Bob Herbert is leaving the times after twenty years. The state of our national media is such a disgrace, with them running in a full-on panic from the right, that I fully expect Herbert’s replacement to Breitbart or Malkin.
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cathyx
When is Krugman leaving?
Frank Chow
I think you and Comrade DougJ should apply as joint columnists!
freelancer
Who?
Luthe
So, Rich left, Herbert’s leaving… soon all that will be left is
His ShrillnessPaul Krugman surrounded by BoBos, MoDos, Douchehats, and a Mustache.…if that’s all there is, why bother circumventing the paywall?
Comrade DougJ
Is he going to HuffPo or the Daily Beast?
Redshirt
Bring it on – time to rip off the veneer of “objectivity”.
geg6
Jeebus. Hope Krugman is lining something up. He’s the only one left worth reading there.
Edited to add that this makes me feel better. He’ll be popping up somewhere online, I’m sure:
Suck It Up!
Oh so he must be going to HuffPo’s new Black section.
freelancer
@Comrade DougJ:
Snort. You forgot the Daily Caller.
Warren Terra
I don’t read Bob Herbert often, in part because he’s not terribly interested in politics or legislation, but he is a good man and an important voice. His series of columns on Tulia, Texas were a beacon to the country, and should be considered candidates for the most important, and most effective, articles in the Times that decade.
I assume, from the tone of the linked article, that he has been fired, or at least pressured into unnecessary retirement; at least when Frank Rich left, it was announced in coordination with his taking a remotely plausible job elsewhere (and it was not yet part of a larger trend). This is a damn shame, especially given the hackery that is otherwise so common on the Times Op-Ed page (Krugman inevitably excepted). The claim in the article that Andrew Rosenthal is taking a firm hand in reshaping the Times opinion section is especially worrisome.
Steve M.
I have an eentsy bit more faith in the Times than you do. They’ve hired “lite” righties (Bobo, Chunky Bobo) when they could’ve hired full-on wingers, so I think they’ll replace Herbert with someone vaguely progressive.
And they’ll probably replace him with another writer of color. What winger fits that criterion? I don’t think they’re going to hire Thomas Sowell or Ken Blackwell (or, after his candidacy implodes, Herman Cain).
cleek
maybe Sarah Palin could find time to write a weekly column ?
Uriel
No, it will be ED Kain, and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT- CAUSE MOAR HEADFAKE, CUDLIP!
Frank Chow
@Warren Terra: Can’t wait to pay for teh NYT now! Sounds riveting…
MikeJ
@Steve M.:
Alan Keyes.
cyntax
@MikeJ:
Nice.
BGinCHI
@MikeJ: Alicia Keyes.
WereBear
Appropo of this, I’m just now reading The Republican Noise Machine, by David Brock. I know it’s several years old now, but still very interesting, with a lot of history to it. Also, wanted to throw Mr. Brock a few shekels…
But the cheerful part (trust me, there’s lots of not cheerful parts) is that I’m not being sarcastic saying “They were giants in those days.” In terms of unleashing the propaganda and putting a sane veneer on things, they had figures like Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley; they held disgusting views, but they could make it look good.
Now, the present crew is nowhere near that kind of expertise. I can’t wait to see what runs in 2012.
It is said that if you can hang in there until the cholera runs its course, you will be fine again. Perhaps we can look forward to such an ending.
FlipYrWhig
@Steve M.: Harold Ford lives in Manhattan, right?
BGinCHI
If the NYT was smart, they’d hire either Lewis Black or Louis CK.
What have they got to lose?
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@cathyx:
What makes you think he’ll be leaving of his own accord? I fully expect his pink slip is in processing as we speak.
@WereBear:
If the past few years have told me anything, the reason we don’t have many folks like that anymore for the GOP is the fact that they don’t need ’em. At least, not in large number. They just need to amplify the crazy enough that one or two middling folks with enough ‘serious’ credentials saying the same thing as the ‘crazies’, but with measured tone is enough to get away with murder.
While everything and anything that comes out of a Dem’s mouth is immediately suspect and thought to be a great lie on the scale of treason unless proven otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Poopyman
@BGinCHI: Neither of them would touch a Times gig with a 3 meter pole.
Froley
@BGinCHI:
If they go in that general direction, I’d expect them to hire someone like Larry the Cable Guy. Now I don’t care who you are, that’s just illuminating commentary.
