiced when President Trump was convicted on 34 counts related to election interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But what was the final straw? On Fourth of July, as the United States celebrates its independence from a tyrant and is faced with the question of whether to let another tyrant into office, the NYT published an op-ed legitimizing the act of not voting (ironically, by someone who internet sleuths found is indeed an active voter).

Democracy is not a spectator sport, and politics is not a game. It requires dedication and attention, and it demands a serious press especially in these precarious times.

Hubris and denial of what looms ahead may contribute toward the NYT’s reluctance to see past horse race coverage and its determination to weaken President Biden’s standing with the American electorate. Or it may be petulance, as some reported, because of President Biden’s refusal to sit down for an in-depth interview, in which case what was once the paper of record has the maturity of a five year-old and is willing to put democracy at risk because of this petty grievance.

If the New York Times wants to be treated seriously again, it needs to remember that trust and respect are earned. For years, and especially now, it has sorely failed its readership. This Fourth of July, I’ll savor my independence from its journalistic malpractice.