Op-Ed Sections, Threat or Menace?

Bennet is out. Thank goodness. I'll be curious to see where he lands.

 

I've been thinking about this quite a bit.

As newspapers shift to a subscriber-based model, how much input will subscribers have going forward with newsroom and editorial decisions?

It is one thing to ask your kid's swim meet to be covered because you are a subscriber but it seems like an entirely different thing for the editorial page to stake out a position that is unpopular with subscribers. Many times, at least in my experience, editorials are contrarian by design and how much value do they bring when you lose paying customers?

My personal experience is that subscribers don't cancel over an editorial or a headline or a photo, but when it comes time to renew, they don't.

But that's the old model. Now, you are being asked to pay a premium price to support positions you don't agree with and not just disagree with but are wildly opposed to.

As for the NYT, the story below seems to suggest they lost a record number of subscribers over the Cotton piece and while they can take the hit, at least for now, what about my struggling local metro that has staked out a business plan entirely reliant on subscribers paying $400 a year and pushing editorials -- pro-guns, anti-choice, pro-charter schools, etc -- that run against the grain of popular opinion. And, sure, many subscribers are older and they tend to be spiteful bigots and you aren't going to lose them but how do you keep your more moderate subscribers and also grow your reader base if all you do is piss them off?

It doesn't seem like a winnable situation.

NYT Newsroom Breaks Into Open Revolt After Paper Publishes Call for Military Crackdown

 

Stephens needs to be out as well. There have been reports he is a toxic employee, the kind who whines to superiors about colleagues.

How does a guy with consistently awful takes and Bible-paper-thin skin land a plum job like this?

How does Maggie Haberman still get to cover this presidency or the reelection effort?

We can go on and on with that.

 

Bret Stephens should've been out after Bedbuggate.

 

He's been protected on high by someone. Now we'll find out if that someone was Bennet.

 

In the Times chain of command, op-ed editor reports to Sulzberger. He made Sulzberger look bad by defending the Cotton piece before he learned Bennet hadn't read it. So if Stephens has a protector, it's more likely the publisher than anyone else.

 

The Times has been criticized from all directions -- left, right, internal, external -- and would be inviting an even greater firestorm if it whacks Stephens. Can't imagine it would be willing to absorb that.

 

Stephens is on a contract. I doubt it's for 15 years like Bryce Harper. Easy enough to let a contract run out. One thing Bennet did do was hire a bunch of new op-ed columnists, so if one goes away, it's a lot less noticeable than when the paper had only three or four.

 

The NYT didn't care about lost subscriptions. I guarantee you that.

This was the newsroom being unhappy about Bennett over the long-haul. That's why I say Stephens and Weiss will be out soon enough.

 

I agree, for now. At some point, there's going to be a number that makes the execs notice.

My guess is that Stephens and Weiss will be out when their contracts run out. They'll leave as martyrs and hit the right wing grifter circuit to make as much money as they want. My personal theory is that Stephens has been gunning for that some time.

I also note that the op-ed section has 100 staff and regular contributors. That seems a bit much but maybe that's just me.

 

Since Facebook makes zillions selling its users' privacy, they of all companies ought to have all their dirty linen and internal squabbles revealed to the public.