Gin & Tonic
Probably good he’s retiring, I was tired of all those Dune follow-up books anyway.
RandyH
In the article it says Frank Rich left The Times earlier this month. I must have missed that. Anyone know why or where he went?
Gin & Tonic
@RandyH: Rich left for NYMag.
bemused
@WereBear:
I hope we can all hang in there, one way or another, till this cholera runs it’s course. When it does, soon please, I would love to spend my old age basking in the lull of rationality before they gear up again. We know they will. And I will terrify my grandchildren with the stupefying tales of the republican dark ages until they know them by heart.
freelancer
@Froley:
I hate you, and FWIW, David Cross hates you too.
piratedan
who knows, maybe he’s leaving to give some thoughtful credibility to whatever Olbermann is putting together over at Current? the FOK website has started doing intermittant worst persons in the world bits as well, so who knows, maybe we will get our own lil’ corner of librul ponyland with some rainbows and new trolls under bridges and such.
BGinCHI
@freelancer: Just awesome.
David Cross for Supreme Allied Commander!
Of comedy.
David in NY
OT, but re Cronon affaire in Wisconsin:
Not at all clear his personal e-mails are public records available under the law, even if sent from a university computer.
Just last June the Wisc. Supreme Court held that personal e-mails made on a school system’s computers were not amenable to discovery under the open records law. The court held: “For the reasons set forth, we too now conclude that while government business is to be kept open, the contents of employees’ personal e-mails are not a part of government business. Personal e-mails are therefore not always records within the meaning of Wis. Stat. § 19.32(2) simply because they are sent and received on government e-mail and computer systems.” Schill v. Wisconsin Rapids School Dist.
327 Wis.2d 572, 786 N.W.2d 177
(2010).
I’m no expert on Wisconsin law, but it looks to me that only e-mails related to University business may be obtained under the law anyway.
gex
@Luthe: Silly. If all that’s worthwhile is Krugman, that means circumventing the paywall makes more sense than paying.
dr. bloor
@Steve M.:
They hired Chunky Bobo, whose “lite” refers only to his intellect, not his capacity to be offensive–only after Kristol proved to be a disaster.
Southern Beale
He says he is:
I’m glad, I assume he has a book deal lined up or a gig somewhere … what a powerful voice … so sorry he is leaving the Times but glad he will continue writing.
kindness
Glenn Beck may be free soon…..Oh, wait. That would be the WSJ or The Post.
Suffern ACE
Neither of them. Malkin’s husband, more likely.
Southern Beale
@David in NY:
I hope one of those hot-shot ACLU attorneys takes Cronon’s case. This is about intimidation, nothing else. A warning shot to any who dare criticize Herr Walker.
Southern Beale
@Suffern ACE:
Maybe they’ll give Bill Kristol another shot …
NobodySpecial
…therein to be completely ignored by the Very Serious People.
Southern Beale
@NobodySpecial:
Because they paid so much attention now? Pfft.
nightshift66
It is my observation that profit-driven media is being rational when they are “running in a full-on panic from the Right.” The right seems to be much better at solidarity than the left (irony? I’m never sure.). Offend the right overly much and they will leave you en masse, but you will not maintain enough left-leaning viewers to make up the loss. They will drift away as, inevitably, someone will say something that sends up screams of “sellout” or “false progressive.” By contrast, Fox News maintains a large and loyal following and even manages to garner some viewers from the left who merely want to know what the loons are saying now.
Liberty60
Don’t know if any of the front pagers are on it, but it would be worthwhile to make a post about today’s 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
Even 10 years ago I would have thought of the fire as a dusty relic of a bygone era, but today with the Republicans proudly clamoring to roll back child labor laws, and equating any limitation on corporate freedom as tyranny, its good to take a long look at where their policies are leading us.
Violet
If they’re looking for a person of color, they should hire Chris Rock. He’s always got a way of cutting right through the B.S. I’d read a column by him.
Southern Beale
Apropos of absolutely nothing, I’m watching a re-run of one of those “Real Housewives” shows on Bravo now, it’s the Miami one, and one of these surgically altered fembots is doing a “motivational speech” to some at-risk high school kids. Let me say: the look on these kids’ faces as this woman talks to them is absofucking hilarious. It’s like they all know she’s completely full of shit.
Cris
I want that lawyer what wears a cowboy hat.
Brachiator
Could be the best thing for Herbert, since the Times is intent on disappearing behind a paywall.
