This. I may think everything they say is retarded, but I'd die to protect their right to say it. To bad they probably wouldn't do the same.
Not everything (I don't like painting with that broad a brush), but NYT is very sketchy and suspect, apart from their bias for left-leaning thought.
An excerpt from this article, which explains basically everything wrong with the NYT.
Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?”
It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?”
The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper’s daily Page One meeting: “We set the agenda for the country in that room.”
I'd wager it's not just a problem with them alone, but this is the only relatively clear-cut case I know about.
EDIT: But I agree with the gist of your post at the end - I firmly believe in their right to say and print what they like. But don't except me or others to just swallow it wholesale without having some skepticism of our own.
EDIT2: Clarified a sentence.
Thanks for that post. They're narrative, not news. That's why I brought it up.
I don't like what just isn't true. They can be a commie/socialist newspaper if they want. I'm fine with them doing that. Saying that Chinese women were empowered by the communist revolution is absurd.
You don't like it so it should be banned? Sounds like censorship.