I read the NY Times on a few occasions over in the US and found the coverage to be very superficial, biased and parochial. At one time the whole anti-French thing was at its peak and even the NY Times had childish sarcastic comments about France in a front page article. Maybe I was just unlucky in terms of my sampling but it would not encourage me to revisit it.
Johnny Boy
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actually he can be the next Harry Potter as in Harry Potter and His Dark Cloud
Their coverage in the run up to the Iraq war was so poor that they apologised.
At least they apologised, the rest just repeat whatever Tony Snow tells them. As [broken link removed]said :
"But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"
What UK or Irish newspaper has ever been so self critical?
I don't know, however the damage was done at that stage. But holding up the NYT or Washington Post as typical of the US media I think is not quite accurate. How about comparing the BBC to Fox or CNN? Or USA Today to the Irish Times?
I agree that much of the US media is of a very low standard, but so is much of the Irish media. The standard of coverage of international affairs in the Irish media, be it the Irish Times or RTE, is very low. They just don’t cover many stories and write opinion pieces rather than factual stories about the issues that they do cover. I don’t rate the Indo at all; it is recycled coverage from the British media, as they don’t have any foreign correspondents.
The Irish Times is no less biased than USA today. The format is better but that’s it.
The BBC is better than Fox or CNN, it’s website is excellent for news but it is also selective in how it covers issues in regions where there are/was British influence and/or interests.
I have yet to read any Irish media site that gives the in-depth background information that the New York Times website gives.