Hopefully, Herbert will not end up at HuffPo, which is another rocket ship to journalistic oblivion.
Ken J.
Complete speculation on my part: I speculate that neither Frank Rich nor Bob Herbert wanted to be fenced in behind the new New York Times “payfence”. They’d already had a taste of it during the “Times Select” experiment.
As was written somewhere, unnamed Times columnists felt frustrated to be cut out of the blogosphere, which has now become the driver of national political debate, during the Times Select era.
Amir_Khalid
@gex:
I’d say that once Bob Herbert goes, there’ll only be Paul Krugman and Gail Collins, and on a good day Nick Kristof, left worth reading. Aside from those three, though, I’d consider the NYT’s content dispensable; so yeah, I would agree that it will make more sense to go around the paywall.
ETA: I think Luthe meant, why bother going to the NYT site at all?
Suffern ACE
@Southern Beale: Maybe Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins can take on that mantle and write about those things at the Times.
{Pause}
Bwhahahahahahaha
Southern Beale
@nightshift66:
Not irony, honesty. The right is authoritarian and as such demands absolute obedience and loyalty to the cause. That’s not to say they don’t have their occasional spats but for the most part they are extraordinarily rigid in their allegiance, which is typical of authoritarian movements.
The left is the complete opposite: disorganized, splintered, a loose confederation of disparate and sometimes conflicting interests. We will never EVER be like the right because we are genetically predisposed to being its exact opposite.
That’s why I try not to get wigged out by all of the spats on the Left, the anti-Obama FDLers and the like. It’s a sign of the Left’s integrity that we aren’t brain-dead follow the leader types. You know, how many of these Teanuts criticized Bush when he was in office? Precious few. Oh sure NOW they all claim they didn’t agree with the war or didn’t agree with this or that but it’s utter bullshit. They just hitched their wagon to a turd truck and now they’re trying to run away from the mess.
dr. bloor
@Amir_Khalid:
With 20 free articles a month, you won’t even hit the paywall if you limit your reading to them.
Southern Beale
@Suffern ACE:
Yeah that was a good joke. Had me going there.
They’ll probably give it to Sarah Palin so she can continue to whine about how UNFAIR the media is to people like her. Whah.
Cris
@Southern Beale: But… but… Jonah told me the left are the real authoritarians!
(p.s. I denounce Stalin)
Southern Beale
@Cris:
Yeah but Jonah has the rare distinction of being wrong about everything since forever. So.
lou
Fingers crossed that his replacement is Leonard Pitts.
lou
Or Ta-nehisi Coates
Amir_Khalid
@dr. bloor:
The NYT columnists usually do two days a week. Six columns a week between them, at four weeks a month, plus K-Thug’s almost daily blog posts, would definitely take a reader over the 20-story monthly limit.
Steeplejack
@RandyH:
Frank Rich explains.
Jay C
@lou:
Don’t we wish….
But even though TNC can write most of the NYT Op-Ed gang into (well-deserved) oblivion, I can’t imagine that he’d be able to put up with that inflexible 800-word limit for very long.
Even Frank Rich, used, for years to crafting pithy columns and reviews gave up on it for a longer gig on Sundays —
and now, altogether.
Judas Escargot (aka "your liberal-interventionist pal, who's fun to be with")
@BGinCHI:
True Fact(tm): Alicia and Alan Keyes are actually the same person.
(Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time? Bet you haven’t).
Mark S.
President McCain, on who will take over if Gadhafi falls:
S. cerevisiae
It’ll be Doughbob. Just wait and see.
MikeJ
@S. cerevisiae: I would think your fellow yeast-Americans would like Doughbob, or other bread products.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
It would be pretty brilliant to have Louis Black as their black columnist and Larry Wilmore as the senior black columnist.
That, my friends, would get me to subscribe.
Calouste
@Mark S.:
The Allies demanded unconditional surrender of the Axis, so they knew it was themselves that were going to take Hitler’s place. But what would we expect from McCain? Surely not any reasonable or well thought out statements. The reason he probably picked Palin as VP was because she was the only one on the shortlist who was dumber and less knowledgable than McCain himself.
HyperIon
The state of your proof-reading is such a disgrace…
Two fucking sentences and you make an error.
Who are you, Matt Yglesias?
RosiesDad
@lou: TNC would be perfect.
Cris
This reminds me of how we all hoped that the Times would hire Larison as their Token Conservative to succeed Kristol. Instead we got Douthat.
