{"id":18198,"date":"2013-11-23T17:56:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T23:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/?p=18198"},"modified":"2013-11-23T17:56:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T23:56:47","slug":"has-the-new-york-times-dropped-the-ball-on-the-most-important-story-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/23\/has-the-new-york-times-dropped-the-ball-on-the-most-important-story-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Has The New York Times Dropped The Ball On The Most Important Story Ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSimply assuming that this is an interesting controversy that we should check in on occasionally is not correct. The survival of human civilization is at risk. The news media should be making this existential crisis the No. 1 topic they cover.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was Vice President Al Gore being quoted in a New York Times piece by the newspaper’s public editor, Margaret Sullivan. Sullivan’s article, “After Changes, How Green Is The Times?<\/a>” examines environmental reporting since the Times dismantled its environmental reporting facility last January. Sullivan’s analysis, which seems fair, actually shows the Times as not having entirely dropped the ball, but it is clear that coverage of environmental issues since the Time scrapped its special team (called, ironically, a “pod”) to have diminished in both quantity and depth. Environmental issues have become more numerous and more important nearly every month over the last few years, and as Vice President Gore notes, there is no longer any question that these issues are existential. Seeing a drop in environmental reporting at America’s Most Important Newspaper now would be analogous to seeing a drop in reporting of World War Two after the invasion of Normandy. It is impossible, in fact, to see the New York Times being relatively blas\u00e9 about the environment as something other than bad management or sloppy journalism. Seeing this sort of thing sends one to Wikipedia to find out who owns the newspaper. So I did. I was surprised. Murdock and Big Oil don’t own them, they don’t own stakes in coal mines, nothing. The company that owns the Times seems to also own the Boston Red Sox. That doesn’t explain much.<\/p>\n

Consider for a moment what some of the most influential or important news stories have been. Looking at “top ten stories” internet lists for just 2010-2012, here’s what people have listed as the most important stories (I’ve added the term at the beginning of the phrase to place them into categories):<\/p>\n