We have lived in Austin for 40 years. And for nearly all of that time, Lorin and I have subscribed to the New York Times. For decades, we took the paper version. When that got too pricey, we switched to the digital-only subscription. Last week, we got a notice of a price increase. Instead of paying $18 monthly, the Times wants us to pay $33!
That’s the last straw.
I love newspapers and the smell of newsprint. I grew up with newspapers. My parents took the Tulsa World, delivered in the mornings, and the Tulsa Tribune came in the afternoon. I read them both religiously. Early in my career, I published articles in both. I’ve been a reporter for four decades. I’ve long considered the Times to be essential to my job. I’ve written for the Times. In the 1990s, I worked as a stringer for the paper and briefly (very briefly) had hopes of landing a job there. I’ve published op-eds in the Times, including one on the silliness of carbon capture and another on N2N, natural gas to nuclear.
But the Times has lost its credibility and its relevance. Its credo was once “all the news that’s fit to print.” That slogan is now almost a laugh line. The Times has devolved into an agenda-driven outlet that refuses to cover anything that doesn’t fit its agenda. Of course, the same could be said of many — or perhaps most — news outlets. The difference is that the Times has long been considered the paper of record. Given that, it should, in theory anyway, strive for evenhandedness. However, the paper no longer publishes anything close to what might be considered “fair,” particularly when it comes to reporting on energy and climate issues.
Here are five reasons why I’m canceling our subscription.
Yes, inflation is here. Prices are rising for everything from eggs to copper, and Tariff Man’s on-again, off-again gyrations are likely to mean higher prices on a whole lot of things. But for the Times to nearly double its price with no increase in access or quality? That’s insulting. And it’s particularly insulting given the myriad of other outlets available at lower cost or for free. (The Times trades under the ticker NYT. It has a market capitalization of about $8 billion and booked a $294 million profit last year.)
The most likely cause of the pandemic was a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the Times, which prides itself on its investigative work, has never published a complete analysis of exactly what happened and why. To be clear, last year, the oped section ran a piece by Alina Chan on five reasons why the pandemic “probably started in a lab.” (In late 2021, Chan and Matt Ridley published Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. In 2023, Chan was on the Power Hungry Podcast.) In January, the Times ran a piece by Julian E. Barnes acknowledging that the CIA now favors the lab leak theory. (Barnes covers security and intelligence-related issues for the paper.)
Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.
Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and podcaster. His articles have appeared in a myriad of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Time, Austin Chronicle, and Sydney Morning Herald.
Photo: The New York Times building in the early 1900s, via The New York Public Library in Public Domain.
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