Though Douthat at least indicates that the Atlantic is on the Times’ radar. So there’s that in TNC’s favor.
PurpleGirl
@Amir_Khalid: Krugman recently said something to the effect that readers could still get to his columns by way of his twitter feed. Not sure that will work but it could be a back door for Krugman.
karen marie
@piratedan: A girl can dream.
asiangrrlMN
@Steve M.: ME. They can hire ME.
I like Hebert. I’ll miss him. On the good side, one less reason to pay for the Times.
karen marie
@David in NY: If Cronon has to give up his emails, does that mean Palin will have to give up hers?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Mike in NC
The Times could offer a rotating schedule for the zanies currently on the FOX News payroll: Gingrich on Mondays, Santorum on Tuesdays, Huckabee on Wednesdays, etc. None of them are lacking for material.
Cris
The ones in the yahoo account?
Brachiator
@Warren Terra:
I’m not sure it matters anymore. Pundits were supposed to be seasoned journalists who could supply perspective and the benefit of their wisdom. But increasingly, they become doctrinaire ideological cheerleaders and ventriloquist dummies for their favorite politicians. Except for Krugman, I can’t think of one who is worth a damn.
And it may be a sign that slots for pundits are as old fashioned as print newspapers when you see how Arianna Huffington is trying to build a blog empire. But some of the most valuable people, the tech bloggers, are already jumping ship.
All you are left with are ideological cheerleaders who you can sing along with, instead of people who provide a deeper analysis into political or economic issues.
FlipYrWhig
@HyperIon: I love how Yglesias can simultaneously be immensely condescending and know-it-all, on the one hand, and then, on the other, leave up posts that say the exact opposite of what he means because they leave out “not” or say “on” instead of “off” or something. And then he just breezes on to the next post about “rent-seeking” and “congestion pricing.”
And, for all that, he still is often worth reading, because he brings up stuff that almost nobody else does.
birthmarker
@WereBear: Great book. Should be required reading before anyone is allowed to vote Republican. A repuke version of a poll tax, if you will.
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Said better than I could say.
BTW there was a discussion on GOS last night about alternatives to Huffie. I suggested Media Matters, among others (David Brock’s joint.) Lots of folks suggested Alternet. I like Raw Story, too. They have done a nice site redesign other there.
kdaug
@Southern Beale: Yurp.
John - A Motley Moose
You never know, the Times may try to offset the perception of a being a bunch of elitists by giving the slot to Joe The Plumber.
sfrefugee
I thought the announcement was very cold. The only thing missing was “he wanted to spend more time with his family.”
My bet is that they get one of the disgraced Bush Assistant Attorneys General or someone from the Clinton Impeachment mess.
Triassic Sands
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving newspaper.
(I wonder if he’ll pay to read the Times after he leaves?)
Redwood Rhiadra
According to the blurb at the Times, blog front pages will be outside the paywall (will not count against your limit). Krugman almost always includes the full post on the front page, so there’s rarely any need to click through to an individual article unless you want to read the comments. Which generally are complete crap there.
So we get to keep reading his blog for free, I think.
(This is from the “About Digital Subscriptions” blurb on the right of Krugman’s blog)
ed
@Warren Terra
Yes. This. A thousand times this. Kruggs has been reliably awesome for many years now, but the Tulia columns saved lives and probably a community. This deserves a shitload more attention that it’s so far received.
Pseudonym
I would be more than willing to pay for a Times subscription if they would run a columnist who did nothing other than debunk Charles Krauthammer, George F’ing Will, and the rest of the WaPo asylum. I never liked Will’s writing in the first place, but I remember back in the day thinking that Krauthammer made some pretty compelling arguments. I didn’t see the gaping holes in his logic at the time because I wasn’t politically sophisticated enough to fact-check his columns or stand up to the verbal abuse he heaps on anyone with a modicum of caution or self-doubt.
Ija
@Amir_Khalid:
Blog posts are included in the 20 articles per month deal? That’s really stupid. People would hit the limit just reading Krugman’s blog.
Lancelot Link
Though Douthat at least indicates that the Atlantic is on the Times’ radar.
So, I predict MeAgain McArdle. She certainly does share the paper’s deep concern for the plight of the well-off.
Master of Karate and Friendship
So is it time to make Bob Herbert persona non grata, like Hamsher and Greenwald?